Imperial Stout (Maybe) Draft Recipe, with some questions

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NoIguanaForZ

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2015
Messages
546
Reaction score
146
Location
Sacramento
First recipe post :D

Sooo, the situation is as...described after the recipe and questions, since I figure it's easier for people if I start with the recipe and what I'm actually asking about, and people who'd like to help but have a low Teal Deer threshold can still contribute:

With those considerations, and a trial version of Brewsmith2 downloaded today, I've spec'd out the following recipe, using Beersmith predicted values where appropriate:

Recipe Name: Spawn Camper (v0.1) [Tentative]
Style: Imperial Stout(?) "Black Barleywine" seems to be more accurate, based on feedback and further research
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Safale (Fermentis #US-05), 2 pkgs
Yeast Starter: no
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: White Labs WLP-099 (In Secondary)
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.0
Original Gravity: 1.136
Final Gravity: 1.022
IBU: 52.8
Boiling Time (Minutes): 120 minimum, TBD
Color: 55.4 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 21 days @~68
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 21 days @~68
Bottle Conditioning: ~72 days
Tasting Notes: TBD

Grain (percentages not including brown sugar which is not mashed):
51.6% / 12lb pale 2-row malt
12.9% / 3lb smoked malt
8.2% / 2lb Caramunich
4.3% / 1lb Special B
4.3% / 1lb Golden Naked Oats
4.3% / 1lb Honey Malt
4.3% / 1lb Chocolate Malt
4.3% / 1lb Flaked Barley
3.2% / 12oz Amber Malt
2.2% / 8oz Roasted Barley

Adjunct:
Brown sugar syrup as mentioned, which I'm treating as about 3.5lb dark brown sugar for Brewsmith purposes

Hops/Other:
Boiled 45min: 1.75oz Cascade, 1.00oz East Kent Goldings, 1.00oz Fuggles
Boiled 15min: 1.75oz Cascade, 0.50oz East Kent Goldings, 0.50oz Fuggles, 3tsp Irish Moss
Boiled 5min: 0.50oz Cascade, 0.50oz East Kent Goldings, 0.50oz Fuggles

Water Profile:
Consistent with Bru'n Water Black Malty profile

Mash:
Minimum 60 min and probably overnight (I'm told this tends to thin the body back out a bit?)
Starting temperature 156 F
Medium to thin match, TBD

My Questions to all you lovely folks:
1. Beersmith tells me I'm wildly out of style for an Imperial Stout with OG/ABV and Color; would another style label actually be more appropriate, or should I ignore it? (Is "black barleywine" a thing?)
2. Is 2 packets of US-05 in primary likely to be sufficient to ensure good fermentation up to around the 12% point, assuming well-oxygenated wort, without excessive yeast stress or delayed fermentation?
3. Is there an obvious other primary (or, hell, secondary/finishing) yeast anyone would recommend, given my stated preferences and general intent as described below? In particular, I'm considering just making a super-huge starter of the WLP-099 based on its descriptions: "Produces ester character that increases with increasing gravity. Malt character dominates at lower gravities" and "With low gravity beers, this yeast produces a nice, subtle English ale-like ester profile. As the gravity increases, some phenolic character is evident, followed by the winey-ness of beers over 16% ABV" (16% ABV being the Beersmith estimate back when I had misremembered that I had 13lb Pale Malt and 1lb Amber).
4. Should I be worried about whether my base malt is adequate to convert the others? I haven't figured out how to get this information from Beersmith yet (I would be surprised if it didn't include it somewhere..?), but my base malt percentage is currently at 51% and every Imperial Stout recipe I've seen on here is at 63-83%. How much does mash time affect this, if at all? (Using the estimation method described here: http://beersmith.com/blog/2010/01/04/diastatic-power-and-mashing-your-beer/ and the values listed here: http://www.brewunited.com/grain_database.php including the lower estimate of 120 for US pale 2-row, I'm getting a result of 62.6, which is more than double the 30 that's considered the minimum...unless a result of 62.6 is Obviously Wrong somehow?)
5. Given my stated preferences and intentions below, any thoughts on the grain or hop selection? (In particular, what should I expect from the aroma additions at 5 minutes with regard to the malt character and overall flavor? And I'm considering adding a little more grain to raise the OG back to what it was before I revised my guess at what I had in pale malt and amber; would brown malt be redundant/otherwise problematic given that it already has both amber and chocolate? Any other recommendations?) The brown sugar syrup, pale 2-row, and amber malt I already have and aren't really changeable (they're in airtight containers, but already milled, so I don't want to delay using them), and the Golden Naked Oats are included in an order I need to receive before December 3rd so I'm putting that in within a day or two, and I will be committed to them shortly, but I'm not wedded to the other grains, or the hop selection.
6. Should I be worried about the acid addition in the brown sugar syrup (to be added in the kettle) affecting the wort pH? It tastes noticeably, but not distastefully, sour as well as sweet with strong caramel-toffee flavors when I taste a sample, but I don't want to stick my pH meter in it (I might try testing a 10x diluted sample). Also, is it likely to make much of a difference when in the boil I add it?


Rationale/notes are as follows:
1. I have been brewing for most of a year, mainly using recipe kits my LHBS provides, which I've taken to tweaking a bit here and there (in particular, the hop additions on the recipe printout page are designed for extract brewing, and using larger boil sizes than the recipe called for in my fifth and sixth extract-kit recipes got me results which were considerably hoppier than I wanted them to be or than was even in-style; since I understood that issue to be worse with all-grain, I've taken to subtracting 15 minutes from every hop addition spec'd for more than 30 minutes of boiling and been extremely pleased with the results). I switched from Extract With Specialty Grains to All Grain about 5 beers ago. I want to try formulating a recipe of my own, and I also want to brew a big beer around Christmas and bottle condition it until my birthday in April.

2. I have a recipe kit from the local homebrew shop for their Strong Scotch Ale. It was designed as an extract kit, but I had them put it together as an all-grain. The employee estimated some amount of pale 2-row malt, somewhere in the 11-12 pound range, and a small amount of amber malt, as a substitute for the extract the kit originally specified. Unfortunately, unlike most of their recipes, this one doesn't have all-grain version base malt amounts printed on it, and I didn't write the results down. I weighed out 12.75lb total grain that's not in the plastic pouch holding the specialty grains intended for the extract version, and am assuming that this corresponds to 12lb pale malt and 3/4 lb amber malt (seems reasonable?). I asked about using Maris Otter instead of the basic pale 2-row, was told it would add about $6 to the total price, balked at it, and am now seriously regretting that decision.

3. I found Golden Promise malt, which is especially well-suited to (and authentic for) Scottish styles as I understand it, available online (the LHBS does not offer it) and am planning to order some (along with amber malt, since the pale 2-row and amber from the LHBS are mixed in together, and the Golden Naked Oats for the above, which my LHBS also does not have) to replace the pale 2-row and amber I got from the LHBS with. This means I have a bunch of pale 2-row and some amber malt left over, which seems like a pretty good starting point for formulating my own recipe.

4. A few months ago, I discovered that a plastic cannister of brown sugar I had been storing, which contained on the order of 4 pounds of it less a cup or so, had solidified into something resembling brick mortar. I eventually gave up and decided to make a beer-addition-friendly syrup with it. I added enough water to it to dissolve the sugar, poured it out into a saucepan, and, having read an article about candi sugar with advice for making your own recently, added about a teaspoon (I did not, sadly, record the measurement) of the phosphoric acid I use for pH adjustments, and boiled it until the volume reached roughly the 18oz line on each when divided among three 20oz plastic bottles (after cooling). (I actually calculated the SG for it, but don't seem to have written it down >.>) I decided I needed those bottles back and transferred it to a sanitized half-gallon mason-type jar, and have kept it in the refrigerator for several months. I figure my big birthday beer is a good time to use it.

5. My tastes run strongly towards malty dark beer. I don't like a lot of hop bitterness, and I intensely enjoy roasted, smoky, caramel, and so forth kinds of flavors as well as some fruitiness ("dark fruits" etc.). I also like full-bodied beer, and enjoy some sweetness/residual sugar. I also hate to waste grain/grain potential. I also, I think, habitually underestimate the heat capacity of my 10-gallon cooler mash tun. Thus, I tend to mash relatively thin at higher temperatures, sparge extra-thoroughly, and end up with a starting boil volume (for 5 gallon, ~6% ABV batches) that's at least 7.5 gallons, then boil for extra time. (With my last batch, the first where I actually measured wort gravity, I calculated my brewhouse efficiency as 86% using this resource: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ ). I'm told this increases "kettle caramelization," which is relevant to my interests. I'm prepared to boil this one for longer than my usual 90-120 minutes if needs be, as likely will....

6. US-05 is a yeast I'm pretty familiar with and that has served me well, and it's cheap. It seems like a logical choice to provide the bulk of the fermentation and flavor. I've also gathered from searches that its alcohol tolerance is known to be up to 12%, hence the WLP-099 in secondary to finish the beer off.

7. As previously noted, I don't particularly like strong bitterness; I particularly dislike "grapefruit peel" bitter flavors (as opposed to, say, burned or woody bitterness). I was therefore apprehensive about using Cascade hops in my first all-grain recipe kit, an American-style stout, (the LHBS apparently changed the formulation; this was one I'd brewed twice before and I'm certain it had either Mt. Hood or Willamette the previous times I'd bought the kit), and this (plus the known greater hop utilization in all-grain) was what inspired my original "subtract 15 minutes" approach. The end result was moderately but not harshly bitter, with a sort of earthy, slightly-smoky herbal flavor that wonderfully complemented the roasted and caramelly malt flavors (my girlfriend, who doesn't like beer much, described it as "very smooth" and enjoyed it), so I've taken basically that approach here.

8. I wanted to add some variety to the hops, as well as adding enough IBUs to make it not-cloying while still having the malt character dominate. East Kent Goldings and Fuggles are styles I've used before (though only as bittering additions per the recipe kits, back when I was doing 60 minute additions at all) and been reasonably pleased with, and understand are well suited for malt-forward styles in general. My LHBS sells hops in 2oz increments, and I'm splitting off a little bit of them to try as "aroma" additions.

9. The malts chosen were a little arbitrary; I'm trying to include a variety of caramelly and toasty flavors to make it relatively rich and complex with characteristic imperial stout notes but not an overpowering burned flavor. (I like malty dark beers; I don't much care for beers that taste like ashes.) It's probably a bit heavy on body-adding malts, since I'm planning to overnight-mash it and I'm told this tends to thin the body out.

*deep breath*
 
Northern Brewer had a 20% off sale through today, so I went ahead and ordered. Now committed to the Golden Naked Oats as well.

My guess on this, thinking it over, is that it's going to come out with a lot more caramel flavors than roasted; "black barleywine" might be a better description, and apparently one or two beers labeled as such have been made.
 
I think you're going overboard on the specialty malts but I haven't brewed this style myself so hopefully someone who knows more than me will drop by.
 
I think you're going overboard on the specialty malts but I haven't brewed this style myself so hopefully someone who knows more than me will drop by.

Second that. Why so much smoked malt? That much + 4.3% Special B will make for some really interesting flavors to say the least. Don't see that going well, but who knows, it could taste great a year or five down the road.

If you'd like to keep a somewhat similar grain bill, suggestions would be to remove the smoked malt completely (unless you truly want it, then reduce by a lot), replace with 2-row, lose all of the caramunich in favor of 2% carapils, lower all other specialties a little, add some more roasted malt to get around 8-12%, and maybe replace the amber with medium or heavy crystal. Maybe something like this:

71% pale 2-row malt
7% Roasted Barley
4% Golden Naked Oats (love these!)
4% Special B
3% Honey Malt
3% Chocolate Malt
3% Flaked Barley
3% Medium crystal
2% Cara-pils

Keep in mind this is just off the top of my head, and I have been drinking :fro:
 
First recipe post :D
Brown sugar syrup as mentioned, which I'm treating as about 3.5lb dark brown sugar for Brewsmith purposes

Also just noticed this. I would personally drop the sugar as it tends to dry out the final product. Imp stouts should be thick & creamy imo. This big of a recipe should finish somewhere around 1.035, or at least that's where I'd aim as long as the IBUs & roast are high enough to balance it out.
 
First thoughts are....holy cow you must love smoky beers. With that much sugar and adjuncts I think it will be difficult to get anything Imperial stout flavors....but it depends on what you are going for. What end result do you want it to be for your birthday?
 
Thanks everyone.

Second that. Why so much smoked malt?

I was going off the advice here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=349974 specifically

Just my 2c...I made an imperial porter with a very smooth smoke character, probably a little more than you're looking for using 54% smoked malt...a combination of Beechwood & Cherrywood. It tasted a lot like chocolate covered bacon. I don't think you'll get much smoke in an imperial stout, if any, out of 1.5 lbs.

and figured that doubling the "not much if any" amount would get a decent amount of smoke character in without it being overpowering (especially since eyeballing it I think my total grain weight is a bit more) I *can* see in clashing a bit with the caramel/dark fruit emphasis, though. Hmm.

If you'd like to keep a somewhat similar grain bill, suggestions would be to remove the smoked malt completely (unless you truly want it, then reduce by a lot), replace with 2-row, lose all of the caramunich in favor of 2% carapils, lower all other specialties a little, add some more roasted malt to get around 8-12%, and maybe replace the amber with medium or heavy crystal. Maybe something like this:

71% pale 2-row malt
7% Roasted Barley
4% Golden Naked Oats (love these!)
4% Special B
3% Honey Malt
3% Chocolate Malt
3% Flaked Barley
3% Medium crystal
2% Cara-pils

Keep in mind this is just off the top of my head, and I have been drinking :fro:

I appreciate it. I'm disinclined to sort through the pale and amber and try to separate the individual kernals, though ;/ Cara-pils vs. caramunich would be for...similar body and head retention traits with less flavor contribution?

Also just noticed this. I would personally drop the sugar as it tends to dry out the final product. Imp stouts should be thick & creamy imo. This big of a recipe should finish somewhere around 1.035, or at least that's where I'd aim as long as the IBUs & roast are high enough to balance it out.

I can see that. I'm starting to think I suspected correctly that "Imperial Stout" probably isn't the right label for what I'm trying to do here. I *think* what I wound up making with the sugar syrup is probably closer to candi sugar than opening a bag of brown sugar and tossing it in, if that makes any difference. (Gee, Forz, why don't you buy some and compare them?) What I'm thinking is that it'll raise the gravity and add some additional caramel/toffee notes without taxing my mash tun any further (which is, according to Beersmith, will be pretty much full with the to-be-mashed grains as stated), as well as get the jar of it out of my fridge.

First thoughts are....holy cow you must love smoky beers. With that much sugar and adjuncts I think it will be difficult to get anything Imperial stout flavors....but it depends on what you are going for. What end result do you want it to be for your birthday?

What I was trying for started with "making the most of the stuff I've already got" but my idea was something in the vein of strongly caramelly, somewhat boozy barleywines I've had, with some "dark Belgiany" characteristics that aren't overpowering or connected with any focus on being "true to style" wedded to roasted/smoky/maybe chocolatey flavors of a rich porter or stout that are more of a flavor embellishment than the main focus. I may well be trying to make it be too many things at once, though...

I think "Black Barleywine" probably more accurately conveys that intention? I might update the OP to reflect that. [EDIT]Though apparently I can't edit the thread title. Hmm.
 
Your in depth post is deserving of a much more detailed reply, clearly you have put a great deal of thought into things.

Unfortunately I would suggest going back to square one with this recipe. It has no redeeming features.

10 malts
1 sugar
2 yeasts.
curious hop schedule

Why so complex?

A barleywine this is not.

An RIS this is not.

This is not a recipe that is likely to result in a tasty beverage IMO.
 
Unfortunately I would suggest going back to square one with this recipe. It has no redeeming features.

10 malts
1 sugar
2 yeasts.
curious hop schedule

Why so complex?

A barleywine this is not.

An RIS this is not.

This is not a recipe that is likely to result in a tasty beverage IMO.

I take it that's a vote for

I may well be trying to make it be too many things at once, though...

Okay.

Square one is I have 12lbs of pale malt, 3/4lb of amber malt, the aforementioned are mixed together and in an airtight container but already milled, I have 1lb of milled Golden Naked Oats in the mail, I have a jar of brown sugar/pseudo-candi syrup taking up space in my refrigerator, and my LHBS stocks these: http://www.shopbrewmeister.com/index.php/brewing/ingredients/grain.html

Given that, any thoughts on what general approach you would take toward

"making the most of the stuff I've already got" but my idea was something in the vein of strongly caramelly, somewhat boozy barleywines I've had, with some "dark Belgiany" characteristics that aren't overpowering or connected with any focus on being "true to style" wedded to roasted/smoky/maybe chocolatey flavors of a rich porter or stout that are more of a flavor embellishment than the main focus.

granting, for the sake of argument, that this is something you would do at all?

(I do realize our replies may have posted simultaneously.)
 
Last edited:
my idea was something in the vein of strongly caramelly, somewhat boozy barleywines I've had, with some "dark Belgiany" characteristics that aren't overpowering or connected with any focus on being "true to style"

That does sound delicious. Let me revise my suggestion if you'd like to keep a similar grain bill, accounting for your Amber already mixed in. Definitely lose the smoked malt, that will just get in the way imo.

71% pale 2-row malt
5% Amber
5% Golden Naked Oats
4% Medium crystal
3% Special B
3% Honey Malt
3% Flaked Barley
2% Roasted Barley
2% Chocolate Malt
2% Cara-pils
2 lbs brown sugar if you really want to use it
1 pack liquid dark belgian candi sugar (this stuff is great)

I don't know the SRM this would produce. Guessing on the dark-end of a traditional Barlywine. You can up the black/roasted malts slightly, but too many will conflict in a negative way imo.

Maybe use a belgian yeast at a lower temp (mid-high 60's) to minimize heavy esters. Or use a neutral yeast if you want the grain bill to shine through more. Either way don't let it get above 70 (internal temp, not ambient) unless you're looking for heavy esters.

For best results, aerate with pure o2 for 2 minutes before pitching, and for another minute, ~18 hours after pitching. Pitch a gigantic starter (~3 to 4L), or 3 packs of rehydrated yeast.

Keep in mind a simple grain bill can produce amazing flavors, so this is an over-the-top recipe, but I think it'd turn out pretty good.
 
I agree with most of the suggestions. Complexity doesnt come from 10 different malts. You wont taste the individual flavor contribution from each one. Its like mixing paint colors as a kid. How many until its just poop brown? Looking at that grain bill hurts my eyeballs. Its got over 35% specialty malts which is nearly double I would ever put in a recipe.

Ive made a nice belgian stout before. The complexity came from the belgian yeast and the following malts
2 row
flaked barley
roasted barley
caramunich
 
Soo, having given this a little more thought:

I can see a couple ways forward.

One is to keep the basic idea and streamline it a bit, per the following considerations:

Reading more on WLP-099, it looks like my idea of dumping a vial in secondary to finish the beer off once the US-05 are tapped out and thus avoiding a starter (which I haven't had fantastic luck with thus far) is not actually going to work, which eliminates the point of using the US-05 in the first place. So, make a big starter of the WLP-099 (an idea I floated in the original post) and use that.

5 minute hop additions for aroma seem like a bit of a waste given that I'm planning an extended bottle conditioning time, so those go back into the 45,15 additions. (I selected this schedule based on my own previous experimentation...)

The smoked malt is kind of the odd flavor out, so that goes. Definitely dial the caramunich back, on further reading; my initial impression that it combined Carapils and Crystal malt properties seems to have been mistaken. Add four pounds of pale malt in its place. Also, add an additional half pound of roasted barley (my LHBS stocks Baird's, which their printouts give as 450L, not 300L like Beersmith assumes). Flaked barley is basically for body and there are several other ingredients that promote that; I don't know if it'll be excessive.

That brings us to:

v0.2:
Yeast: White Labs WLP-099 Super High Gravity

Hops:
45min - 2oz Cascade, 1oz EKG and Fuggle
15min - 2oz Cascade, 1oz EKG and Fuggle

EKG and Fuggle are well suited to malty styles and barleywines as I understand it, and their descriptions sound appelaing, though I haven't brewed with them except as 60 minute bittering additions from before I figured out the 45-15 thing. Cascade at 45 and 15 minutes wonderfully complements roasty and caramelly flavors based on my past experimentation, "standard" hop schedule or no, but I'm leery of overemphasizing them using it as the only hop. Any suggestions one way or the other on this particular point?

Grain Bill (percentages excluding sugar syrup/maybe-pseudo-candi)

65.3% 16lb Pale 2-Row Us
4.1% 1lb Golden Naked Oats (toasty, "berry" flavor, body, mouthfeel, head stability)
4.1% 1lb Chocolate Malt (color and roasty, chocolatey flavors reflecting the "imperial stout" side of the brew concept
4.1% 1lb Flaked Barley (contributes body, mouthfeel, head stability)
3.1% 12oz Roasted Barley (450L - more intense roasty/coffee flavors)
3.1% 12oz Amber Malt (toasty, malty flavor and already mixed in with the 12lb Pale 2-Row I already have)
2.0% 8oz CaraPils (body, mouthfeel, head stability)
14.3% 3.5lb Cara* and Optional Toasted malts

The amber is, I agree, not quite ideal for the rest of the recipe but it's already mixed into the 12 lbs of Pale 2-Row I have.

Tentative proportions for Cara* and Optional Toasted:
8oz Honey Malt (everything I've read about this emphasizes the intensity)
1lb Special B (intense caramel flavors and some dark fruit notes, per my reading)
1lb Caramunich (caramel flavors, contributes to body and mouthfeel, conflicting reports on effects on head, claimed to complement crystal malts well)
1lb Medium Crystal (middle-of-the-road caramelly flavor)
 
D'oh, should have refreshed.

71% pale 2-row malt
5% Amber
5% Golden Naked Oats
4% Medium crystal
3% Special B
3% Honey Malt
3% Flaked Barley
2% Roasted Barley
2% Chocolate Malt
2% Cara-pils
2 lbs brown sugar if you really want to use it
1 pack liquid dark belgian candi sugar (this stuff is great)

I don't know the SRM this would produce. Guessing on the dark-end of a traditional Barlywine. You can up the black/roasted malts slightly, but too many will conflict in a negative way imo.

It looks like we're converging on something pretty similar here. That's reassuring. (Brewsmith now says 60.8 SRM, but it seems to think stouts and porters top out at 40 and specialty beers at 50. Is this a limitation of the estimation method, perhaps?)

Maybe use a belgian yeast at a lower temp (mid-high 60's) to minimize heavy esters. Or use a neutral yeast if you want the grain bill to shine through more. Either way don't let it get above 70 (internal temp, not ambient) unless you're looking for heavy esters.

I briefly thought about a belgian yeast rather than the WLP-099, but I don't know that much about the different styles. Are there any specific strains you'd recommend?

For best results, aerate with pure o2 for 2 minutes before pitching, and for another minute, ~18 hours after pitching. Pitch a gigantic starter (~3 to 4L), or 3 packs of rehydrated yeast.

Pure O2 is probably not feasible, but I was planning to get a filtered pump aerator from the LHBS. How much does that affect the aeration time (and does it affect the frequency?)

Keep in mind a simple grain bill can produce amazing flavors, so this is an over-the-top recipe, but I think it'd turn out pretty good.

Noted. Yeah, I'd gathered that, but I went through my malt list and everything in it seems to have a clear, direct purpose (except perhaps the caramunich; I believe you originally recommended dropping that? Why exactly?) And "over the top" is consistent with what I have in mind...
 
$30 pH meter reads my tap water at 7.55 and a 10x diluted sample of the sugar syrup at 2.95! O.O That's...gonna have unforeseen consequences, I suspect...

...spoke too soon, now it's at 2.84. Hmm....

2.78...2.76... (being a 10x dilution, IIRChC that corresponds to 1.76pH in solution. Bleh.)

I could calculate how to neutralize it, but also, it pretty much just tastes like sour brown sugar still. Not much new or exciting. Something seems...off, somehow, about the flavor, and there's some odd stuff at the bottom of the jar that with that much sucrose in solution and that much acidity SHOULD just be stuff that separated out in solution...

...so, um, candi sugar you say...
 
Now, the other possibility would be brewing two different beers (perhaps a Smoked Imperial Stout and a Black Barleywine) and blending about a gallon of them to age together. Kind of leaning that way at the moment, except it means needing another 3 gallon fermenter...
 
I just stumbled upon this thread and was so disappointed when I saw that it was a couple weeks old. Much to my delight, you still haven't brewed this beer, so I can weigh in - per your recipe in post #12.

1 - A bit of amber malt mixed in with your 2-row won't be an issue.

2 - Ease off the ABV - keep it to 10-12%. You can always push it higher when you've successfully made and designed a few big beers, but jumping straight into the deep end is probably going to leave you with an end product that's not very good.

3 - Calm down on the specialty malts. You've got 16.3% of your malt bill (4 lb) assigned to "caramel and toasted malts". I would say give it a pound and a half tops - maybe a pound of something in the C60 range and half a pound of Special B if you want that flavor contribution. I haven't used Golden Naked Oats, but I would suggest going with one or the other between the oats and the flaked barley, and maybe only half a pound of whichever one you choose. I would also use more roasted barley than chocolate malt, but that's just me.

4 - I like the idea of using some of the brown sugar syrup, but don't go overboard. I would add a pound, either at the end of the boil or a week into fermentation. You could also carbonate (I like ~1.8 vols for an RIS) with a bit of the syrup if you know its PPPG.

My take on this beer would be something like this:

14 lb 2-row
.75 lb Amber
1 lb Roasted Barley
.75 lb Chocolate Malt
1 lb C60
.5 lb Special B
.5 lb Flaked Oats
1 lb Brown Sugar Syrup
Ferment with 2 packets (or part of a yeast cake from a previous beer) of US-05 or Nottingham. Let the temperature start on the low end of the yeast's range and rise to ~64F by day three or so. Assuming 70% efficiency and typical attenuation, you'd be looking at about 11.5% ABV.

----------------------------------

I brewed a barleywine a month ago. I planned out two design philosophies: one was to go through my grains and find anything that might contribute interesting flavors, especially if I didn't have a lot of it so I could use it up as inventory clearance. It was a muddled, bloated mess of a recipe and wouldn't have ended well. I ended up going with the other extreme: 98.5% 2-row, 1.5% flaked oats (for mouthfeel), five hour boil with a portion of the wort reduced to a syrup on the side then added back into the kettle. The SG sample I took and tasted a couple weeks into fermentation was beyond my most optimistic expectations - though I can't yet vouch for the finished beer. Keep a simple, moderate, and intentional design philosophy in designing a big beer and you'll be rewarded. Try to go too big or too complex and you're likely to end up disappointed.
 
So, after a bit more soul-searching* I wound up brewing one of the two beers the original recipe was trying to be both of, just after Christmas. It's bulk-ish conditioning on my counter now, in several different jugs to minimize head space and because I needed my 5 gallon carboy for other things, after about 30 days in primary. Recipe was as follows:

"Edge of the Map" Smoked Honey Imperial Porter
Style: Err....
Recipe Type: All Grain
Primary Yeast: Safale Fermentis US-05, 3pkgs
Finishing Yeast: Danstar CBC-1 Cask and Bottle Conditioning Yeast, 1pkg
Batch Size: 5.39gal into the fermenter. It presently fills a 3 gallon carboy, a 1 gallon glass jug, and a 1 quart jug, plus I've probably drunk another cup or so in monitoring its progress.
Original Gravity: 1.113 (Beersmith, design), 1.128 actual measured
Final Gravity: TBD. 1.030 estimated, hoping to still hit that with the CBC-1. US-05 seems to have stalled out around 1.040.
IBU: 40
Boiling Time: A [preemptive edit:rolleyes:]BEAUTIFULLY UNIQUE SPARKLEPONY[/preemptive edit:rolleyes:]TON including boiling ~a gallon of first runnings down to syrup consistency
Color: Beersmith est. 54.0 SRM, probably darker with the greater-than-expected yield and kettle caramelization? It's pretty much pitch black after about a 1/8inch in from the side of the glass, looking down on it.
Primary Fermentation: 30 days @ ~62 I think? I knew there was something I should have recorded...
Secondary Fermentation/Bulk Conditioning: ~40 days at ~65-70 (ambient temperature in my apartment, which is now drifting upward as we gear up for our Nine Months Of Summer)
Bottle Conditioning: 43 to 3,776 days
Tasting Notes: So far it's excellent, - strong dark flavors without acridness or ashiness, nuttiness, some subdued sweetness, and a strong smoke quality - but a little thick - just tolerable, but I'm concerned about carbonation problems one way or the other without further attenuation. It will be better once the smoke flavor mellows a little more. More to come.

Grain Bill (Including 12.75lb pre-existing malt including Amber and Palt, percentages of each below are estimates, as noted previously):
54.5% (12lb) Great Western Pale Malt
18.2% ( 4lb) Smoked Malt
9.1% ( 2lb) Chocolate Malt
5.7% (20oz) Honey Malt
4.5% ( 1lb) Golden Naked Oats
3.4% (12oz) Amber Malt
3.4% (12oz) Crystal 120L
1.1% ( 4oz) Debittered Carafa III

Hops:
1oz Magnum, 13% AA, boiled 45 minutes
2oz Willamette, 3.9% AA, boiled 15 minutes

Mash:
~7 gallons (1.25 qt/lb grain, rounded up)
~2.5 hours, mashed in at around 155F
Sparged liberally, took a very long time to boil down. Worth it.

Other:
-Fermcap, 2 drops per gallon plus dribble or two
-Irish moss, ~1 tbsp at 15 minutes

Aerated for 2 hours with filtered air, this being made possible by the fermcap.

Vigorous activity in primary for more than two weeks, eventually subsided. Between 3 and 4 weeks I took a gravity measurement of 1.042, warmed it a bit and roused the yeast, minor visible activity and gravity crept downward to 1.039-1.040 (I think the residue on the hydrometer above the waterline affected the readings slightly due to the viscosity and density, repeated measurements a minute or so apart showing a small downward trend, so I'm going with 1.040). This corresponds to 11.9% ABV according to beersmith (OK) and 66.1% apparent attentuation (less OK).

It's drinkable, and even quite pleasant, as is, but I'm planning to save a few bottles to sample over the years, culminating in sharing one with my daughter when she turns 21 unless it goes south in the intervening timeframe), so I'm concerned that the yeast will be hanging by a thread and slowly build it up into a bottle bomb if I don't get it to about 75% attenuation (typical for "Full body" mashes with US-05 yeast, in my experience, in smaller beers where it's not alcohol-limited, as I believe mine now is). It also does seem very slightly over-viscous.

CBC-1 is optimized for bottle and cask conditioning, has usage instructions consistent with pitching the package rather than babying a starter (as WLP099, which I was going to use to finish it off per my original instincts until I found out about the CBC-1, seems to), and tolerates 12-14% alcohol well from what I've read, so I'm planning, once the Irish Red currently in my 5 gallon carboy is done, to rack it onto a packet of CBC-1 and give it 10-14 days to see how much it brings the gravity down, then bottling it right after so the finishing yeast will presumably still be fresh.

I was gonna wait until it was carbed and formally ready to brag, but I'm now planning out the second of the two beers the original recipe was trying to be both of, for brewing in April, and have some questions I'll be posting in a different thread shortly, so I figured I'd tie up this loose end. ^.^

*still haven't managed to find one
 
The CBC-1 got the gravity down to about 1.038-1.039. Pretty sure it's fermentables-limited, and I'm honestly pretty happy with the flavor - the smoke will mellow, and it's not overly sweet, though noticeably viscous. Bottled it Thursday, making sure to resuspend the yeast that'd settled out at the bottom on the way into the bottling bucket. Should carb nicely...

I read somewhere that someone had determined that increasing to a 120min boil (from 45 or 60 min, I forget which) added about 0.001 to the final gravity of the beer. Extrapolating that to what was...like, a 4-5 hour boil, and to the reduction of a gallon or so of the first runnings to maple-syrup viscosity, during which it may have scorched a little, and it doesn't seem unreasonable that enough unfermentable sugars were formed in the wort to raise the FG by 9 points.

I'm pretty excited to see how it mellows and develops over the next decade. :3
 
Back
Top