Chocolate Imperial Stout recipe guidance

[jakwi]

Hi all,

I recently tried a Big Bad Baptist Imperial stout by Epic, and was really taken with the style. It was borderline sweet, strong chocolate flavors, light coffee flavors, Neutral bitterness, or possibly leaning towards Malty, sort of like a sweet milk stout, but not exactly. They also aged in a whiskey barrel I think.

Anyway I'm not trying to make a clone, as much as capture the style. So I started to put together a recipe, but this is definitely a new direction for me. I've never brewed anything this big before, nothing darker than a porter(og 1.060), and never used adjuncts like coffee and cocoa nibs, oak cubes etc. I normally brew 10 gallons, but my 10 gallon mash tun won't handle that much grain, so this is a 5 gal recipe.

Anything I should be aware of as far as process on a big beer like this? Thanks for the guidance.

So Here is what I have, OG 1.111, predicted abv 12.4%, IBU 46, SRM 66

Grains- I'm sort of guessing on how these are divided.
Mash at 152 for 75min?
8.5 lbs Maris Otter
8.5 lbs 2 row
1lb Crystal 80
1lb Munich
1lb Chocolate 350
1lb Black patent
1lb Roasted Barley

Hops - Not sure on times, but per my calculator this puts the batch on the neutral/malty side of things.

Nugget .75 oz for 60min
Chinook .75oz for 30 min
Cascade .75oz for 15 min.

Adjuncts

Sumatra coffee 1/2lb steeped in cold water for a couple of hours and then added to mash before sparge. - ? - Is this to much coffee? I want a light coffee flavor, but mostly chocolate.

Cocoa Nibs 6oz soaked in vodka, and added to fermenter for the last 4 or 5 days?

Oak Cubes - How much - How to prepare - How to add? I've never used them before.


Yeast - WLP007 - Dry english Ale, maybe I've never used it. I'm open to suggestions.

It occurred to me to try a party gyle with this brew after the stout is done to Simply sparge another 5 gallons. Thoughts?

 

[Jag75]

I think 1# of roasted Barley is too much . The cocoa nibs are good however I would suggest starting the tincture when you brew . Then on day 7 toss the nibs contents in and leave it for 2 weeks. Oak cubes are potent . I would only let em soak for about 4 days and maybe 4 oz. I've never used coffee beans before but it looks good to me . I love coffee lol. As of your yeast and hops it's what you like . Mine was a 27 ibu with Mt. Hood and fuggles with WLP cal ale . Mine was a sweet stout so take this into consideration

 

[jakwi]

So maybe 1/2 lb of roasted Barley? Honestly I have no idea what would be considered normal.

Ok on the cocoa nibs.

As for the Oak, I've read about washing, or boiling the Oak Cubes, and even soaking them in a tincture. Do you do any of that? Or do you just toss them in?

My fermenter is a Sanke Keg, so adding anything to the fermenter is a bit of a challenge, unless I'm just dumping them in.

When you say yours was sweet can you elaborate? What was your OG? My goal is mostly neutral, but maybe just slightly sweet.

thanks again for the help

 

[Jag75]

I did a choc milk stout . Was 5.5 -6% abv. I used .5 # of barley . I was gonna use 1# but my aunt told me it would probably be too much . I was glad I scaled it down. The chips I got were from a kit . They were ready to use in the pack . They were cognac soaked barrel chips .

 

[McKnuckle]

I find it useful to look at grain bills in terms of percentage, not weight, and also in terms of general categories - base malt, crystal malt, roasted malt, "character" malts, and adjuncts.

You have 22 lbs of grain. If we include Munich with the base malt, you've got 81.8% base malt. 3 lbs are dark roasted malts, 13.6%. You have 4.5% crystal malt.

This is actually not extreme. A stout can have up to 15% roasted grains, although I prefer to balance it a little more with crystal when it's at the high end of the range. With only 4.5% crystal malt though, I'd drop the darkest roasted grains a few percentage points and make it up with more Munich instead. I'd probably reduce the black patent by at least a half pound, leaving the roasted barley and chocolate intact. I think black patent and roasted barley is possibly overkill.

Alternately, you could add a couple more percentage points of crystal - maybe to 7% - and replace the black patent with something far less roasty like Victory, Special Roast, etc.

The other ingredients I'm not going to comment on. I think a single bittering charge at start of the boil is enough though, aiming for a BU/GU ratio of about 50%.

 

[LittleRiver]

So maybe 1/2 lb of roasted Barley? Honestly I have no idea what would be considered normal...

Look at several of the imperial stout recipes on Brewers Friend to see what is a normal range. You can browse them for free.

...Oak, I've read about washing, or boiling the Oak Cubes, and even soaking them in a tincture. Do you do any of that? Or do you just toss them in?...

I bandsaw 1/2" white oak cubes, toast them in a toaster oven until I can see that they have toasted well (changed color, with some toasted/smoky smells coming out of the oven, but not to the point of charring).

I then boil them in water, and discard the water. I find that this: gets rid of the harshness that oak can impart, reduces the aging time needed to get a nice flavor balance, and it sanitizes them.

I toss the cubes in the fermenter for the last week of fermentation. I give oaked beers a little more time to mature after packaging than other beers, maybe a few extra weeks.

If you find that your oaked beer initially has an overwhelming woody flavor, just give it some more time to mature.

 

[jakwi]

I find it useful to look at grain bills in terms of percentage, not weight, and also in terms of general categories - base malt, crystal malt, roasted malt, "character" malts, and adjuncts.
...
The other ingredients I'm not going to comment on. I think a single bittering charge at start of the boil is enough though, aiming for a BU/GU ratio of about 50%.

Thank you for this, I hadn't thought to look at it this way, but it is helpful.

So It looks a little more balanced if I go with the following. It still leaves my SRM at 62, OG at 1.112, and IBU at 46.

8.5 lbs Maris Otter
8.5 lbs 2 row
1.5lb Crystal 80
1lb Munich
1lb Chocolate 350
0.8lb Black patent
0.8lb Roasted Barley

Look at several of the imperial stout recipes on Brewers Friend to see what is a normal range. You can browse them for free.
...
If you find that your oaked beer initially has an overwhelming woody flavor, just give it some more time to mature.

I did look at several actually, but still it is a great idea. Thanks for the tips on how to prepare the Oak, that helps alot.

 

[McKnuckle]

Sure, your grain mods seem reasonable. Just know that an SRM of 62 is like blacker than black! You really only need SRM in the 35-40 range to be attractively opaque in a stout. This means you could probably replace the black patent with something that gives you some flavor and character, such as a more lightly roasted biscuit or amber malt, or another type of crystal.

I know the possibilities are endless. These are just my instincts, and something to reflect on.

 

[dreaded_rust]

My two cents would be to drop the black patent all together. You'll be plenty dark with out it and with all the other flavors you're talking about putting into this, you're really not gaining anything from it. People have a tendency to way over complicate imperial stout recipes.

 

[hottpeper13]

All I can add is in my system I need 32 lbs of grain to get 1.111 and I sometimes do a party gyle but they can be grainy to the extreme.My next batch I'm going to do a steep of complimentary grains in the second runnings to try and hide that flavor. I'll add that I use a mash bag in my tun and crush at .028.

 

[jakwi]

Ok, so going with the guidance I'm getting here, how about this. OG 1.114, IBU 46, SRM 46, ABV 13%
This is a significant drop in SRM, but I'm hearing what you're saying that this will still be very dark. Given the IBU/OG ratio I think it will still be neutral to slightly Malty. Thoughts?

8.5 lbs Maris Otter
8.5 lbs 2 row
1lb Munich
1lb Chocolate 350
0.8lb Crystal 80
0.8lb Crystal 40
0.8lb Victory
0.8lb Roasted Barley

Hotpepper, I am curious what your setup looks like. Does your efficiency go down when you brew bigger beers? It seems like it might. I've never tried a beer this big, so I have no idea if my average brew efficiency will hold up. (74%) The other thing I'm a little concerned about is because I'm brewing a 5 gal batch on a 10 gallon system my Sheet is calculating 6.6 gallons of strike water, and 2.4 gallons of sparge water. That's 1.2 quarts per lb for the mash. I could try to split that more evenly, maybe 1 qt per lb, or I could put it all in and not sparge at all, seems like I would lose efficiency though.

My setup is Two Electric 15 gallon Keggles with a Homedepot 10 gallon cooler for a mash tun. I'll probably have to boil with propane though because my element requires about 6 gallons of water. I normally ferment in another sanke keg, but given the headspace, I'll probably ferment this in a corny keg, or maybe a 6 gallon glass carboy.

 

[McKnuckle]

Close enough for rock and roll! Looks very nice to me. It has a good balance of base malt, crystal, character, and dark roasted malts. What mash protocol do you intend to follow? I'm thinking somewhere around a 150F rest?

 

[jakwi]

Awesome, thanks again for the guidance!

Well, the sheet I use recommends strike temp at 168f with 6.6 gallons which should settle to 152F in my mashtun. 75 min Mash, but to be honest I'm just guessing on a mash temp. I figured a slightly higher temp would produce a more full bodied beer. I normally mash my brown ale's and porters at 150.

Do you think a 150F mash would be better? Is 75min too long?

 

[McKnuckle]

Nothing wrong with 152. I was just thinking it's already a very high gravity beer, so you'd want it to attenuate decently. It should have a full body no matter what you do, assuming you come close to your target OG. Also nothing wrong with 75 minutes.

 

[hottpeper13]

when I do these high grav brews I go from ~80% eff. to 65%. I use a 15 gal Coleman cooler, mash at a ratio of 1qt per lb at 148* for 90 min ,then fill to top of tun from HLT , somewhere around 158* let that rest 10 min or so,then drain into kettle. I get just under 8.5 gal first runnings boil 2 hrs and end up with 1.110- 1.112 OG and get 5-5.25 gal in fermenter. My first one was to be a 12% abv but ended up at 8.5%. Lesson learned.

 

[dreaded_rust]

150 or 152, I doubt there'll be too much difference. If it were mine I'd shoot for 150, but I like my RISs to end up south of 1.018. They still tend to have plenty of body to them. Your grain bill looks great now, I'm curious to see how this turns out.

 

[Oldskewl]

When you brew bigger beers you will lose efficiency. My system averages 75% but on a big beer like yours I get closer to 65%, so you will need to up the grain to hit your OG. Plan to mash about 90 minutes also. 8 oz of coffee is a lot. The best method for adding coffee is to add whole bean coffee to the secondary and let it soak for a few days prior to bottling. I would only use 4-5 oz of coffee. Adding coffee to the boil adds bitterness. Oak cubes can be soaked in bourbon or vodka for a week or two, then add the whole tincture to the secondary for a few weeks. It takes a while to impart the flavors of cubes. Oak Chips on the other hand work much faster. I do not have feedback on cocoa nibs. I have not used them yet.

 

[jakwi]

Thank you guys for the notes on efficiency. I will plan for 65% And also for the info on the coffee. My goal for this recipe is that the coffee flavors should be there, but subtle, so I really appreciate the input on the coffee. So essentially what you are suggesting is dry hopping with coffee. Do you suspend it in a bag, or just dump them in?

All of the info provided here has been absolutely fantastic. I'm really excited about brewing it, and seeing how it turns out. With the way May is going right now, it will likely be June before I have an opportunity to brew it, but I will report back with process notes, and results once I get there.

thanks again to everyone.

 

[Oldskewl]

Just dump them in whole bean

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

A few thoughts:

With an OG of 1.111 and 12.4% ABV, that computes to a FG of around 1.018. I know you're not trying to clone BBB (a personal favorite of mine), but if you want to brew something similar you're going to want a higher FG I think. BBB has a rich, thick mouthfeel. You'll want to be in the 1.030 or higher range I think.

Also, to get that experience and fix the drop in efficiency that happens with bigger grain bills, plan to collect 2-3 extra gallons pre-boil, then boil for 3 hours. The thinner mash and extra sparge water will greatly reduce (or, in my case) eliminate the drop in efficiency and the longer boil really helps the beer get that richness.

I soak my oak in bourbon, then add it all to the fermenter (I secondary in a corny keg and add the oak tincture and cocoa bean tincture there. Don't forget to purge O2 out of the secondary after you add them. Plan only 2-3 weeks for oak. I aged my stout for several months before adding the oak and cocoa beans.

Coffee - do some research. Coffee done poorly can lead to intense green pepper aroma and taste. Just read about it and make sure you're not headed in that direction. Don't believe me? Go try a year old bottle of Sump some time. Yuck. Speaking of which, I have a bottle if anyone wants it.

I've really struggled force carbing these big, chewy stouts. The next one I brew will be naturally carbonated in the keg.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[Jag75]

I got a slight coffee flavor in mine without using coffee . I dont know how , maybe the roast barley and nibs combo