First Imperial Stout

[G2Brew]

I just brewed a relatively modest Imperial Stout last night, 1.089 OG (temperature adusted.) I don't know if Nottingham is a typical yeast for this style, but it reportedly can handle the anticipated final ABV, and I've had great luck with it in my first few batches, so I used it (fermenting at about 68 degrees.)

Question: how long does this need to stay in primary, secondary, and bottle conditioning? I'm planning 2 weeks primary, 4 weeks secondary, then 4 in bottles, the last two in lager so I can have them available from my PCS party in May.

Second question: has anyone ever boiled hops in water, cooled it to fermenting temp, then added after primary fermentation? After looking my recipe over and re-examining the calclations, I discovered that at this (measured) OG I'm only running about 51 IBUs. Based on the BJCP guide I should be in the 65-75 range. Can I boil the hops, cool and add when I transfer to secondary? I don't want to short the hops (I love a hoppy brew) but a second reason is that hear Nottingham can rob some of the hop flavor and aroma, so if I do 60, 30, and 10 minute adds to this boil just like I would in the wort, it might restore some of that loss.

Any thoughts?

 

[bknifefight]

Notty will be fine for the beer and probably will ferment out pretty quick. I would just keep your beer in the primary for the whole 6 weeks and not worry about the secondary. If you insist on secondary, just make sure it's finished fermenting before you transfer.

As far as adding IBUs, the only measurable way to do it is with isoHop which is a bittering extract you can buy. It's a little expensive though. If you were to just boil some hops, sure you would get extra IBUs as you added the water, but I imagine it would be difficult to figure out a formula to know exactly how much you're adding to the IBUs.

 

[Nateo]

I'd primary for 4-6 weeks and skip the secondary.

As to the second question, the short answer is: don't worry about it.

The long answer is that there are several equations to estimate hop bitterness, all based on alpha-acid. But, that's assuming that you know exactly how much alpha-acid was in your hops when you brewed.

How were you hops stored after they were picked? How were they stored at the brew store? How many weeks ago were they harvested? How stable is that particular hop variety? How much beta-acid do your hops contain, and what is the effect of that beta-acid on bitterness?

My point is, all of those factors affect the bitterness. If you have 10 unknown variables in your equation, it's kind of silly to split hairs over the difference between 51 and 65-75, when there's really no way that your 51 estimate is correct.