Please Critique My Imperial Stout

[rxp]

I'd like to start on an imperial stout. The only imperial I've made was a Brewer's Best extract and I'd like to try my hand at a slightly bigger, roastier all grain recipe.

1) Overall, how does this recipe look?
2) I'd like a good amount of roast without being overwhelming. Where on that spectrum will this recipe fall?
3) I'm hoping to balance roast with Crystal 120, Flaked Oats (probably toasted), and Munich; will this be effective?
4) I'd really like recipe to show off the complexity of the grains, should I ditch the 5 minute Willamette addition and stick with bittering hops only?
5) Is Dry English Ale yeast (WLP007) a good yeast choice?

Thanks!

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.093 SG
Estimated Color: 50.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 59.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.4 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 49.1 %
5 lbs Munich 10L (Briess) (10.0 SRM) Grain 3 24.5 %
2 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 4 9.8 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 6 2.5 %
4.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 8 1.2 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 7 2.5 %
2.0 oz Black Malt - 2-Row (Briess) (500.0 SRM) Grain 9 0.6 %
1 lbs Roasted Barley (Simpsons) (550.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.9 %

1 lbs Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 1 4.9 %

1.500 oz Magnum [13.60 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 56.7 IBUs
1.000 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 11 3.0 IBUs

1 Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) [35 Yeast 12 -

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 20 lbs 6.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 25.47 qt of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F 90 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (0.29gal, 4.21gal) of 168.0 F water

 

[Nateo]

The only thing I would do differently would be to mash at 149* instead, to keep the beer from being cloying, but I prefer beers on the well-attenuated side.

If you really want to get a feel for what different ingredients bring to the table, brew the recipe once as is, and once with just base malt and say, black malt or roasted barley. You've got a lot of flavors going on there, and you might be surprised how "complex" a very simple grain bill can taste.

 

[Jebu1788]

IMO, that looks pretty dern good. I light of that, anything from here on out is nitpicking a bit, and humble opinions. So here goes:

I definitely don't think it will have an overwhelming amount of roasted flavors. But I'm not sure the advantage of the strategy you used. 2oz of black malt won't be noticeable with all those other roasted malts, and 4 oz of pale chocolate would get lost too. Maybe try dropping the pale and bumping the black malt up to 4-6oz, or dropping both and bumping the regular chocolate up to 1lb.

In an imperial stout, I would definitely use a full pound of crystal malt too. The oats are on the high side, but not unheard of with good results. I like the heavy amount of Munich too.

Keep the Willamette! That adds such a nice touch for finishing hops in dark beers, and is mild enough to keep that malt profile right at the front!

 

[Nateo]

The biggest thing I think about when I design big beers is the target FG. Where do you want your beer to end up, gravity-wise? Attenuation will tend to drop with bigger beers. Base malts will increase attenuation, crystal malts with decrease attenuation.

Personally, I brew and enjoy lots of Belgian beers. I prefer well-attenuated beers in general. For an 1.09-ish OG, I would target 1.015-1.020. That's 78-84% apparent attenuation, which is a bit higher than "average" but not unreasonable.

Your tastes may vary from mine, but I think it's a good thing to keep in your mind when formulating recipes.

 

[Jebu1788]

The biggest thing I think about when I design big beers is the target FG. Where do you want your beer to end up, gravity-wise? Attenuation will tend to drop with bigger beers. Base malts will increase attenuation, crystal malts with decrease attenuation.

Personally, I brew and enjoy lots of Belgian beers. I prefer well-attenuated beers in general. For an 1.09-ish OG, I would target 1.015-1.020. That's 78-84% apparent attenuation, which is a bit higher than "average" but not unreasonable.

Your tastes may vary from mine, but I think it's a good thing to keep in your mind when formulating recipes.

Very true. I usually think of RISs to be on the higher side of FG. But it does depend a lot on what you are looking for. That said, it is still possible to get excellent attenuation with big bills and lots of crystal (a barleywine I did with 2lbs of crystal and OG of about 1.100 fermented down to 1.013!). Mash temps are definitely going to be a big factor, as was pointed out already.

 

[rxp]

Thanks a ton to both of you; your suggestions have been very helpful and I've already made some adjustments. In terms of FG, for me it depends on the style. I've just done a couple Belgians that finished just under 1.006 and wish they were maybe a little dryer. On the other hand, I really like some body on my stouts but I certainly want to avoid cloying. Somewhere around 1.020 plus or minus a couple points would be fine with me.

 

[cimirie]

Overall, I think you're going in the right direction. Before looking at the grainbill, just looking at the numbers, I would guess this imperial at 1.9-ish and 59 IBU will be slightly sweet (which is actually how I prefer them). Add to that the fact I agree that there won't be much in the way of roasty, burnt malt flavor (because there isn't a ton of black malt or roasted barley), this sounds just like an imperial I would really like.

Most Imperials I do, I do mash around 148-150 as was previously mentioned. However, my OG is typically over 1.100 so I need the extra fermentables. My guess is that 152 would give you good balance here.

Another observation... You asked about the last willamette addition... I don't think it's gonna matter much. 59 IBU is on the low side for an imperial (IMO) so I'm not sure how much you'll miss 3 IBU - especially in aroma. My recommendation would be to bump your IBU level at least another 20 or so via bittering hops. It will help balance the flavor (unless you are looking for an imperial sweet stout style).

As far as grain bill, I too would increase the black levels. If you say you like that roastiness, this is one way to get there.

Chocolate vs pale chocolate is kind of redundant. Pale chocolate was developed so brewers could get the chocolate malt flavor and characteristics without the color. Using both (especially in this type of dark brew) seems odd to me. But, there's no harm to using both. I just try to keep my grainbill as simple as possible lately.

I go back and forth about the crystal. I think there should be more, but doubling up on the 120 with this IBU level would probably border on cloying. I would suggest replacing 120L with 80L and doubling it.

Just my critique on what I would do. Like I said, I think what you have here will turn out just fine. Enjoy it!

 

[rxp]

Thanks, cimirie!

• Based upon your comments and the others, I increased the chocolate content to 12 oz and the black patent to 4 oz.
• I initially included the pale chocolate to attempt to slightly boost levels of toastiness with respect to roastiness. I think I can probably get some similar character simply by toasting the oats so I will probably take the pale chocolate out.
• I originally had Crystal 60 at 1 lb before Crystal 120 at 1/2 lb and have now gone to Crystal 80 at 1 lb following yours and jeburgdo's suggestions.
• I bumped up the IBUs to 67 with another 1/4 oz of Magnum but was hoping that the roasted grains would do much of the balancing. Is this assumption off base?

 

[cimirie]

Bumping the black patent to 4 oz will tend to balance this beer out a bit. But, for comparison, the last imperial I did was...

1.123 OG (bigger than yours, but not terribly so)
95 IBU
2 lbs roasted barley
.5 lbs black patent

Mashed at 150 and it was really well balanced (very rich and roasty, not quite as sweet as I typically like, but most prefer it this way, I believe).

So yes, black grains will balance it out, but it takes higher levels to achieve that. Again, the above is by no means a magical recipe you should be following. I only brought it up as a means for comparison.

If, in the end, an imperial has too much body and is too sweet, a pound of honey should dry it out some. Food for thought.

 

[rxp]

Thanks again for the feedback.

One more question: I've ended up with some extra Maris Otter; will it be okay to use 10 lbs of MO with the 5 lbs of Munich in this recipe, or will I end up with too much bready/biscuity characteristics? What about conversion? Should I cut the MO down to 5 lbs and go with US 2-row for the other 5 lbs? Or should I leave out the MO altogether? Thanks!

 

[Jebu1788]

I've used MO as a base for an imperial stout before. It works great.

 

[rxp]

I finally brewed this 12 days ago and the sample I just had is awesome: dark fruits, some subtle licorice, and a smooth roasted character. I had initially planned/hoped for more roastiness and should have been more aggressive in that regard as suggested, but I enjoy the sample so much that it's hard to complain. That said, next go around, I might bump the RB up 4 to 8 oz. It's currently at 74% AA (1.027) and still a bit on the sweet side. I'm hoping yet to drop into the upper teens -- I was targeting 80% or so AA. The recipe I settled on is below.


Boil Size: 9.25 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.98 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.104 SG
Estimated Color: 57.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 71.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 71.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 74.2 %
Boil Time: 165 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 1 2.2 %
9 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 41.6 %
5 lbs Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM) Grain 3 22.5 %
2 lbs Oats, Flaked [toasted 75m@325] (1.0 SRM) Grain 4 9.0 %
2 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 5 9.0 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.5 %
1 lbs Roasted Barley (Simpsons) (550.0 SRM) Grain 7 4.5 %
12.0 oz Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM) Grain 8 3.4 %
8.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 9 2.2 %
4.0 oz Black Malt - 2-Row (Briess) (500.0 SRM) Grain 10 1.1 %
1.750 oz Magnum [13.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 11 68.3 IBUs
1.000 oz Willamette [5.10 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 12 2.9 IBUs
1.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) [35 Yeast 13 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 22 lbs 4.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 33.11 qt of water at 160.9 F 151.0 F 90 min

Sparge: Drain mash tun, Batch sparge with 1 steps (4.27gal) of 168.0 F water


That extra 4oz of MO was some spare I had -- it seemed silly to keep it. The 2lbs US 2 row was added for conversion. Without it, the weighted average diastatic power was right around 30 degrees Lintner and I decided not to risk poor conversion.

This one has been an interesting one to prepare, but it keeps pulling through:

• I was prepared to make careful slaked lime additions to the mash, but my pH was 5.31 so I left it alone for a full 90 minute mash including chocolate, roasted barley, & black patent without a hint of astringency. (I did add some Calcium Chloride to the boil to help round out the flavor.)
• I somehow overshot my volumes substantially; having ruled everything else out, I can only attribute this to lower than expected grain absorption. The result was a 2.75 hour boil and efficiency in the low-mid 70s.
• During the final hour right before the first hops addition, I switched out the propane, but couldn't get a usable flame with the new tank. SWMBO wasn't feeling too generous with the stove, so in irritation and frustration, I threw some firewood in the charcoal kettle grill, got it roaring pretty well, and put the 11 gal pot on it. About the time it climbed back to a boil, SWMBO took pity on me and relinquished the stove.
• Fermentation was a fireball. I wasn't prepared to deal with the temperatures and it spent a day and a half or so at 70 - 72*F (fermometer) before I could get it back down. I was afraid terrible things were happening in my bucket of wonder, but if they did, I'm not tasting them.