RIS Recipe critique

[AlbertaBrewer]

Looking to try a Russian Imperial stout, looked at a few recipes and melded this from what I fond online trying to stay more towards double chocolate rather than dark and toasty. Am hoping for some thoughts on what I have so far. Also a couple notes:

I have a porter almost finished and was going to pitch this directly onto the cake, is this a bad idea?

Beersmith says 6.6 Gal water in the mash tun but only 4 for the batch sparge does this sound right? Normally its 2 step 1.5 and 3 (I boil the 1.5 and add it to the tun to bring up to 168 and leave for 10 min before the first drain)

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.90 gal
Boil Time: 60 min

Ingredients

14 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 69.9 %
1 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 2 4.8 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.8 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.8 %
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.8 %
1 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.8 %
1 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 7 4.8 %
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 8 1.2 %
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 43.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 11.9 IBUs
2.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 11 -


Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.100 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.022 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 10.5 %
Bitterness: 55.4 IBUs
Est Color: 34.0 SRM

 

[inhousebrew]

I'm not a RIS expert but here are a few thoughts:
*I like would use a different yeast. The 05 can be a power house and really chew through beers to a lower gravity than I would want for a RIS.
*If you're pitching onto a yeast cake (which I've done a lot of on big beers) I've found that temp control is extra important initially. If you don't chill properly and it starts warm and then heats up for the first three days with a 5 gallon starter you'll end up with a thick dark jet fuel. If you have a cool place to put it you'll be good thought. Now that I think of it this is important in general with big beers, but especially with huge starters that can take off like mad.
*Now sure where you're getting the double chocolate idea from but I don't see it. There will be a lot of residual sweetness from almost 10% crystal and good body from flaked barley and oats but not seeing much chocolate flavor.

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

Check out "Brewing a Behemoth" which is a great resource for world class RIS as well as gold medal homebrew recipes. It shows all of their percentages in the grain bill. I think your roasted grain percentage is too low, and you're using a ton of caramel malt. I think it'll be unbalanced.

http://tobrewabeer.com/index.php/2016/02/10/building-behemoth-grains/

 

[mkling]

I think your roasted grain percentage is too low, and you're using a ton of caramel malt. I think it'll be unbalanced.

http://tobrewabeer.com/index.php/2016/02/10/building-behemoth-grains/

Agreed! You're using less roasted malt that you often find in a simple 4-5% abv Dry Irish Stout. I think you definitely need more roasted barley.

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

Thanks, I might drop the 40l crystal then and up the roasted barley to 12 oz, maybe add 8 oz some pale chocolate I have around unless you think i need black patent or something like that, have not used it yet.

I have freezer with stc 1000, was goingto set it to around 68f.

I will check out that link also

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

I was also thiking about some brandy oak and cocao nibs in secondary

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

so played around with the percentages and brought them closer to the commercial examples in the link the SRM is too high but not sure that is an issue and IBU a little low which I will top up:


Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.90 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 6.77 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 4.75 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage


Date: 11 Jan 2017
Brewer:
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: Pot and Cooler (10 Gal/37.8 L) - All Grain
Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 88.6 %

15 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 69.0 %
1 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 2 4.6 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.6 %
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.6 %
1 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.6 %
1 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 6 4.6 %
12.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 7 3.4 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 8 2.3 %
8.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt (250.0 SRM) Grain 9 2.3 %
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 41.9 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 11 5.7 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 12 -


Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.105 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.023 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 11.0 %
Bitterness: 47.6 IBUs
Est Color: 46.4 SRM

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

Looks great to be honest now. I know you're looking for a more chocolatey, less roasty RIS and I think you will get it. It's hard to get alot of chocolate flavor from just grain. I use Dutch Cocoa Powder with 5 min left in the boil for my chocolate porter and that lends a nice chocolate flavor. Just depends on what you're looking for flavor wise, but this will be nowhere near too roasty so I think you'll be happy with that.

I brewed a RIS last year and split it into different variants. One I did use brandy soaked oak staves and it turned out great.

 

[JKaranka]

Nothing quite gives a chocolate flavour. Chocolate malt will give you a light roast flavour (chocolate is roasted, like coffee, so that is something in common). One thing I would suggest is to replace the pound of crystal malt for a pound of brown malt, or maybe two pounds of brown malt. It's less sweet, but it gives a mellow background type of roast flavour. More like a cup of hot milky chocolate.

Pitching on a yeast cake: go ahead.

SRM above 40: do not worry.

47 IBU: I'd up that. Most calculators overestimate IBUs. Most likely you will end up with an 1.100 beer with 35IBU, which is a bit of a shame. Aim at 60 IBU if you want to be on the lower side. If I was brewing a beer like this (and I am not a hophead by any means) I would aim to at least 80 IBU if not 100 to balance out the sweetness. Just as an example, the last double brown stout I brewed I got an OG of 1.085 and an estimated 160IBU. After six months in bottle I bet it will be just fine.

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

As far as the crystal brown one thing to mention is I was actually thinking of using special w not 120 L since thats all they had when i was at the brew store. Its supposed to be more bready and malty kind of like the brown I would think.

Another question as I have never pitched on a cake before should I areate before then rack on top trying not to disturbe the cake to avoid autolysis off flavors from dead yeast or just rack on top shake and stir and get that yeast all in suspension so it can get to work.

 

[JKaranka]

Did this progress? I found pitching on a cake being just ok, didn't think much about it and the beer got on with it straight away.

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

Brewed it got OG 1.104 too a sample a week in its down to 1.032ish, lagged maybe a day then pushed up through the airlock around day 2-3. Sample tasted pretty good none made it back to the bucket and even in the graduated cylinder it produces a head if you bump it. The color and head matches Courage RIS I have high hopes for it.

Now I am considering spliting it into 2 5 gal carboys and oaking/bourbon one but being a 5 gal batch headspace might be an issue. I use some of those retrofitted winesavers/pump tubed to bungs to vaccume and degass my wine was thinking if I tried this I would go that route to vaccume the carboys and eliminate the O2 in the headspace but I am a little nervous about risking it.