Abnormal's Adjunct-Ready Imperial Stout Recipe

[Patrick Villarraga]

This will be my first attempt so do a big stout in a BIAB. Do you think this is being overzealous. I have posted the recipe. Has anyone tried this? Any tips, words of wisdom, alternatives are appreciated?
ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 59%
OG: 1.110
FG: 1.032
IBUs: 40
ABV: 10.3%


MALT/GRAIN BILL
13 lb (5.9 kg) 2-row malt
2 lb (907 g) chocolate malt
1.75 lb (794 g) flaked oats
1 lb (454 g) Crystal 60L
1 lb (454 g) Caramunich
1 lb (454 g) Patagonia Black Pearl
0.75 lb (340 g) roasted barley
2 lb (907 g) light dry malt extract (DME)
2 lb ( 907 g) Malto Dextrin
0.5 lb (227 g) rice hulls


HOPS SCHEDULE
2.3 oz (65 g) Nugget [15.5% AA] at 60 minutes

YEAST
2 packets Safale US-05

DIRECTIONS
Use 1 quart (946 ml) of water per pound (454 g) of malt. Add all the base grains at the bottom of the lauter/mash tun, then the specialty grains on top of that. It helps with lautering. Mash at 148°F (64°C) for 4 hours. Boil for 60 minutes following the hops schedule. Chill the wort, and pitch the yeast. Aerate for 30–60 seconds on the first day of fermentation to help bring down the final gravity a bit. Ferment at 66°F (19°C) and on day 5 or when fermentation begins to slow down, raise the temperature to 70°F (21°C).

 

[RM-MN]

This will be my first attempt so do a big stout in a BIAB. Do you think this is being overzealous. I have posted the recipe. Has anyone tried this? Any tips, words of wisdom, alternatives are appreciated?
ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 59%
OG: 1.110
FG: 1.032
IBUs: 40
ABV: 10.3%


MALT/GRAIN BILL
13 lb (5.9 kg) 2-row malt
2 lb (907 g) chocolate malt
1.75 lb (794 g) flaked oats
1 lb (454 g) Crystal 60L
1 lb (454 g) Caramunich
1 lb (454 g) Patagonia Black Pearl
0.75 lb (340 g) roasted barley
2 lb (907 g) light dry malt extract (DME)
2 lb ( 907 g) Malto Dextrin
0.5 lb (227 g) rice hulls


HOPS SCHEDULE
2.3 oz (65 g) Nugget [15.5% AA] at 60 minutes

YEAST
2 packets Safale US-05

DIRECTIONS
Use 1 quart (946 ml) of water per pound (454 g) of malt. Add all the base grains at the bottom of the lauter/mash tun, then the specialty grains on top of that. It helps with lautering. Mash at 148°F (64°C) for 4 hours. Boil for 60 minutes following the hops schedule. Chill the wort, and pitch the yeast. Aerate for 30–60 seconds on the first day of fermentation to help bring down the final gravity a bit. Ferment at 66°F (19°C) and on day 5 or when fermentation begins to slow down, raise the temperature to 70°F (21°C).

The red highlighted piece is the first you need to fix. Where are you losing efficiency? The crush of the grain is the most likely suspect. Sparging is probably next, or perhaps it is leaving wort in the boil kettle due to whirlpooling. Put everything into the fermenter and give the beer plenty of time so the trub settles and compacts so you can siphon off the beer without sucking it up.

The green highlight is being questioned because if you can fix the red highlighted part you don't need the green.

The chartreuse is not really needed. If you mash at 152-156 you will have plenty of dextrine created for the mouthfeel.

With BIAB there is nothing in the recipe that would require rice hulls. They will just contribute bulk in your bag making stirring more difficult.

Mashing at 148 for 4 hours will not be necessary if you crush the grain well and won't really do anything a one hour mash won't. Enzynes are destroyed fairly quickly at mash temps and will be denatured well before the 4 hours. Don't worry about how the grains go in either, your bag eliminates lautering problems.

With the expected OG of 1.110 you better have very good temperature control if you plan to keep the temperature at 66F. The 2 packets of yeast will really go crazy with all that sugar to eat and controlling them will be difficult.

 

[Patrick Villarraga]

Thank your response and help! So you’re saying let the beer settle after boiling before siphoning into this the fermentor? Then as far the DME, you think if I can fix efficiency I won’t need it at all? I found this recipe online and was surprised about the efficiency as well. But I’m fairly new to this so didn’t really know where to start.

 

[RM-MN]

Thank your response and help! So you’re saying let the beer settle after boiling before siphoning into this the fermentor? Then as far the DME, you think if I can fix efficiency I won’t need it at all? I found this recipe online and was surprised about the efficiency as well. But I’m fairly new to this so didn’t really know where to start.

Most people have to depend on the LHBS to mill their grain. One of the considerations for the LHBS is to keep people happy about not having a stuck mash or sparge so they tend to mill rather coarse. With most recipes this only means a little more grain to get the expected OG so it isn't a problem and the LHBS gets to sell a little more grain. With a big beer like you intend you need the best efficiency you can get so you need a good fine milling of the grain. If you had a conventional mash tun, that would be a recipe for the stuck mash or sparge but you are doing this BIAB so the finer crush is to your benefit. If you don't have your own mill this beer is the push for you to get one. I have a cheap Corona style mill that I set as tight as I can and get very high efficiency.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/COKO-Man...rxYAA6u43fOFyoO-oMz0VQAIqH6CnyccaAtBXEALw_wcB

I don't let the wort settle out, I dump it into the fermenter and then siphon above the trub when I bottle.

If you have a refractometer it is quick and easy to take a pre-boil sample to see how good your efficiency is. If the pre-boil gravity is low you can add DME (or LME) to bring the OG to where you want. Using sparge steps will be of benefit on this large grain bill and you might have to boil a bit longer to boil off the excess water.

 

[Patrick Villarraga]

Thank you again for the recommendations

 

[InspectorJon]

I’ve done a few big beers BIAB. I felt like a 90 minute mash helped but I haven’t done enough to make a good analysis. I got my best efficiency with that one.

To get the most out of my grain with the last big stout I soaked the grain bag in 1.5 gallons of hot water after squeezing out the first runnings. I ended up with 1.055 second runnings which I brewed into a second lower gravity beer. It turned out good. I could also have added this to the first runnings and boiled longer.

 

[Steven_C]

I’ve done a few big beers BIAB. I felt like a 90 minute mash helped but I haven’t done enough to make a good analysis. I got my best efficiency with that one.

To get the most out of my grain with the last big stout I soaked the grain bag in 1.5 gallons of hot water after squeezing out the first runnings. I ended up with 1.055 second runnings which I brewed into a second lower gravity beer. It turned out good. I could also have added this to the first runnings and boiled longer.

I had a similar brew day where I got a second beer from the second runnings. However, on the big beer, I ended up with too much unfermentables (I think) and it ended up being almost cloyingly sweet. Would doing the longer mash, and maybe at a lower temp (I did 153) help with that?

 

[InspectorJon]

I had a similar brew day where I got a second beer from the second runnings. However, on the big beer, I ended up with too much unfermentables (I think) and it ended up being almost cloyingly sweet. Would doing the longer mash, and maybe at a lower temp (I did 153) help with that?

I was given this advice by the head brewer at Alvarado Street Brewery about brewing a pastry stout:
We mashed low, around 145, to make sure our wort sugar composition was as simple as possible to get it to "dry" as far as it could go. With these stouts they can stall rather high and leave you with a beer that's unpalatable (but good barrel candidates).

I had one finish pretty high once and added some amylase enzyme which helped dry it out.

 

[RM-MN]

I’ve done a few big beers BIAB. I felt like a 90 minute mash helped but I haven’t done enough to make a good analysis. I got my best efficiency with that one.

The 90 minute mash is good technique, especially if you have to work with grains crushed at the LHBS. Often their mill is set to crush coarser than you can use for BIAB and the extra time allows better gelatinization of the larger grain particles which then allows conversion and extraction of the sugars.

 

[hottpeper13]

When I do big beers I do a reverse mash of 2 hours. So I strike at 152* and then stir every 15 min for 2 hours. In that time it drops to 143* and I not only get 75% efficiency but my beers always finish 1.016- 1.020. I did have one finish quite high,but it was boiled for 3 hours and I thought that might have something to do with it.

 

[Steven_C]

I was given this advice by the head brewer at Alvarado Street Brewery about brewing a pastry stout:
We mashed low, around 145, to make sure our wort sugar composition was as simple as possible to get it to "dry" as far as it could go. With these stouts they can stall rather high and leave you with a beer that's unpalatable (but good barrel candidates).

I had one finish pretty high once and added some amylase enzyme which helped dry it out.

Thanks for the input. I'm going to be trying another one soon. I'll definitely try the lower mash temp.

 

[Yooper]

Two pounds of malto dextrine? I'd take that out for sure.

 

[PhilJM]

Hi,
The yeast I was wondering about. It might struggle with the high abv. I’d personally use Nottingham, had great results with that on a similar beer.
Also sparging was essential for me due to the low water to grain ratio.