Bottled my first RIS LAST NIGHT.

[oceans11_gt]

After about a month and a half in the secondary and after aging in bourbon soaked chips, I transferred my first Imperial Stout into bottles last night. It tastes damn good so far I might add. A little less "roasty" than I had expected but that may change with more aging. It is still young but I wanted to possible have one or two on Xmas. Also it will give me an idea on how the taste changes over the next few months. This really is an obsession!

Thinking about changing over to AG for the subsequent batches. Although the beers turn out good via extract I believe I will get more satisfaction out of AG.

If anyone has a comparison between extract RIS and AG feel free to comment on that. Thanks all. Cheers!

 

[thood6]

Awesome! I'm brewing my first RIS tomorrow. I can't wait.


Learn anything worth passing on?

 

[oceans11_gt]

If its an extract recipe like mine was make sure to leave enough room in the brew kettle for the greater amount of extract for a big beer. I actually had to leave 3lbs of extract out because I put too much water in to begin with. If you have a larger kettle this won't be an issue but the one I was using was only 4gal. Also, use a big starter with liquid yeast. I think mine was a little small at just shy of 1 liter.

 

[oceans11_gt]

I was aiming for the 8.5-9% ABV range with the recipe that I put together but I ended up about 7.5% ABV with an OG of 1.086. Leaving some of the malt out definitely contributed to the lower ABV so just make sure you have enough room for all the ingredients.

 

[tennesseean_87]

You could have slowly added that extract later in the boil once some of your water had boiled off.