Brewing a RIS *today* - which yeast to use?

[grrickar]

Brewing an Old Rasputin-esque RIS today, and need to know which yeast to use. This is what I have available:

S04 1 pack
US05 2 packs
Nottingham 1 pack

3nd generation yeast cake - Wyeast 1084 Irish, first on cake was Irish Red, then dry Irish Stout, now RIS if I choose to use it.

Leaning towards Nottingham...

No time to make a starter really, and I've heard with dry yeast it is better to just rehydrate and pitch than to try and make a starter.

Trying to closely approximate a Old Rasputin RIS by North Coast Brewing.

 

[turkeygecko]

I would def go with the us-05. That's what I use on my RIS. Given its an RIS, I'm assuming you'll have an OG of at least 1.085... one pack of vial or something else and you're likely under pitching. 05 all the way

 

[turkeygecko]

Obviously the cake wouldn't be under pitching, but just not sure I would like the 1084 in a RIS. Also, not sure what ABV tolerance is for 1084

 

[Bamsdealer]

All good options depending on your tastes, but I would just go with the cake. It may lead to a little more character than the dry options.

 

[grrickar]

Alcohol tolerance on 1084 is supposedly 13% ABV.

 

[te-wa]

pitch both 05's and the notty. the notty is fairly neutral, it wont make a difference. under-pitching will make a difference. ferment at 65

 

[TastyAdventure]

Ferment low. My RIS got up to 70 within first 2 days of ferm (before I had real temp control) and it has excess fusels

 

[youreanimpulse]

I'd use the 1084 and keep it cool as has been said.

 

[brew_ny]

on the cake

 

[FatDragon]

Like others, I'd scratch S-04 and Notty from the list of options - unless you want to pitch two strains together, you'd be risking a significant underpitch with a single packet.

From there, it's a matter of what yeast profile you want. US-05 should be cleaner, while 1084 would probably have a bit more character, which you may or may not want. Either one will be adequate for fermenting the beer to a reasonable FG.

 

[grrickar]

Well it turns out the neighbor came over and had a few pints with me, and it turned more into a drinking session than a brewing one. Maybe this weekend I will get this one done.

So what I am looking for is a complex stout, not overly sweet, but not really dry either. Lots of roasty, toffee, caramel-y, dark fruit flavors.

The recipe is from Beersmith DB, and this is the grain bill. The original recipe called for WLP001, which I believe is the same strain as US-05.

Only change I made was US-05 (still not sure I want to do this, but also uncertain what the 1084 cake will produce.)

Oh, and I dumped the rice hulls because I am BIAB.

I also bought 8oz of Hungarian med toast oak cubes, which I plan to soak in Appleton Reserve rum prior to tossing them in the secondary. I plan to age this one several months.

Ingredients
Amount Name Type #
1 lbs Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Grain 1
16 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 2
1 lbs Carastan Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 3
1 lbs Crystal 120, 2-Row, (Great Western) (120.0 SRM) Grain 4
1 lbs Crystal Malt - 60L (Thomas Fawcett) (60.0 SRM) Grain 5
8.0 oz Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 6
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 7
4.0 oz Black Barley (Briess) (500.0 SRM) Grain 8
3.1 oz Cluster [7.0%] - Boil 60 min Hops 9
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15 min) Misc 10
0.9 oz Northern Brewer [8.5%] - Boil 2 min Hops 11
0.7 oz Centennial [12.0%] - Boil 2 min Hops 12
1 pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) Yeast 13
0.75 cup corn sugar (Bottling 0 min) Misc 14

 

[Bamsdealer]

Like the looks of your recipe. I still say a third of a 1084 cake will do your beer justice. I'm a huge fan of us05, but it does tend to ferment dry, clean and accentuate hops...

 

[mkeckjr]

A minor critique of your recipe formulation: I'm seeing a ratio of about 4:1 crystal malts to roast. While your SRM will be in style with your recipe, I think this will be rather light on perceived roast character. Less than 1 pound of dark roasted grain in a 5 gallon batch is more in line with an imperial porter. I would suggest boosting that roast to balance the sweetness you're going to get from those 3 pounds of crystal. Or you might consider reducing the crystal amounts, because 3 pounds are going to give you a great deal of residual sweetness. In a RIS, I try to aim for at least as much roast (pound-wise) as crystal, but lean more to roast. That really is the difference between porter and stout, is the balance between these malts. If you want a more caramel malt-forward beer, go for it. Just wanted to let you know that if you're wanting some complex roastiness like you'd get in a stout, I think your recipe won't deliver that character.

For yeast, I'm all about US-05 or S-04 in this style because (regardless of recipe) you're already running a risk of having a rather high final gravity because of the large grain bill and the crystal malts. WY1084, in my experience, will only attenuate between 70% and 75%. Chico (US-05) and Whitbread Dry (S-04) will both attenuate more. While all 3 have a profile that will work with style, I think attenuation-wise those two dry yeasts will finish more balanced between sweetness and dry.

 

[grrickar]

Recipe was straight from Beersmith, so not mine. I do agree that 3lbs of Crystal malts is odd, based on some other RIS recipes I looked at. I found another 'Old Rasputin' recipe on BS that only called for 1lb of C120.

Turns out I thought I had black barley but did not, so I used roasted barley instead. That bumped the SRM down, so I subbed in more. That should help balance the roast/sweetness a tiny bit. I could toss in a bit more chocolate malt too I suppose, but at this point the grains are milled, so my only decent choice is to sub in more roast malts, but that bumps the SRM way up when I do that.

Anything more than minor tweaks and I'd be better off doubling the recipe and doing 10 gallons with better ratios

I'm going to pitch 2 packs of rehydrated US-05 and use a large blowoff tube for this.

 

[Schecter]

Cake. I love cake.