Critique my Double/Imperial Stout

[Dan_K]

Hey guys-
I want to make my first imperial stout and I'm worried I'm overlooking something or otherwise making a mistake. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Flavor profile I am shooting for is chocolate, coffee, caramel, roast. Slightly malty but not especially sweet.

Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
Boil Size: 7.0 gallons
Boil Time: 90 minutes
Either BIAB or All-grain (I could do either)
Est OG: 1.10
Est FG: 1.027
Est ABV: 9.5%

13.5 lbs Pale 2-row (71%)
1.75 lbs Rolled Oats (9.2%)
1.25 lbs Chocolate (6.6%)
1.0 lbs Roasted Barley (5.3%)
1.0 lbs Crystal 60 (5.3%)
0.5 lbs Carafa II (2.6%)

Hops:
0.75 oz Magnum 60 min
1.0 oz US Goldings 20 min
IBU: 45

Fermentation Temp: I will have to check my basement, but probably 66-69 degrees.

Yeast: Leaning towards Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale
With a 3.5L starter

Other: I may end up splitting this into 2 different batches for bulk aging, I have 3.5oz of Hawaiian-grown cocoa nibs, and planning on using bourbon-soaked oak chips as well, possibly some toasted coconut in half.

I am concerned about hitting my target efficiency. If I don't, I may end up pitching something like San Diego Super Yeast to try and get the FG down. I was planning on staying in primary for 2 weeks and then transferring to secondary for bulk aging, 2-4 weeks. I am also concerned about bottling as 2 of my friends didn't achieve carbonation.

 

[m1k3]

Here are some of my thoughts:

If the basement is 66-69F the blow off will be massive. If you can go cooler, I would... at least for the first few days. You can even split the fermentation into two vessels for more headspace.

9.5% ABV is pretty high. I'm happy with an Imperial Stout at 8%.
I have a real hard time getting to 1.100 anyway because my efficiency drops so much with big beers.
(did you take that into account for your system?)

What is the calculated SRM? Seems like a pretty healthy amount of Roast/Chocolate/Carafa. Should be black!

looks solid overall... the IBUs could be higher if you like. especially since you say you don't want it sweet.
45IBUs is close to 2:1 Gravity to IBUs... but you can easily go up to 1:1 bu doubling your bittering amount.

 

[JKaranka]

"Slightly malty but not especially sweet."

It will be very malty due to the amount of pale malt alone. I'd get rid of the crystal malt and increase the IBUs to at least 80 to balance it out. Note on IBUs... with such a big beer you need plenty of them even to bring it to a balance; and, secondly, most calculators overstate the achieved IBUs by quite a bit at least in a home brew setup (i.e., if you aim at 80 you might get an actual 55).

 

[Dan_K]

"Slightly malty but not especially sweet."

It will be very malty due to the amount of pale malt alone. I'd get rid of the crystal malt and increase the IBUs to at least 80 to balance it out. Note on IBUs... with such a big beer you need plenty of them even to bring it to a balance; and, secondly, most calculators overstate the achieved IBUs by quite a bit at least in a home brew setup (i.e., if you aim at 80 you might get an actual 55).

Sounds good. I will cut back on the Crystal malt and increase the IBU. I have some left-over magnum so I can do 1.25 oz and that increases the theoretical IBU to 67 ish.

 

[Dan_K]

Here are some of my thoughts:

If the basement is 66-69F the blow off will be massive. If you can go cooler, I would... at least for the first few days. You can even split the fermentation into two vessels for more headspace.

I think I am going to wait a bit, hopefully the temperature cools down but unfortunately I don't have anything in terms of temperature control. I will probably start this off with a blow-off tube!

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

The amount of Crystal malt you have is perfectly appropriate. Drop it much and you're looking at more of a dry stout.

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

Also Google brewing a Behemoth. It's a site that shows the percentage of grains used in world class commercial examples of imperial stout, as well as gold medal homebrew winners. That site will be your guide,its great.

 

[rwing7486]

Grain bill looks good. I would definitely increase your hop addition though. For this style you should aim for an IBU/SG ratio of around 0.75. You will need the IBUs to balance out the sweetness in this beer. Even commercial examples that you may perceive to be on the sweet side have a healthy does of hops in them. Assuming your OG of 1.10 I'd shoot for 82.5IBUs at the minimum. I would actually go higher to about 100 IBU only because this is theoretical. Like JKaranka said due to our home brewing equipment limitations there is a significant drop off in hop utilization when you start getting up towards the higher end of the IBU spectrum. Perfect example of this is Pliny the elder clone - with Vinnie's homebrew recipe he talks about this utilization falloff. When you put his homebrew recipe into beersmith it calculates around 300IBU's, but when the beer is actually measured for the number of IBU's by a lab it comes out to 90.

 

[Desertbrewer]

Hey guys-

I want to make my first imperial stout and I'm worried I'm overlooking something or otherwise making a mistake. Any thoughts are appreciated.



Flavor profile I am shooting for is chocolate, coffee, caramel, roast. Slightly malty but not especially sweet.



Batch Size: 5.5 gallons

Boil Size: 7.0 gallons

Boil Time: 90 minutes

Either BIAB or All-grain (I could do either)

Est OG: 1.10

Est FG: 1.027

Est ABV: 9.5%



13.5 lbs Pale 2-row (71%)

1.75 lbs Rolled Oats (9.2%)

1.25 lbs Chocolate (6.6%)

1.0 lbs Roasted Barley (5.3%)

1.0 lbs Crystal 60 (5.3%)

0.5 lbs Carafa II (2.6%)



Hops:

0.75 oz Magnum 60 min

1.0 oz US Goldings 20 min

IBU: 45



Fermentation Temp: I will have to check my basement, but probably 66-69 degrees.



Yeast: Leaning towards Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

With a 3.5L starter



Other: I may end up splitting this into 2 different batches for bulk aging, I have 3.5oz of Hawaiian-grown cocoa nibs, and planning on using bourbon-soaked oak chips as well, possibly some toasted coconut in half.



I am concerned about hitting my target efficiency. If I don't, I may end up pitching something like San Diego Super Yeast to try and get the FG down. I was planning on staying in primary for 2 weeks and then transferring to secondary for bulk aging, 2-4 weeks. I am also concerned about bottling as 2 of my friends didn't achieve carbonation.

Made a recipe very similar to this a few days ago, except with some Munich and no carafa.

8 lbs domestic pale malt
3 lbs Munich malt
2 lbs quick oats
1.5 lbs briess chocolate
1 lb English crystal 50/60
.75 lb roasted barley

.65 oz magnum (90)
1 oz northern brewer (30)
1 oz northern brewer (10)

Mashed high at 158 because I want a sweeter stout to facilitate some coffee or cocoa nibs. I usually get great efficiency, around 85+%, but ended up only 1.070... not sure the deal.

Used a big slurry of San Diego super yeast into a 1.5L starter.

Will report back.

 

[jan_b19]

"Slightly malty but not especially sweet."

It will be very malty due to the amount of pale malt alone. I'd get rid of the crystal malt and increase the IBUs to at least 80 to balance it out. Note on IBUs... with such a big beer you need plenty of them even to bring it to a balance; and, secondly, most calculators overstate the achieved IBUs by quite a bit at least in a home brew setup (i.e., if you aim at 80 you might get an actual 55).

I wouldn't remove the crystal. It should balance the flavor of the beer and the bitterness of the roast grains. And because the IBU should go up to about 80-85 as you said I think the crystal will help even more. I would reduce the amount of chocolate and roasted barley slightly.

 

[jan_b19]

You will need a high efficiency to get to a 1.100 OG.
I would consider adding more hops maybe some aroma hops as well.
Like i said above, I wouldn't remove the crystal because it will balance the beer.

This beer will be absolutely black, but that's a good thing.

 

[bigplunkett]

It eill be crazy hard yo get to 1.1 biab. Id cut done 2row for mo. And switch c2 for midnight wheat. Jmo between the chocolate and roadted barley id try to keep the acrid taste out asmuch as possible. You could always go old school and add some brown wn malt as well.

 

[JKaranka]

3-4lb of brown malt and no crystal malt is always a winner

 

[Dan_K]

I've been doing some thinking and I believe this is where I'm out now.

9.0# 2-row (54.5%)
2.0# Munich (12%)
1.75# Rolled Oats (10.6%)
1.25# Chocolate (7.6%)
1.0# Roasted Barley (6.1%)
1.0# Crystal 60 (6.1%)
0.5# Carafa II (or Midnight Wheat) (3.0%)
0.25# Honey Malt (1.5%)

OG: 1.088
FG: 1.018
ABV 9.1%

90 min boil
2.0 ounces Magnum at 60 minutes, (or a hopshot)

Yeast: White Labs San Diego Super Yeast

Also, it's been crazy warm and my basement is way too hot right now ... hope the temps come down soon.

Starting to wonder if I really need the Carafa II, but I do hope it will increase the roasted/coffee flavors in the beer while having a lower amount of bitterness than the chocolate and roasted.

Carbonation: Current plan is to pitch a slurry of SA-04 and priming sugar at bottling. And stir well because I've been having inconsistent results with carbonation.

 

[bigplunkett]

Looks good. If i rember chocolate is the most bitter of the dark malts.

 

[Dan_K]

Looks good. If i rember chocolate is the most bitter of the dark malts.

Yeah, that's true and I've been contemplating reducing the amount of chocolate malt and/or replacing much of it with pale chocolate malt as well. I've been seeing the word "astringent" used a lot with heavy chocolate malt use and I'd like to avoid that. I'm seeing a lot of folks using MORE roasted barley than chocolate malt. I'm buying my grains tonight so we'll see what I end up with.

 

[jan_b19]

Just switch the amounts of chocolate and roasted barley if you' re worried about bitterness, but I think it's not necessary to be honest.

 

[Dan_K]

I finally brewed this. No telling how well it turned out, yet.

11 lbs American Pale 2-row
2 lbs Munich Malt
1.75 lbs Rolled Oats
1.5 lbs UK - Pale Chocolate
1 lb American Crystal 60
1 lb American Roasted Barley
1 lb Flaked Barley
0.5 lb German Carafa II
Hops: 2oz Magnum (12.3% AA) 60 min
0.2 oz Warrior (16.0% AA) 40 min
Wyeast 1056 American Ale (3L starter)

I planning on transferring to secondary, eventually. I have a cocoa nib / bourbon tincture steeping right now, I try and swirl it once a day- will make sure and skim the fat before it hits my beer.