Imperial Stout Double-W Imperial Stout

[bolus14]

Forgot to post this on brew day. I initially forgot to put my blowoff tube on so did 4 hours after pitching. When I began getting my sanitizer and tubing in place I heard bubbling from the airlock. I just thought there was no way it took off in 4 hours, so I took a peek:

 

[bolus14]

Primary fermentation seems to have stopped, actually haven't seen or heard any airlock bubbling since around 48 hours after pitching yeast. Like I said though, it was active within 3 or 4 hours after pitching and gargling in blowoff bucket was crazy for a good 24 hours.

I only ended up getting about 2 inches of krausen from what I can see through the bucket, I have yet to get much with WLP002. I'm going to wait to pull a hydro sample until this weekend or early next week to make sure the yeast didn't stall out but from my experience and other threads it seems normal for this strain to chew through wort very quickly then take some time to drop the final few gravity points and clear up.

I'm in no hurry for this to finish so unless it's stuck it will just sit for 4 - 6 weeks, then get bottles and sit till around Thanksgiving. Gotta love the waiting game.

 

[bobo31]

Mine was in the primary for 2 weeks and ended at 1.030. O.G. was 1.093. Tasted fantastic, very chocolatey, although I wish it had a little more bittering hops to it to balance the sweetness more but maybe it will balance out more with age. Either way still very yummy. Racking to Secondary tonight.

 

[bolus14]

Checked the gravity and tasted the sample yesterday. After a week its at 1.033, I'm hoping for another 5 points or so to end at around 8% ABV.
Sample didn't have a strong taste of anything but that could be because I tasted some of my pumpkin saison right before. Also, only being a week old I wasn't expecting much because its so early. I was expecting some roasty character from it and didn't get that, any body else experience that this early?

 

[motobrewer]

You really can't judge this beer until about month 6.

 

[bolus14]

I tasted again and its tasting good. Can tell it needs time to come together, but the Saison I tasted before the first time definitely overpowered this. I plan to start cracking these open a around Thanksgiving which will only be about 3 months.

 

[bolus14]

Checked the gravity this morning and it's at 1.030/1.029 was kind of hard to tell. Taste is pretty boozy with some chocolate on the back end at this point, I expect the booziness will mellow out with some time. Going to give it another 2 or 3 weeks in the fermenter then I'll bottle and let those carbonate and condition until Thanksgiving before opening any.

 

[motobrewer]

My experience is 2-3 months is better

 

[bolus14]

Yea. Thanksgiving will pretty much be the three months mark from brew day.

 

[KIAKillerXJ]

Just had a 2+ year bottle. Still delicious!

 

[bolus14]

I have had this fermenting since 8/17, just over 6 weeks and added a vanilla bean about 2 weeks ago. Before adding the bean I got some roast in the back of the taste, after adding the bean the roast is good. Anybody have any idea why, or is it possible I'm just getting different parts of the fermentation and it's still coming together?

 

[46binder]

I split this into a two day brew. Mashed last night, two sparges. Mashed with 5 gallons, first sparge 3 gallons, second 2 gallons. I got 7 gallons wort. Boiled 2 hours today, got 5 gallons on the nose, and an og of 1.106, pretty close. I was worried when some were saying they had poor efficiency with such a big beer. Looking forward to it.

 

[bolus14]

I'm starting to see why most of you have said this is better after 3 months or longer. I'm about a week and a half from 2 months and it's starting to come together, but still very green. The roastiness comes through after swallowing, upfront it's sweet more so than most cream stouts I would say, then some milk chocolate and dark fruit, raisin/plum (Special B fruits) notes, then some dark chocolate in the back.

I'm hoping after another month the roast comes through, I've usually seen the Special B character mellow with time, and with over 1/2 lbs of that grain I can see it taking a bit to settle down. If the black barley roastiness come through more this is a perfect brew, only wish I would've hit the OG, I will almost certainly be brewing this again!

 

[tellyho]

I find that the roasty / chocolatey aspects of this beer tend to recede over time. At about a year, it tastes a lot like Old Rasputin.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[BeastMaster]

So, adding a pound of rice hulls to this was a bad idea... It was going to be a close call with my 10 gallon mash tun to begin with. Oh well. Currently mashing in at 156F with about a 1.15:1 qts of water to lb grain ratio.

 

[bobo31]

r2eng I have to thank you not only for this recipe but for helping me improve my efficiency. I followed your double batch sparge technique on my latest big stout and pulled off a MUCH better efficiency after my first two big stout attempts being a lame missing on O.G. Thank you.

 

[Devilsnight]

Bubbling away. I only hit 1.106 should have boiled a little longer maybe. Ended up with 2.5 gal exactly which was what I was shooting for at least. Will see how it tastes come february.

 

[46binder]

Just got done transferring to secondary. Gravity reading of 1.02, lower than supposed to be? Either way, tasted the sample and its amazing! Maybe slightly biased since I brewed it, and I love RIS's.

 

[46binder]

Did an abv calc, I got 11.29% wow!

 

[r2eng]

You guys are killing me. I need to brew this one again.

Heading to the lhbs tomorrow. I need this for the cold winter.

 

[fleabagmatt]

Arise! I had a go at this yesterday, Aside from having my first boilover, it went reasonably well.

I missed my mash temps slightly, hit 153 instead of 156.

I was set up to do a 90 minute boil, but my preboil volume was a bit high and my SG was a bit low, so I added an extra 15 minutes. OG ended up at 1.110 and just over 5.5 gallons in the fermenter, I pitched onto a yeast cake of US-05 from and IPA that I moved to secondary for dry hopping and within a couple hours it was bubbling into the blowoff tube pretty heartily.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes out, it's my first big beer.

 

[motobrewer]

I just had one last night that I brewed in 2011.

 

[TrustyOlJohnson]

I just had one last night that I brewed in 2011.

How did the aging affect the beer?

 

[motobrewer]

I haven't had one in a long time so I really can't compare but the beer last night was pretty fantastic

 

[tellyho]

Just need to add another plug for the the recipe. On my third annual brew. It's my go-to RIS.

 

[tellyho]

Moving to top of my subscribed page

 

[Shenanigans]

Thanks for bumping. First time I saw this recipe after more than 3 years on here.
Maybe it's in the 35 odd pages but is it worth investing in the Maris Otter or does it turn out fine with normal pale ale malt? Also for the black barley can I just use roasted barley instead?
Thanks!

 

[tellyho]

Never brewed with 2 row, so unsure on that count. I sub roasted barley for sure. This is my go-to yearly RIS.

 

[Shenanigans]

Never brewed with 2 row, so unsure on that count. I sub roasted barley for sure. This is my go-to yearly RIS.

Cool thanks.

I'm going to brew a Yeti clone as my first RIS but was also interested in this one as I have a lot of Nugget and Willamette I would like to use up.

I think with all the roasted malt in there it might be hard to taste the Maris Otter which costs about 1/3 more than the German/Belgian pale ale malt I usually use but maybe I am wrong.

 

[bolus14]

I would say go with whatever base grain you want. As you stated there's enough roasted and caramel malt in this that I don't think the base is going to make a noticeable difference.