Help with thick high abv imperial stout

[LagerThanLife]

Dear friends,
Only brewed with kits so far, thought i would ask the more experienced.

Want to recreate tempest mexicake imperial stout, but hopefully a bit thicker and more complex - from their website

...Rich, boozy imperial stout infused with vanilla beans, cocoa, cinnamon, chipotle and mulato chiles."
HOPS: NORTH AMERICAN, COLUMBUS
MALTS: GOLDEN PROMISE, CHOCOLATE, CARAMEL
OTHER: CINNAMON, VANILLA BEANS, COCOA, MULATO CHILLIES, CHIPOTLE
ABV: 10%


Does this recipe seem reasonable, hoping to clock in at 12ish abv for BIAB? Aiming for 30L, but will work with whatever my pressing the grain to drain inventiveness results in.
Using Wyeast 1728
10kg maris otter
750g chocolate malt
750g flaked oats
750g roasted barley
500g crystal 120
200g smoked beech malt
100g black patent malt
100g cocoa powder
300g fuggles 60min
Wyeast 1728

Then when fermentation starts to ease up - add

1.5kg light demerara sugar
400g lactose
300g maltodextrin

my reasoning here is to make it as easy on the yeast as possible at the end, so they dont have to deal with the extra thickness the whole while, and

In secondary add a bourboun tincture of
2 stick cinnamon
50mL vanilla extract (made with same bourbon) + two spent beans (random guess)
35g chipotle peppers
45g ancho peppers
85g cacao nibs
2 small heavy toast oak chips (random guess)

 

[Velnerj]

Maybe a typo but 300g of hops is probably too much even with the high gravity of this beer.... You'll be fine with a tenth of that - 30g but could do 60g or even 90g if you want to go a bit crazy....

My second piece of advice that most new brewers never heed.... Don't make this beer your first all grain beer. Try to make something a bit more simple and then tweek that into the mammoth beer you're planning here. Try to make a nice rich (normal) stout then build on that.

 

[DuncB]

Agreed you're going for rocket science.
Start with a firework.

If I was going for such a big beer so many details to get right.
How do I get a big healthy yeast pitch?
How do I make an eight litre starter?
How do I oxygenate this brew?

Do I want to wait a year plus to see if this is a good beer?

Do I have a partigyle that I can do with my very poor efficiency from this mash?

I'd go dry stout first of about 4% then you have either a big starter or yeast to start another brew.

 

[An Ankoù]

I didn't think 300g of fuggles was too much for 30 litres; fuggles are often only about 4.5% alpha acid and the utilisation will be reduced due to the high gravity wort. But I shudder at making 30 litres of the stuff. Thats a big brew and you'll end up with 90 33s. Thats a lot of sipping-beer.

 

[AlexKay]

By the time I’d brewed a dozen beers, almost everything I made was drinkable, if not good.

Why “almost?” Because now that I’ve brewed several hundred beers, I still screw up about half the beers I add flavoring (chocolate, spices, whatever) to.

Or potatoes. My kartoffelbiere have been dumpers.

 

[InspectorJon]

You might want to look through these threads:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/a-tribute-to-hunahpu.406876/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/stone-xocoveza-mocha-stout.492778/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/mexican-cake-clone-info-directly-from-westbrook-brewery.556380/

Also search for threads on “stuck fermentation”. I don’t don’t recommend adding the lactose or maltodextrin until packaging time. Try the beer first. It is likely to be pretty thick and sweet without it. Getting a big beer like that to ferment dry is hard to do.

 

[Willy]

Have you sampled and checked what the current gravity is? (How much has fermented already). And changes a day later (stuck, and where on the expected OG to FG

Usually just pitch more yeast if I need to.

Would also suggest using a touch of LME or DME for some of the higher gravity batches. You will get the benefit of grains doing 75% of the grain bill. The late boil additions of LME/DME can make it easier than wrangling a massive ball of wet grain.

 

[DuncB]

The Thomas hardy barley wine clone, of @ronpatto
Using Wlp099 ferments from 1.127 to about 1.045 and then with several pitches into secondary of fresh yeast over the next few months was 1.028 at packaging.

 

[G_robertus]

Have you used all grain kits before? If so, you could potentially tackle a beer like this. More experience is not bad, but I did one early in as well. You'll learn from it. I did do extensive research beforehand though.

First of, maybe decrease your batch size. This is a lot of strong ale that takes up space while it conditions and then you'd have to finish it all. That is assuming everything goes well, so before you spend big on a beer like this try it in a smaller batch. This amount of grain is also hard to handle, so you may want to see whether this will fit and whether you can even physically lift the bag. Depending on your drainage it will weigh between 26 kg and 40+ kg, with 26 kg being "drained".

Second you have a lot of roast. It's not necessarily bad (I do the same), but keep in mind it will take a while before it tastes right. Your black malt won't do much with this much other roast. You could do equal parts chocolate, black and RB or do some other combination. You don't need enormous amounts, but you can increase the ratio a bit. Same with smoked malt, I think it might get drowned out by the rest. It also potentially clashes with some of the other stuff. Peat malt you would taste, but that definitely doesn't fit. You can add some extra toast or crystal if you want, but you don't have to. Don't use low colour crystal though.

Regarding adjuncts, don't. They're conflicting. To me it's way too much lactose. You're increasing alcohol without adding body by using sugar, but you're adding lactose and malto later. Yes the sugar adds flavour, but this seems excessive. I'd go for half at most. If you want body, consider wheat and rye together with high FG. Oats are mostly slick to me, rye especially packs a punch in that department.

Add all the flavourings after fermentation, that way you can adjust to taste. You might not want or need those. I'd make separate tinctures so you can adjust each variable independently. Two sticks of cinnamon can be very overpowering.