Imperial stout/Belgian Impy

[dirty_martini]

This should be fun...ive never brewed up an imperial stout and I meant to only do a half batch...but when I started getting the dark grains at the store, I accidentally added the full amount. So I had to do 5 gals. So why not split them between 2 yeasts and have fun with it. Heres the recipe:

65% efficiency (im guessing...im mashing right now)
OG - 1.096
FG - 1.022
ABV - 10%
IBU - 74

mash@150
14lb 2-row
3lb Wheat
1lb crystal 80
1lb chocolate malt
.5lb roasted barley
.5lb debittered carafa III
1lb D2 belgian candi syrup

60min summit 18%AA 1oz
30min summit .5oz
15min athanum 5.5%AA 1oz

Split batch in half. ferment half with s-04 and half with slurry of wyeast 3942 belgian wheat (supposedly the de dolle yeast)

I added 3grams of baking soda and 2grams of chalk to get the mash pH right around 5.4

Since De Dolle has their belgian export stout that almost tastes like a roasty quad, Im hoping this turns out nicely. s-04 is my go to yeast and Ive used it on barleywines and pretty much anything non-belgian so I imagine it will be fine.

Im going to ferment both at 68, but Ill let the belgian yeast free rise after the first day to whatever it needs to to finish. For my quad it got up to about 73 and was really nice with lots of fig, date, plum, and rum notes...I wonder how it will do with the roasted grains.

 

[dirty_martini]

not that anybody cared, since there were no replies (at least not ones that they deleted themselves), I will just post an update in case people think about doing something similar. My efficiency was a little better than I thought. OG was 1.102. The different yeasts have had different results though

S-04. One week in and pretty much all flocced out. FG - 1.028 I may try to rouse the yeast a little to try and get a few more points. Im actually quite surprised to only get 72% attenuation considering I regularly get 80%+ with this yeast. Its at 9.75%alc so it may have just crapped out. If it did, thats fine. The body is nice and its pretty tasty. Chocolatey, espresso, maybe some berry notes like currants or cherry in the background. If I could get it down to 1.026 it would make it an even 10%. Maybe if it sits a little longer it might finish up. Im pretty excited for this.

wyeast 3942 belgian wheat - my go to belgian yeast tore through it. FG is at 1.022 leaving me at 10.5%alc. This one has a little more heat and fusels to it than the other one. It will probably need more time to be drinkable. Granted, Im trying two 10ish% beers a week after brewing them, they will both need time. This one however has some nice dark fruit notes. Date and fig especially. The chocolate is more of a sweeter chocolate than the s-04, probably just due to the extra fruit Im picking up. Less espresso/coffee notes but more of a true roasted flavor. Not acrid or ashy, just the soft burnt note like you get when you overcook something a little. The fusels are little tougher to get around, but its still super young. Im sure it will clean itself up in time. Ive had commercial examples with more heat.