Recipe Critique: Imperial Stout

[JstnMoyer]

With the seasons changing, I am set to have my first go at brewing one of my favorite styles: Russian Imperial Stout. This will also be my first attempt at BIAB so my first full mash. I have an 8 gallon kettle so I have to supplement with LME after mashing.

The recipe:

6 lb Maris Otter + 6.5 lb Maris Otter LME = 71.4%
1 lb (4.8%) flaked oats
1.5 lb (7.1%) roasted barley
1 lb (4.8%) chocolate malt
.5 lb (2.4%) pale chocolate malt
.5 lb (2.4%) crystal 80L
.5 lb (2.4%) crystal 40L

1 lb (4.8%) D-90 Belgian Candi sugar

The crystal malts are packaged together. .5 lb Pale chocolate is packaged with .5 lb of roasted barley. Everything else (including the other 1 lb of roasted barley) is packaged separately.

1 oz Simcoe @ 60 min
1.5 oz EKG @ 60 min
.5 oz EKG @ flame out

2 packs WLP013 London Ale yeast

OG: 1.1
FG: 1.030
ABV: 9.1%
IBU: 47

Mash @ 156°F for 60 min in 7.25 gallons (BIAB).
Using PH strips and baking powder to keep mash pH at 5.4(???)
After mash, add LME and Candi sugar
Boil for 90 min, add hops, wirlfloc, and yeast nutrient.

SG of beer without the LME would be 1.050. This is important since this will likely max out my 8 gallon kettle.

I want to keep fermentation management simple since I don't have a ferm chamber: Ferment in primary for 21 days at 68°F then bottle. If this will be detrimental based on your experience, I'd like to hear about it.

I have oak chips that will soak in bourbon and added around day 10 in in the primary.

I'm still debating racking to secondary for a couple weeks before bottling. Need to know if it's worth it.

My goal is to achieve a nice roasty stout without being too acrid/bitter form the roast malts that is on the chewy side. I want to get flavor notes of dark roast coffee, dark fruit, bittersweet chocolate, and oak. London ale yeast will provide welcomed yeast flavor characteristics like oak esters.

Right now, I am wondering if I should hold back on some of my roasted malts. I've read that 10-12% of roasted malts is a good guide for RIS. Including the pale chocolate, my roasted malt percentage is at 21.6%.

Let me know if there are any red flags here and of you have any recommendations. Thanks for reading.

 

[kevin58]

I made mine about 2 months ago. https://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/2581876/1848-barclay-perkins-ibst (ignore the double entries for yeast nutrient and yeast)
I let it ferment in primary for 3 to 4 weeks and then transferred directly to a corny keg where it has been conditioning happily in my keezer ever since. I don't plan on tapping it until December but I drew a sample earlier this week and it is wonderfully roasty, malty, rich and warm. No acridness at all but I didn't use any roasted malts or crystal malt. The recipe is based on the original IBst brewed in 1848 by Barclay Perkins in London.

 

[JstnMoyer]

I made mine about 2 months ago. https://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/2581876/1848-barclay-perkins-ibst (ignore the double entries for yeast nutrient and yeast)
I let it ferment in primary for 3 to 4 weeks and then transferred directly to a corny keg where it has been conditioning happily in my keezer ever since. I don't plan on tapping it until December but I drew a sample earlier this week and it is wonderfully roasty, malty, rich and warm. No acridness at all but I didn't use any roasted malts or crystal malt. The recipe is based on the original IBst brewed in 1848 by Barclay Perkins in London.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing. Interesting that this original RIS doesn't include roasted malts. I'm curious about how the taste would differ from a recipe that does.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing. Interesting that this original RIS doesn't include roasted malts. I'm curious about how the taste would differ from a recipe that does.

Without roast grains it would taste like a proper RIS....

To be fair, there is some historical precedent, the Courage/Barclay Perkins original did use ~11% roast barley for a while after WWI.

 

[kevin58]

Here is a 1941 version that does include roasted barley. Also note how the war has affected the gravity. It would not rebound to its previous strength until 4 years after the war ended. http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2019/10/lets-brew-wednesday-1941-barclay.html