Imperial Stout Russian Imperial Stout (2011 HBT Competition Category Winner)

[Still_dreamin]

Ok. So your recommendation is to mash the full 7.75G volume, and then sparge whatever is needed to make up a ~8G preboil volume. That's how I usually brew but with a beer this big I was looking for confirmation from someone who had brewed it already. Thanks for your feedback! Much appreciated!

 

[Puddlethumper]

I'm thinking about brewing this but am unsure on mash/sparge volumes.

Can anybody fill me in on their specifics when brewing this? How much mash water? How much sparge water? Thanks!

I pulled up my notes from last summer and here's what I wrote at the time, "Due to large volume of grain and size of mash tun I chose to just use as much water as needed to properly wet the grain." I did not note exactly how much water I actually used.

I usually wait and figure sparge water volume based on the amount of wort in the boil kettle after draining off the mash. This one threw me off as I noted that I overshot my sparge water and ended up with 8 gals. in the boil kettle. I boiled that down to 7 gal. before adding hops and starting the actual "boil".

SG was 1.084 and ended up with ABV at 8.93%. Very complex, delicious beer.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Ok. So your recommendation is to mash the full 7.75G volume, and then sparge whatever is needed to make up a ~8G preboil volume. That's how I usually brew but with a beer this big I was looking for confirmation from someone who had brewed it already. Thanks for your feedback! Much appreciated!

We brewed this on 12/10. The mash-in was a high 1.5:1 (7.75 gallons). Even so it was still a fairly dense mash. Fly sparged, (bar), another 3.5 gallons in. Lost 4.1 gallons total. Ended with 7.15 gallons at boil.

 

[JohnP24]

Brewed this on 7/20/2013 and aged in keg until 2/2/2014 for the Superbowl. Everyone liked this beer! Very mellow flavor. Only one person thought it was bitter and he was drinking my Sweet Stout prior to tasting this beer.

I will brew this one again very soon and let it age until next winter...hopefully we can resist drinking it that long.

 

[Shenanigans]

I want to brew this the weekened after next.
I'm going to use Target hops for bittering as I have 1/2 a LB here and a S04 yeat cake from another beer.
I'm also going to up the grain bill and just do and drain without sparging so that there will be enough sugars left for a second 5 gallon batch.

Has anyone actually done a partigyle/second runnings beer from this brew?
What type of beer did you brew?

I was thinking about capping it with 1/2 a pound of chocolate malt and then hopping it with styrian goldings and fuggels. Maybe keep some of the S04 yeast cake for it too or else a new pack of Windsor. Possibly add some honey depending on the OG.

Will probably be quite similar to the RIS, just a lot weaker.
If any of you have suggestions for something different I would love to hear it.

 

[mbobhat]

Has anyone actually done a partigyle/second runnings beer from this brew?
What type of beer did you brew?

I still have both higher alcohol beers in carboys and i need to bottle them, I did a partigyle with this early in december. I used exact recipe but tweaked the amounts a little due to partigyle. I'm not sure if it is correct or not. The third runnings I made a mild that I bottled after a week. OG 1.040. I added some extra 1/2 lb crystal and 1/2 chocolate malt before third runnings. It started out a little bit weak but the chocolate malt really is making this better and better every day in the bottle. Not overly sweet though, because of the lower mash temp around 152ish.

So I used a crapton of grain, somewhere around 30lbs pale malt, another6-7 lbs specialty. You can do it smaller of course. I had to use my old huge cooler and I kind of messed up the drain so that was a pain with slow draining.

For the specialty grains I upped the amounts with an educated guess that about 2/3 of it will come through first, so I think I upped it by x1.5 or so. Like I said my recipe was the same except I tried to match the partigyle which for me came out to.

8.8% Roasted Barley
5.1% chocolate
5.6% special B
2.5% carapils
Dry yeast S-04 (you got enough to worry about)

Now the Third runnings had a bit of roastiness but mostly choc malt. So I'm hoping my RB was not too high. I think with age it will get better anyways, which is why I thought this would be a good one to try for the first time.

Oh and second runnings I did a chocolate porter (added cocoa to the flameout) I tasted it when I transferred to secondary and the chocolate cocoa powder was messing with my taste buds, but other wise I think with clearing up it will be very nice and subtle. BOTH smelled AMAZING coming out of the airlock.

Lastly, for the runnings part, the first 5 gallons for the RIS was exactly what I was targeting around 1.095. so I just added some top off water and then boiled it back down to concentrate. Took a bit of math and I would suggest using a software to calculate your ibus with your hop additions.

Oh and the best part, the last beer I just boiled 30 minutes with double the Fuggle hops. Then a week later transferred the RIS to the yeast cake of the mild. We'll see how it turns out. The wait continues...

EDIT: Kegged the RIS and bottled the others. The RIS I put with some corn sugar in the keg to let it carb up and age some more. It tasted very good, complex, with a slight alcoholic tinge which is probably from the 5 hrs between taking out of ferm chamber and putting in freezing cold garage it was producing so much heat! Blew the top of the ale pail a couple times. I'm hopefully gonna save this until my wedding come September. May transfer to another keg if there is alot of yeast from natural carb.

 

[ChefRex]

I just kegged this a little shy of 6 months, delicious! Finished a little drier at 1.020 but I missed my SG by 10 points.
I'll probable let it sit for another month and tap it around St Paddy's day.

 

[Shenanigans]

I still have both higher alcohol beers in carboys and i need to bottle them, I did a partigyle with this early in december. I used exact recipe but tweaked the amounts a little due to partigyle. I'm not sure if it is correct or not. The third runnings I made a mild that I bottled after a week. OG 1.040. I added some extra 1/2 lb crystal and 1/2 chocolate malt before third runnings. It started out a little bit weak but the chocolate malt really is making this better and better every day in the bottle. Not overly sweet though, because of the lower mash temp around 152ish.

So I used a crapton of grain, somewhere around 30lbs pale malt, another6-7 lbs specialty. You can do it smaller of course. I had to use my old huge cooler and I kind of messed up the drain so that was a pain with slow draining.

For the specialty grains I upped the amounts with an educated guess that about 2/3 of it will come through first, so I think I upped it by x1.5 or so. Like I said my recipe was the same except I tried to match the partigyle which for me came out to.

8.8% Roasted Barley
5.1% chocolate
5.6% special B
2.5% carapils
Dry yeast S-04 (you got enough to worry about)

Now the Third runnings had a bit of roastiness but mostly choc malt. So I'm hoping my RB was not too high. I think with age it will get better anyways, which is why I thought this would be a good one to try for the first time.

Oh and second runnings I did a chocolate porter (added cocoa to the flameout) I tasted it when I transferred to secondary and the chocolate cocoa powder was messing with my taste buds, but other wise I think with clearing up it will be very nice and subtle. BOTH smelled AMAZING coming out of the airlock.

Lastly, for the runnings part, the first 5 gallons for the RIS was exactly what I was targeting around 1.095. so I just added some top off water and then boiled it back down to concentrate. Took a bit of math and I would suggest using a software to calculate your ibus with your hop additions.

Oh and the best part, the last beer I just boiled 30 minutes with double the Fuggle hops. Then a week later transferred the RIS to the yeast cake of the mild. We'll see how it turns out. The wait continues...

Sounds great; 3 runs is probably too much for me though, I'd be more than happy to get a decent second beer.

I've been reading a few different articles and forums and think I will go for an English nut ale similar to what I explained above. Instead of the honey I'm going to do something a bit more traditional and make an inverted sugar syrup form some dark brown sticky 'Basterd' sugar and depending on the OG of the second runnings I'll add anything from the equivalent of 250g to 1Kg of sugar. I'll also use a packet of Windsor yeast because it has a lower attenuation and will hopefully help prevent it getting too dry from the sugar or possible tanins.
I've been using S04 too much recently anyway :cross:

Also depending on the OG I will hop it from 25 to 40 IBUs with Fuggels and Styrian Goldings using a similar schedule to the famous Hobgoblin clone. All my EKG will be gone for the RIS.
Can't wait to get started!:rockin:

 

[mbobhat]

Sounds great. One more thing I would add just a bit of phosphoric acid to your sparges if you are using regular filtered tap or a combo of tap/ distilled. That will help keep the pH down and not extract tannins. You won't be dissapointed with this beer and whatever comes out 2nd!

 

[Shenanigans]

Sounds great. One more thing I would add just a bit of phosphoric acid to your sparges if you are using regular filtered tap or a combo of tap/ distilled. That will help keep the pH down and not extract tannins. You won't be dissapointed with this beer and whatever comes out 2nd!

Thanks for the tip but I don’t have any phosphoric acid on hand.
I do however have a few pounds of saurmalz, maybe I’ll throw in ½ a pound when I am capping with the chocolate malt. Never used it before but at only 1 to 2% of the grain bill it shouldn’t do any harm.

 

[Blindnil]

I added a pound of oats and did a partigyle. Turned out great. Chewy session oaty. Room mates loved it (I only had 2 glasses, they raided the kegerator when I was out of town)

 

[jschumacher]

What did you do for the second running of the partigyle? What style?


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[nyrangers955]

Has anyone used WLP001 instead of 002 for this?



Went through all 29 pages of this thread and didnt see anyone who said they've actually used it. I have alot 001 washed and was thinking of trying it. Cant wait to get brewing this one...

 

[Wreck99]

I'm looking to brew this again next week. I made this beer as is by recipe last year. It turned out great, but without any head. Any suggestions on how to correct that? FG was 1.030 when bottling. I did primary for a month and secondary/aging for another 3-4 months before bottling. Should I repitch some yeast at bottling? Add more priming sugar next time?

 

[Sapperaviator]

When I throw this into the calculator I am getting 107.25 IBU's. The Challenger is 6.5 AA and the Goldings are 7.2 AA. What am I doing wrong. Please help

 

[Shenanigans]

Due to other commitments I didn’t get to brew this on the weekend as planned.

Now I’m starting to rethink my hop bill; I don’t have any Challenger and was going to use 3oz of Target which I have ½ a pound of and was wanting to use up. If I look at any of the substitution charts for challenger; Target very rarely turns up as a substitute. I also have read that Target can be quite intense but if I use it for bittering and adjust the amount to give the correct number of IBUs it should be OK?

I also have a lot of Northern Brewer or Nugget I could use but I would prefer to use the Target if possible.

 

[Yaksha808]

I just brewed this today so that I can possibly celebrate my sons first birthday with this... I had a omgomg what did I justdo moment with the preboil gravity measurement...I didnt take into consideration the temp of the sample and freaked myself with how low it was showing(1.035) but after I let the sample cool it was actually at 1.087... now here is the strange part... I took a OG reading.. and it came in at 1.078.... how did it do that?! The temp of the pre boil then it was measured was 68 degrees. The same as the post boil... how in the world does this happen?!

 

[tripplehazzard]

I just brewed this today so that I can possibly celebrate my sons first birthday with this... I had a omgomg what did I justdo moment with the preboil gravity measurement...I didnt take into consideration the temp of the sample and freaked myself with how low it was showing(1.035) but after I let the sample cool it was actually at 1.087... now here is the strange part... I took a OG reading.. and it came in at 1.078.... how did it do that?! The temp of the pre boil then it was measured was 68 degrees. The same as the post boil... how in the world does this happen?!

Im sure you where hoping for a higher og. Maybe you got really low brewhouse efficiency. How was your grain crush? Did your lhbs mill it? I seems you where not too far off. Are you using any brewing software? They have tools for temperature adjustments when taking readings. Are you using a refractomoter or a hydrometer? If using a hydrometer have you ever calibrated it? Sorry so many questions. I just would like to help you hone in. Cheers!! Regardless you made beer ! Congrats! !

Sent from richard simmons' living room

 

[bfinleyui]

Has anyone given this a shot with Conan yeast? A fellow HBTer sent me a vial, and I'm anxious to use it, but I also need to get started on an RIS (a friend is having a baby in 5 months, this is his baby present). I'd ferment low to keep the peach out of it, but wondering if it's going to attenuate too far, leaving it thin?

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Has anyone given this a shot with Conan yeast? A fellow HBTer sent me a vial, and I'm anxious to use it, but I also need to get started on an RIS (a friend is having a baby in 5 months, this is his baby present). I'd ferment low to keep the peach out of it, but wondering if it's going to attenuate too far, leaving it thin?

We used Conan in an English bitters, (Pale), and it had an interesting ester that worked very nicely with the Pale style. I'd describe the character as "fresh stone fruit", almost peachy. I've never tried it in a RIS.

 

[bfinleyui]

We used Conan in an English bitters, (Pale), and it had an interesting ester that worked very nicely with the Pale style. I'd describe the character as "fresh stone fruit", almost peachy. I've never tried it in a RIS.

What temp did you ferment that at? I've heard if you keep it low 60s, you avoid most of the fruit...

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

What temp did you ferment that at? I've heard if you keep it low 60s, you avoid most of the fruit...

That's definitely a pattern with most strains. We haven't tried Conan at cellar temps. We were after the citrusy/peachy esters for the Pale and it did very nicely. Not sure if a slow ferm at lower temps would work for a high ABV like a RIS.

 

[bfinleyui]

Hmm. Well, I'll give it a try and see what happens. Maybe half Conan and half US-04 or something, just to cover all the bases.

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[Wreck99]

Didn't see an answer on this, so figured I'd try to post again as it probably got lost.

I'll be brewing this beer as recipe again this week. I made this beer last year. It turned out great, but without any head. Any suggestions on how to correct that? FG was 1.030 when bottling. I did primary for a month and secondary/aging for another 3-4 months before bottling. Should I repitch some yeast at bottling? Add more priming sugar next time?

 

[Fordzilla]

Anyone ever done this beer and aged it with some bourbon oak chips?

 

[rwagner23]

Anyone ever done this beer and aged it with some bourbon oak chips?

I got five gallons of this sitting on whiskey soaked chips. Well technically, it is my coffee version of this recipe. Samples taste great.

 

[Remmy]

Anyone ever done this beer and aged it with some bourbon oak chips?

No chips. This stout will be going into my oak barrel, though.


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[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Didn't see an answer on this, so figured I'd try to post again as it probably got lost.

I'll be brewing this beer as recipe again this week. I made this beer last year. It turned out great, but without any head. Any suggestions on how to correct that? FG was 1.030 when bottling. I did primary for a month and secondary/aging for another 3-4 months before bottling. Should I repitch some yeast at bottling? Add more priming sugar next time?

Mashing higher, (with good calibrated temp probe), will help with body and head retention. We mash no lower than 154F and mash out at 170F.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

No chips. This stout will be going into my oak barrel, though.


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We'll be investing in four 30 gal oak barrels for Flemish Red and Belgian quad experiments this year. May put one aside for RIS.

 

[Wreck99]

Mashing higher, (with good calibrated temp probe), will help with body and head retention. We mash no lower than 154F and mash out at 170F.

Thanks, I mashed @ 154F this go around. Last batch was done @ 152F.