Russian Imperial Stout Recipe Critique

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DZzero15

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Would love thoughts on the below draft recipe--especially thoughts on adding sugar, the hoping schedule, and the mash temp. Many thanks!

Recipe Type: Partial Grain
Yeast: WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast
Yeast Starter: Yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.25
Original Gravity: 1.10
Final Gravity: 1.030
IBU: 70
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 62 SRM

Flaked Barley 1.5#
Munich Malt 3#
Crystal 60L .5#
Special B 1#
Black Patent Malt 1.5#
Chocolate Malt .5#
Pale Chocolate Malt .5#
DME (light) 6#
Brown Sugar 2#

Mash for 90 minutes at 153 degrees.

60min 1.5 Northern Brewer (8.7% AA)
30 1 oz Northern Brewer
15 1 oz Northern Brewer, Cascade (6.3%), Centennial
 
151 oz of Northern Brewer is a tad excessive. Even for a RIS.

Tis' a lot of roast.
 
4 lbs of speciality malts will leave it very sweet.

You can't mash that, there is very little diastatic power. The only contributor is the Munich; you have roughly 120 diastatic units for 8.5 lbs of grain, this will give you less than 15 per lb. I aim for a minimum of 40 to ensure complete conversion in a reasonable time. You can do it with 30, but you will have to mash for a long time.

I hope you like the acrid flavor of Black Patent, you have a lot of it. I personally don't like it.

For a 1.100 beer, I think I would mash lower. Especially since you have 6 lbs of extract.

I have no problem with the sugar, but some might since it contributes about 18% of the fermentables.
 
Thanks! I think I may have misread Jamil's recipe which I based this one around. I took "black roasted barley" to mean black patent--after reading more it looks like there is a pretty big difference. I guess black roasted barley is unmalted which makes it less acrid so I'll go with that. Do you think black patent contributes anything worthwhile?

For the diastatic units you calculated, why didn't you include the extract? I also got sugar contributing 12% of the fermentables. I added the sugar to help dry out the beer since I know these can have trouble fermenting out. I'm hoping using wlp007 will help--I've had great success with it. I also plan to hit it for 2mins with oxygen.

Do you think it will still be pretty sweet and maybe I should balance it out with more hops? I'm at 70 IBUS. I'm hoping to put this one down for a few years so I can definitely wait for everything to mellow.
 
151 oz of northern brewer would be something... I'm hoping 1.5oz is ok. I came out to 70 IBUs.
 
Depends on when you plan on drinking this (in regards to hopping rates). If you plan on consuming all within 6 months, then the 70 IBU is close. I might target 75. If you plan on aging some, I would up it to the 85-90 IBU range as the bitterness really fades over time, but the sweetness comes forward as the roast also fades.

1.5 lbs of roasted barley sounds fine, but I agree 1.5 lbs of black patent is too much. I prefer RB in all types of stouts myself. 1 lb of Special B is quite a bit, I might suggest only going 8 oz there. Its going to be pretty sweet anyway with the realtively high FG.

Agree with Calder in that Munich will not convert all of those specialty grains. Maybe go 1 - 1.5 lb of Munich and the balance Maris Otter or Pale Ale malt.

Pitch a crap load of yeast for this bugger to avoid a stuck ferment, and make sure you very slowly ramp temps to keep them munching. You might even consider using the top 1/2 to 2/3 yeast cake from a previous brew to make sure you have a lot of yeast ready to go.
 
I think that makes sense. I'll up the bittering addition to get closer to 80--I want to enjoy this one for a few years.

I'll cut back on the Special B malt. I'm hoping for 70% attenuation given I've gotten close to 80% with WLP007 under normal conditions.

It should be easy to sub out some Munich malt for Maris Otter which is my brewhouse grain. It may have been a mistake to treat it more like a base malt in this application. I was really looking to add another "layer" of flavor with Munich which I probably don't need.

I am definitely going to make a massive starter using a stir plate--stepping it up several times. I like the idea of upping the temperature--I've had success using this technique with my tripels, so why not with RIS? I've also considered maybe hitting it with more 02 or yeast energizer a few days in like I would with a mead, but I'm on the fence.
 
Thanks for everyone's input. The big changes were adding 6-row for diastatic power, upping the bittering addition to get 80 IBUs, reducing Special B by 1/2 a lb, and realizing my mistake confusing "black roasted barley" with "black patent." If anyone has thoughts on my hop selection, I'd much appreciate it--I was inspired by Tasty McDole's brown ale which I brew regularly:

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/beer-recipe-of-the-week-janets-brown-ale/

I found a neat talk Chris White gave recommending an 02 addition during the first 12hrs of fermenting a high gravity beer. So I think I'll give it a shot if I don't see any krausen. Check it out here around 34 minutes:

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/e/1/9/e19554...1ce3dae902ea1d06ca8335d6cc5e3703&c_id=1452615

Here's my revised recipe--thanks again.

Recipe Type: Partial Grain
Yeast: WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast
Yeast Starter: Yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.25
Original Gravity: 1.10
Final Gravity: 1.030 to 1.026 (Hoping for 75% attenuation)
IBU: 80
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 62 SRM

6-Row 3# (For diastatic power)
Flaked Barley 1.5#
Munich Malt 1#
Crystal 60L .5#
Special B .5#
Black Roasted Barley 1.5#
Chocolate Malt .5#
Pale Chocolate Malt .5#
DME (light) 6#
Brown Sugar 2#

Mash for 90 minutes at 150 degrees.

60min 2 oz Northern Brewer (8.7% AA)
30 1 oz Northern Brewer
15 1 oz Northern Brewer, Cascade (6.3%), Centennial
 
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