Stout Darker and Smoother

[fromhereon]

I was hoping someone could give me some pointers here. I have been working on a recipe for a Russian Imperial Stout. First I should tell you I have been using Stones Russian Imperial stout as kind of an example of what I want my beer to be like. Very Very Dark/ Strong But Still pretty smooth.

Anyway I have gotten to the point where the beer is getting strong enough but Its becoming to harsh. It has a strong astringent bitterness to it. I assume this is from the Black Malt and Roasted Barley But I dont really want to cut them back because as it is right now I really wouldnt mind it being a little stronger. (Right now I'm at 1lb of Black Malt and 1lb of Roasted Barley for a 5 gallon Batch)

So basically I'm wondering how I can get a stronger bolder flavor without this harshness.
For example:
-Will debittered malt make a big differance
-Do You think it would make a big differance if I added a bunch of more lightly roasted grains to the grist.

Thanks in advance. Im pretty much stumped here.
-Dan

 

[Clonefarmer]

I was hoping someone could give me some pointers here. I have been working on a recipe for a Russian Imperial Stout. First I should tell you I have been using Stones Russian Imperial stout as kind of an example of what I want my beer to be like. Very Very Dark/ Strong But Still pretty smooth.

Anyway I have gotten to the point where the beer is getting strong enough but Its becoming to harsh. It has a strong astringent bitterness to it. I assume this is from the Black Malt and Roasted Barley But I dont really want to cut them back because as it is right now I really wouldnt mind it being a little stronger. (Right now I'm at 1lb of Black Malt and 1lb of Roasted Barley for a 5 gallon Batch)

So basically I'm wondering how I can get a stronger bolder flavor without this harshness.
For example:
-Will debittered malt make a big differance
-Do You think it would make a big differance if I added a bunch of more lightly roasted grains to the grist.

Thanks in advance. Im pretty much stumped here.
-Dan

Two pounds of dark malt is quite a bit for a 5 gallon batch. It's hard to use so much dark malt without getting too bitter and astringent. You could cut back a bit on the black patent and add some chocolate malt and debittered Carafa.

 

[fromhereon]

Ok. Ill Try that. Thanks a lot. Also Do you Think it would make a differance using debittered Black malt as well

 

[Clonefarmer]

Ok. Ill Try that. Thanks a lot. Also Do you Think it would make a differance using debittered Black malt as well

I'm not familiar with debittered black malt, but if it's like debittered Carafa it should.

 

[pkeeler]

Once you pass a certain darkness, it really doesn't matter how far more you go does it? I would think you are far past the line where you could make the beer noticeably darker. You could probably use some 60L caramel for some of the roast barley and still have a very very dark beer, maybe not so much coffee astringency.

How is your BU:GU ratio? Is it possible that the bitterness is from hops and not from the roasted malts?

 

[fromhereon]

The ibu's are at about 85 and the fg is at 1.018. I thought the IBUs seemed a little high but Stone has an a bitterness of over 90. Plus tasting it I can tell its not a hope bitterness. Its more of an metalic harshness. Its hard to describe But I could see it getting worse as I added more roasted grains. The first batch we did was pretty week, still had 85 IBUs and it wasnt harsh.

 

[pkeeler]

Is the bitterness on the front of the tongue or back?

What is the OG? Do you know Stone's OG?

 

[fromhereon]

The Bitterness is on the back of the tongue, but again I don't know if I should really call it a bitterness. The OG was 1.07 with a FG of 1.018. I'm not sure what stones is. But I would say theirs still has a bolder flavor even though it is much smoother.

 

[pkeeler]

A quick google of a stone's clone seems to suggest their beer starts much higher and has more alcohol. However, in relation to the amount of malt, the bitterness is less than your recipe. I think you would get closer keeping your IBUs around 70, if your OG is 1.070. This is a BU:GU ratio of 1.0, which is the same for Stone's (which has 100 IBUs for 100 OG).

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/stoneface-russian-imperial-stout-26710/