help with big imperial stout recipe

You've got a lot going on here, and I'd keep it simpler if you are trying to get a few test batches in.

For the recipe:

You've got a lot of different flaked grains. Why not just 1 or 2? I'd cut the flaked wheat and save that for your next APA IPA

I'd add another half pound of RB and nix the lactose. More roast and less sweet is typical for an RIS. The chocolate can stay. You don't need a sweet oaked, cocoaed vanilla frappuccino macchiato. I just threw up a little. If you want to use the lactose, I'd avoid oaking the beer. The lactose is the weakest link here. Up to you. You can also add lactose to a secondary on 1/2 of your beer later.

That's a lot of hops. This might be a good route to go if you were expecting to drink it within a few months of brewing. This would go against the grain of oaking the beer. Oak usually needs a little time to mellow out--especially oak chips. Again, I'd do one or the other. Oak the beer or add a lot of late hops. Otherwise, a 10 or 15 min addition only would suffice.

What kind of yeast are you looking at using for this beast?

Process:

Why boil for 2 hours, when you don't have to?

If you're going over to secondaries to oak etc, just make sure you keep headspace to a minimum. You can add oak, more oak, cocoa and lactose here. I'd let the base beer settle down and age a little, taste it, and act accordingly.

 

I just got fatter reading that FG. Your numbers suggest 67% attenuation, 75% attenuation will get you to 30 which I think is more reasonable estimate. You will probably struggle with attenuation anyway so why the lactose. I would ditch the lactose. I have brewed some monsters OG150 plus that didnt attenuate. You dont want the shits every time you drink one of these trust me.

17% flaked grains is fine. If you want to layer them ok I guess although I would just pick one (oats for myself) and be done with that aspect.

Your roasted grains are weak. 12% sure but most of the percentage comes from a color malt and a low kiln malt. Only 4% divided between RB and BP for flavor should be closer to 10% at least even if you want a mild roast flavor. 15-20% roasted would be more appropriate for an imperial stout.

If you want chocolate flavor consider adding 10% or more Brittish brown malt.

Those late hops may be better used for dry hopping. Bitter to 100IBU for sure.

Never used nibs or vanilla so no help there.

You forgot to add yeast.

 

When people attribute spicy flavors to noble hops and closely related varieties, I find these to be subtly expressed, best perceived on a backdrop of clean malt like a German lager. I would be surprised if you can pick up peppery flavors and aromas from liberty in a stout with>3#s roasted malt and 2#s crystal malt. You also said something about vanilla, which I don't see in the recipe, but would not work well with the hops, IMO.

 

Aerate like a mofo and pitch an appropriate amount of yeast!!!!! That's all I got.

 

I know others will disagree, but I see no point in using Golden Promise in a beer like this, it will be buried under all of the other grains. I would definitely bump up the BP and RB, maybe 5% each or if you are afraid of too much BP then bump the RB up to 7 or 8% and leave the BP at 2%.

I hope you have a way to control fermentation temps.

 

Keep the lactose out IMO...with an expected FG like that, you will already have a very sweet beer. I'd personally adjust some of your base malt and sub in either corn sugar or brown sugar to help drop that FG and dry it out a little so its more drinkable.

I dont really see the need for the Carafa II personally. You already have a robust enough grain bill without that. Was there something specific you were looking from this grain to make you want to keep it in?

If you are looking for a real chocolatey flavor from the cacao nibs, then I'd suggest using more like 8-10 oz in the secondary...2 oz will be practically unnoticeable in a big beer like this one. I usually use around 8-10 oz, but I'm planning on using around a pound of nibs in an Imperial Chocolate Pumpkin Stout I just brewed for more chocolate flavor.

Vanilla beans really bring out the chocolate flavor more than adding vanilla to the beer, IMO. It will add a little vanilla, but the vanilla helps pair the nibs to the grains more than anything for me. Again, 2 beans is on the low end for a 5 gallon batch IMO. I'd up that to at least 3 and maybe 4 or 5 if you are looking for a bigger vanilla and chocolate presence.

Besides that, I think the beer sounds like a winner!

 

^^That, and keep control of the fermentation temperature. These can easily over heat, especially in the first few days.

 

Yeast: Do a yeast starter!!! DO NOT UNDERPITCH YEAST. With a beer this big, it takes a shitload of yeast to bring down your gravity, but more importantly, to clean up and keep this from being a diacetyl bomb.

I brewed a similar stout with OG of 1.104 last weekend. I did not have time to do a yeast starter, so I pitched 3 packs of 1728 based on LHBS recommendation. On a huntch, I got home and MrMalty calculated that I underpitched massively. I had 2 packs of Nottingham that I rehydrated and threw in the fermenter. I took my gravity last night and I was down to 1.034. I think it will get even a little lower, which is fine.

Here were my calculations:
Target Pitch Rate: .75M/mL/P

OG: 1.104 (24.8P)

Volume: 4.85 (18,359 mL)

Therefore: (750,000) x (18,359) x (24.8) = 341,477,400,000 viable cells needed

100B cells per packet at 79% viability (Aug 4th Date) = .79B cells / packet

341,477,400,000/79,000,000,000 = 4.32 packets of yeast
__________________
Actual Pitch Rate:
3 packetsx 100B x .79 viability = 237,000,000,000 cells pitched

237M/18,359mL/24.8P = 520,532 or .52M/mL/P

 

Like others have said, there's a lot here. I personally would just use plain 2-row for base, nix the wheat, (wheat on in a stout?!?) and up the base to compensate.
Other than that, pitch lots of yeast and watch your temps.

 

I would advise against going for as big a beer as this with straight mashing protocol & all-grain...I generally don't go above 1.085 or so straight all-grain. One option you could go for is cut the 2-row in half (agree with wspscott to ditch Golden Promise & use like Canadian or Rahr here) for the mash, then supplement with DME. Second option is to do parti-gyle, then you keep it all-grain and get like a 4gal batch of the Imperial Stout from that grain bill and a second runnings beer. That would be the best use of your time & resources imho.

 

4 packs of 05 should be plenty. Re-oxygenating at 12-18 hours wouldn't be a bad idea, but probably not necessary if you are hitting it with a healthy dose of pure O2 at the beginning. You supposedly don't need to oxygenate with dry yeast, but I imagine it would be best practice in a big beer like this.

 

My big stouts I throw in both US-05 and S-04. Trying to get a bit more character and fully attenuated. Last stout I did (1.111 I used 2 packs of S-04 and 1 pack of US-05).

 

Roast Barley adds very different flavors vs. Black Patent. BP comes across as burnt and "ashy", it can act like you dumped an ashtray in your beer if you use too much. I personally like both BP and RB in my big stouts, but many just use RB and some people absolutely hate BP and won't use it. Try chewing on a couple pieces of each grain to see what you think.

 

I would have used a starter and 3 smackpacks of 1728. That should have been enough. I only needed the additional dry packs of Nottingham because of viability.

Some people will tell you that you don't need that much yeast. I disagree. The last thing you want is to spend a lot of money and time on a big stout to have it not finish out and taste horrible. My ingredients were over $120. An extra $8 on yeast was well worth it.