Recipe Critique: Imperial Stout

About a year ago, I did a RIS/dry stout partigyle

20# 2-row
1# C80
.75# Special B
and I cold-steeped overnight a pound each of Chocolate Malt (350L), Black Patent and Roasted Barley in 1 gallon of water, then dumped in at the end of the mash, stirred and drained. Mashed at 152.

I got 5 gallons of 1st runnings with a gravity of 1.076. After boiling it was 1.093, I was hoping for a little higher. In the end, I wish there was more roast flavor. But, I experimented with some coffee, and some bourbon soaked oak and this made a good base for adding something extra. If I was doing it again, I would increase the 3 cold-steeped grains by 50% (i.e. 4.5# total instead of 3#).

For your recipe, I might think about increasing the roast barley and maybe reducing some of the chocolate. Also, I used 2oz of EKG and 3oz of Willamette at 5 minutes and those hops were completely hidden in the malts. If you want any EKG character, I would think about increase your late additions.

You might consider a partigyle, my second runnings post-boil were 4.5 gallons @ 1.040 and made a very tasty dry stout. It was basically a free batch except for a little more brew time.

hope that helps

 

Keep in mind that a beer that big will have plenty of body without flaked grains, and 7.5% would be a generous in a session bitter. I'd drop the flaked barley and toast the oats for another layer of flavor.

 

I am a bit bewildered because according your given numbers I don´t get the same results as showed in your recipe.I need an efficiency above 70% to get OG=1.118 using that grain bill. I just get near 46 IBUs with your hops addition shedule.Maybe I am doing my calculations in a wrong way, I don´t know , I suggest you to check those numbers again.Remember for an Imperial Stout you will need a BU:GU ratio of about 0.74, even those given numbers were ok ,BU:GU ratio would be 0.52 (far less than 0.74)

 

I agree you need to kick up the IBUs for better balance.

Depending on how long you plan on aging that beer before serving it might be a waste to add more late hops because those will fade. I would rather use a hop schedule with your bittering charge plus a 20 or 15 minute flavor addition and no aroma addition. Then dry hop before packaging to get some fresh hop character back into the beer.

I also agree about the partigyle. You are going to leave behind a lot of perfectly good sugars that could make a second low gravity beer. No need to cap the mash, just run more sparge water through and hit it with a bittering charge. A couple weeks ago I did a partigyle barleywine with a nice brown ale/dark mild. The mild was basically free beer. Very little hops, adding a small amount of sugar to the kettle to get the gravity in line and used a small amount of the starter I made for the barleywine. Since it's a low gravity beer the yeast is perfect for washing out of the trub and repitching into another beer.

 

Have you considered an English yeast strain if you're worried about 1056 overattenuating? I used White Labs 007 "Dry English Ale" for my RIS recipe, and it leaves behind a decent amount of sweetness for that chewy motor oil characteristic you're looking for. For reference, my OG was 1.093 and FG was 1.029.