High ABV stout tips needed

If you post the recipe, og and fg it will make it easier to answer yeast pitching rates.

 

I wouldn't say that they're hard to brew, but there's more at stake. They take 4-8 months to shape up to drink. I hope that won't interfere with your pipeline, as a new brewer. 50 bottles of beer just sitting around staring at you. You want to drink them, but you ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ shouldn't. If you do mess up it'll be more expensive, and you may wait for half a year before you realized that you have a batch of mediocre beer. For these two reasons I'd steer you clear of brewing an RIS until you're comfy with your setup and your process. I also wouldn't want to BIaB a bigger beer. It just sounds heavy.

If you want to proceed with your RIS you should ferment on the cooler end of the yeasts range with the proper pitch rate. You should have plenty of head space in your fermenter. Also, have some DME on hand on brewday. Bigger beers don't have the same extraction rate/efficiency as a session beer.

Another thought is that a lot of us will brew a session beer with the same yeast strain before a big beer. The yeast cake has more than enough yeast to chug through a bigger beer and lots of us have luck pouring the RIS wort on top of the preserved yeast cake.

My pipeline would look something like this:
Brew a porter and drink it after 6 weeks
Brew an RIS with the yeast from the porter and let the RIS sit for a long time
Brew a few more IPAS and drink them
Drink the RIS midway through 2017

 

I brewed a big RIS back in March that I just tapped a few weeks ago... 12.1% aged on vanilla beans, charred oak and bourbon. Came out incredible! Some tips/suggestions:

Mash lower (~148 to 150) to get as most fermentable sugars as possible.

Use pure O2 to oxygenate if you can. I hit mine with about 90 seconds before pitching and again 12hrs later for another minute.

I fermented on the cool side of the spectrum, probably around 64F for US-05 (wish I used WY1056 though, as I get more attenuation out of it).

Let it ferment for at least three weeks. They will take longer to finish out those last few points.

Condition/age for at least a few months, at bare minimum, four. I noticed a lot of flavor changes as time went on and really hit its peak around 5-6 months. Also, if you can, secondary/age in a purged and CO2 filled keg.

I pitched two packets of rehydrated US-05... Next time, I will use liquid yeast and pitch near lager-level cell counts. I had no issue with US-05, it worked very well... But I just like other yeasts more now!

They are fun beers to make! I did have to use a bit of DME to bring my OG up to desired levels, but it worked out really well. End result is fantastic.

 

I boil next to the wood shed so don't worry about being outside.

I'd consider halving the special b or perhaps you want a super raisiny taste. Otherwise I'd make it. Also consider splitting the batch into 2 fermenters or install a blow off tube and get ready to lose some beer. Big beers ferment rather aggressively .

 

I'm leaning towards suggesting that you just go with a moderate gravity stout.

You mention some not too successful AG IPAs. Have you had success with a successful AG beer of any kind yet? Have you made a good high gravity extract beer yet? If you can't answer both of those questions "yes" my vote would be to cut the recipe down to a moderate gravity, see how that goes, and then maybe come back later to the RIS with your built up yeast cake.

 

I agree about blowoff tube, and that does seem to be a lot of Special B. Also as said earlier mash lower.

 

Grain recipe looks good, making this point a little moot. If anything, like others have mentioned, maybe a tad less Special B. I think it's important to have a soft hand with the specialty malts doing big beers. In my experience it's almost counter intuitive. You don't need to match a big beer with big specialty malts. You get more than enough flavor from the base grain. Too much specialty malts just makes it a sweet carmel muddy mess.

 

The issue I have with high gravity all grain batches is efficiency. Unless you're going to do a smaller batch than normal, you're going to need more grain. But you're going to have to use proportionately less mash & sparge water, so your efficiency will be worse than normal. That is, unless you use (proportionately) the same amount of mash & sparge water for the gain as if you were making a larger batch, and boil off the excess to get the volume you want. But then you'd have to deal with a longer brew day.

This is why I've avoided high gravity all grain batches. Am I wrong? Is there any way around this?

 

The way around is to be a better mash tun operator. I do believe high abv all grain brews take more time, but many can keep the brew day similar ,as far as boiling times are concerned, by paying attention to mash temp, water to grain ratio, sparge temp and speed and the crush of the grain. Otherwise as stated, youll be boiling longer or leaving sugar behind.

You can always run another batch of sparge water thru the tun and make a weaker beer,
all the best.

 

I wouldn't guess around with this, now is a good time to learn about pitch rates. Check out yeastcalculator.com and let it guide you. For simplicity reasons it would be easier to use multiple packs of dry, but . . . at some point you're going to get involved with liquid yeast so go ahead and jump in. Everything you need to know about starters is located here. I would not mix dry/liquid.

Many homebrewers lean toward the DIY mode. You can make a very respectable mash tun from a cooler. For this size beer you'll need a 10 gal'er, typically used with a false bottom or fabricated manifold. You can be in business for under $100 and they typically last a long time.

Can't say I follow your logic here. I would recommend mashing high, 154'ish, to allow more residual sugar to remain. The planned FG of 1.020 is on the low side for this style. For the OP, your forecast OG/FG requires 78% attenuation . . . that's a stretch for 1056. I'm guessing you don't have oxygen, if so that's another strike against the yeast. The normal work around if you expect a lower AA is to substitute some pure sugar for grain (no, that's not cheating). I personally would plan on a lower attentuation (boost FG) and add some sugar to hit the desired ABV. Finally, I would be suspicious of the kit's parameters . . . let a good brewing software program like Brewcipher or Beersmith help you tweak the parameters.

As others have mentioned, this is a difficult attempt for a beginning brewer. I brewed for about ten years before I attempted my first 1.100 beer.

 

@PortLargo

My RIS had an OG of 1.116 and had an FG of 1.031 (11.5% ABV before bourbon dilution additions to bring it up to 12.1% final ABV). Target FG was 1.020 - It just never made it that far.

My start mash temp was 151F (target of 150). You have so much malt that you won't be lacking body with beers this big. I had attenuation of 71% with 2-packs of US-05... I was hoping for more, but the yeast chugged out at 1.031 after three weeks.

If I would have mashed at 154-155F, I would expect the beer to be far too sweet. I would mash next time even lower at 148F for 75 minutes to dry it out further. However, the end result was near perfect with the 75-80 IBU's behind it, it's not cloying by any means and such rich, decedent body. I couldn't have hoped it would be any better!

 

All good points. I would think 1.030 would be a good FG, was a little suspicious of the recipe's 1.020 target and felt like 1056 wouldn't get it down to that. My experience with US-05 is identical when mashed similarly, attenuation in the low 70s.

For the OP; @invertalon 's discussion is what you are faced with: You probably want an FG higher than your recipe calls for, the problem is getting a mash temp & yeast strain that are willing to cooperate. In a big beer you're also bumping up against alcohol tolerance. In a recent thread a couple of posters had their yeast "stop working" above 1.050 . . . some combination of yeast health, alc tol, pitch rate, and temp lead to a semi-major problem. There will be some mystery in your mash efficiency with a new mash tun, this can effect your OG which causes a ripple effect.

I'm still suspicious if the recipe's creator could defend the ingredients and projected results. But, brewing from kits is pretty much how we all started . . . not trying to discourage you, it's how you learn to brew. Good luck.

 

I'm under the impression that low mash temps for these high alcohol styles are to get more fermentable sugars so that you can actually hit those attenuation targets.

 

Yes, I believe that's the point @invertalon was trying to make and it worked for him. My original post was a concern that he was trying to "dry out" a 1.020 beer . . . inappropriate for an Imperial Stout. If you look at the posted recipe you see 1.097/1.020, mash at 153, and hope 1056 hits 79% atten . . . a doubtful combination.

My thoughts are try to select a good FG as a target, then modify the process to create this. I'm a fan of adding sugar to increase attenuation/ABV while leaving residual sugars behind. Different ways to skin this cat.

 

Really big beers, like the one you were originally going brew, require a ton of healthy yeast and oxygen. The higher th OG, the more o2. The biggest beer I have ever made without o2 had an OG of 1.135 and a FG of 1.038. I have a feeling the o2 would have gotten it down another 15-20 points.

I make a rough clone of Deschutes Obsidian Stout that starts out in the mid 1.060s and finishes under 1.015. It's fantastic and I make it every year.