Imperial chocolate cognac stout, help!

I'm not a recipe guy to be able to comment on that, but I will say this - I hope the recipe turns out a beer that is as good as the inspiration that got it started. Wow!

 

I haven't run the numbers, but my gut is telling me you'll need more than two packs of yeast for this beer. Also, how to you intend to oxygenate the wort prior to pitching and controlling temperature after? You'll want to treat the yeast like kings if you want them to produce a 13%+ beer for you.

I'd also consider adding the honey at high krausen vs. in the boil. You won't retain any honey flavor if you boil it for 15 minutes.

You may want to up your IBUs as well.

 

Are you adding the Orange Blossom Honey in order to add more orange flavor? If so, I'd skip it, and get it from oranges/zest. OB Honey doesn't have all that much orangey flavor.

 

make a starter for your yeast. Makes a bigg difference when fermenting big beers

 

I can't think of a good reason to use champagne yeast in the secondary. I'd use Scottish ale yeast (1728) instead of Irish. If you have already used 1084 and like it, then it would be fine. I think it has too much yeasty character for this type of beer.

 

I agree that those crepes are awesome, however, can I ask what the link was between the crepes and the flavours in a stout? I would have been more inclined to go with something more malty and without the roast -- along the lines of a Barleywine / Belgian Dark Strong.

 

Maybe the crepes were a little scorched?

 

How to make a starter - Mrmalty.com

I recommend not trying to make a 13%+ beer. Shoot for 10% max. A cool fermentation temperature (62-66) will produce the best result. Higher temperatures can turn your big beer into a harsh boozy mess.

 

I like the use of the amber extract, but seems like a lot of Dark extract. Have you considered doing less dark and adding more amber or pale? Then you can increase your steeping grains to give you more control over your beer. Make sure to read the contents of the dark extract. My concern would be with that much dark extract, your steeping grains wont matter all that much because your flavor will basically be what is contained in the dark extract.

I also agree with Curt that you should up the IBUs. With an imperial stout, you should be in the range of 45-75. Centennial and EKG are commonly used in stouts. But if you like Nugget, it's your beer!

A question I have is how do you plan to carbonate the beer? Priming sugar before bottling? Have you calculated how much you are going to need?

Cheers, and let us know how it turns out!

 

not to add any confusion, but, when making a big beer , over 9% I typically add 3 oz to 5 gallons, because, big beers are slow to bottle carb and I have found , sometimes, the extra sugar ends up at a sweeter taste than you want. But as another poster wisely said, it is your beer.

 

Many of us recommend to extract brewers that they use pale malt extract to get their gravity and steep specialty grains to get their colors and flavors. The reason for this is that when you buy dark extract, you may not have a good understanding of how much color comes from roasted malts vs. sweet crystal malts, so that if you also steep crystal and/or roasted, your beer my come out unbalanced. On the other hand, if you already have experience with a particular dark extract and you know that it will do a good job for this particular beer, then ignore this comment.

 

I've added sugar to an imperial stout during fermentation before to boost the ABV and the get the yeast active after they decided to quit. If you have brewing software such as Beersmith, you can plug in "1lb honey" for your batch size and see how many gravity points that gives you. Then you can basically add that amount to your O.G.

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/brewcipher-4-0.294104/

Check that out , you won't be disappointed