Imperial Stout Recipe (and Timeline) Help

add the willamette at Flameout. pour off the bourbon. I see people do the beans and oak cubes for weeks in secondary. Thats all I can offer. As far as carbing your bottles, I always see most stouts with a low carb, but that is what I see. I suppose using less priming sugar in your bottling bucket of course that depends on what your FG will be. If your FG is low, add more sugars, and if high add less to decrease over carbonation. Your recipe looks awesome! I may use it myself it looks awesome!

 

I like the simplicity of the grain bill. Personally I would probably use less special B and choose d different roasty malt, but that is a matter of preference as the taste of special B is way potent to my taste buds. I made a beer (2 gal) with only about an ounce of special B and it's a raisin-bomb (tho it's certainly drinkable). But this is my preference and not to be construed as "advice" about the grain bill.

Also I would agree blast that willamette later. Willamette is not a powerful hop, and the flavors are both subtle and won't clash with a stouty beer (and IMO are perfect for many beers, including stouts). You could add moar willamette, for that matter. Recall "Al's rule" when it comes to willamette:

53 IBUs? Imperial stouts that are full of special B and aren't bitter enough would alarm me, and I would consider why you chose that number for this recipe. But then again, this is a question, not to be misconstrued as "advice."

 

Perhaps some black patent? But I would defer the final word on recipes for RIS to an expert on the subject (which ain't me).

I don't see how you can go wrong with willamette tho.

 

I'm rushing out the door so I don't have time to go into detail or address all of your questions (hopefully I can at a later time) but the first thing that comes to my mind is skip the late hop additions completely if you won't be drinking the beer for over a year. Waste of hops IMHO. I do recommend conditioning your RIS for about that long though. I find that my own RIS (brewed it several times now) tastes best in the 9 - 14 month range.

 

I'm back....

I'd probably increase your oak contact time from 7 days to 21 days (like the vanilla beans)
You could increase the bourbon a bit...maybe 20+ fl oz or just stick with the 12 fl oz for now and add more "to taste" closer to the point of serving.

What I'd actually do is the following (starting 7-10 days prior to transferring to secondary)

1. boil the oak cubes in water for 10 minutes (to leach out excess tannins)

2. let them dry out for a few days (so that they will better soak up the bourbon next)

3. When the oak cubes are dry, toss them into your bourbon.

4. On that same day, split your vanilla beans, scrape the black "caviar" inside into the bourbon, quarter the outsides, and toss them into the bourbon as well.

5. Let all of that soak together for about 5-7 days.

6. Then remove the vanilla bean outsides (personal preference to reduce extracting vegetal flavors from the bean pods) and toss the bourbon, oak, and caviar into the secondary.

7. If you can, co2 flush your carboy (not the end of the world if you can't) - can be done prior or after step 6

8. Rack your beer from primary to secondary for extended conditioning, trying to leave as little head space as possible and try to leave it in secondary for as long as possible IMHO.

9. At about 2 weeks prior to when you need to bottle, sample the beer and decide if you want to add more bourbon, oak, and/or vanilla beans. You could also decide to dry hop if you so choose. I wouldn't though since you will be bottle conditioning for such a long time before drinking this one.

10. Bottle condition for another 8 - 12 months and enjoy!

NOTE: If making a 2L starter for a 5 gallon batch, my personal preference would be to make the starter several days early, cold crash it to get the yeast to settle, then decant it on brew day (leaving all of the yeast in the starter but removing most of the oxidized wort), allow the decanted starter to warm back up to pitching temp naturally, and then pitch.

 

Not too much to add except I used @Homebrew42 's RIS a few years back (https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/valley-of-death) and added a small amount of medium toasted US oak cubes soaked in Forty Creek Rye Whiskey for a long time. It beat out the local pro in a Pro-Am competition, winning gold. I suggest the brewer's liquorice, a great add and also change your roasted malts a bit.

Lastly, in a recipe never just say "a 2L starter". You need to be getting a specific pitching rate (some places that do this are mrmalty.com & yeastcalculator.com) based upon starter size and yeast age. A dry yeast could also be good in this case, I'd look towards Windsor... IIRC I used a yeast cake from a previous batch.

 

I recently did a big RIS, something I'd consider loosely, and off of taste, close, to BCBS. Mines less sweet, and slightly more roast, which is what I was going for, but I'd consider more balanced, as BCBS is kind of sickly sweet to me at times.

Anywho, timeline wise, I brewed mine on April 26. 1.115 I think the OG was, or something close.

I fermented with US05, and did so very low, like 62*, and let it go for as long as needed. Split the carboys so I didn't have to worry about blow off and losses. I think I let it go for 3 weeks or so, allowed it to finish up, and crashed it down in the fermentation freezer for a week I think. I lost track of time there. Then I put the beer into a balcones bourbon barrel on 5/31. That I know, cause it's wrote on my barrel. I held in barrel for almost 4 weeks, and pulled it out on the 28th of June.

I just now took a taste of it. It's drinkable for sure. Will probably be better in a couple months. Smooth already, but has a tiny bit of heat. At around 13% plus the bourbon pick up, I'd say it it's bound to happen.

Anywho, I think say you should need around 2-3 months from brew day, to possibly drinking if you don't make it too big.

As for adding bourbon and oak, and all that, I don't know if you'll get what you want commercially, I think you'd need longer with the oak, but could get an extra layer in there. Vanilla, I'd add as soon as fermentation is ending and leave in there, use fresh whole beans, not some dried up crap from a brew store.

If you can't find any fresh beans, shoot me a BM, I've got over 30 of them, fresh, vac packed and they are delicious. I'd be happy to send you a few if worse comes to worse.

So yeah, I'd say your on track time wise. Might not be ready to crack on that timeline though.

My grist was similar, I'd drop the special B, and use a pale chocolate, and some different crystal malts.

I used 80 and 120 crystal. Munich, Carafa III, Pale and regular chocolate malt, roasted barley and obviously pale malt.

Bittered with extract and Willamete and did around 77-80 IBU's total. I think it's balanced without being too bitter, or too sweet, perfect infact.

Goodluck

 

Oh, and unless you really want to use your stirplate there, keep it simple.

US05 works fine. Get 3 packs. Split carboys, add 1.5 packs to each carboy and it's plenty of yeast! Easy to do. Aerate it WELL.

Hit it before you pitch, and then hit it again 12 hours in. It really helps to make sure it finishes.

 

If your using San Diego I'd definitely forgo the late hop addition. Vigorous fermentation, blows alot of hops off. Plus after a year... doesn't matter! Sounds like a good recipe. Good luck!!!

 

You'll be able to put 5.5 into a 6.5 carboy, but you WILL need a blow off, and you WILL lose some volume of your finished product. The reason I split it, was to avoid losses, and to avoid having to put a blow off set up on it and babysit it and change it out when it settles down. If you pitch the correct amount of yeast, hit it with pure o2, and even keep the temp down in the lowest range of the yeast, it will, and should still ferment like wild.

 

Re: vanilla beans- Don't put them in whole. Split them open, scrape out the caviar in there, cut the beans into slightly smaller parts, like 1-2 inches, and put it ALL in the beer.

Recipe looks okay, I would probably take your 120L and split it myself. 8oz of the C-120 and 8 oz of the C-80 to give you more caramel, slightly less fruit.

The flaked barley seems off to me. If you are looking for body or something, you'll have it regardless in a big beer like this. Oats would be a better choice, IMO if you want to add something else, but I'd probably just up the roast barley, but you will make it a little more roasty with that option.

 

Looks like a sound recipe to me..

Be weary of some serious fusels and off flavors if you allow that beer to ferment too warm. 70* ambient is TOO warm for a big beer like that. Beyond the blow off you'll get, the beer will have some nasty flavors. Trust me on that. I've dumped big stouts before due to not controlling temp with my chamber.

You will want to keep the fermentation temp as low as possible without putting the yeast to sleep.

 

Yeah, you should be able to do it. Just err on the cold side. Hope it's not undrinkable, and it works out for you. You've got a good recipe there.