Imperial Stout Recipe Critique

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by Blootster, Jun 7, 2019.

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  1. spersichilli

    spersichilli Initiate (0) Apr 26, 2018 California
    Trader

    Just seeing this now but here are a few tips from me (I've done a lot of research on this and brew a lot of big beers)

    Cory King from side project has stated many times that he uses a large amount of oats in the majority stouts (that pretty much all of his imperial stouts could be considered "oatmeal stouts"). Kyle from Horus is on record as saying malted oats are a large part of his stouts, which makes sense as malted oats are a bit easier to use in higher volumes than flaked. I've heard podcasts from many brewers that if a beer is intended to go into a barrel, they usually target a higher FG than they normally would for that style of beer. I'd personally target 1.16-1.17 down to 1.05-1.06. I believe Cory uses an american ale yeast to get to 15%, I don't think the british yeasts are as tolerant of the alcohol. Long boil times are cited by many brewers as increasing viscosity and complexity for imperial stouts (Neil Fisher actually boils overnight). Roasted grain wise that looks good, Neil Fisher from weldwerks has stated he uses chocolate rye frequently as the beta-glucans in rye can also increase body. Regardless, yeast nutrients + oxygenation + pitch rate are extremely important in achieving proper attenuation and limiting off flavors.

    my set up for brewing these type of beers is two separate mashes. I do mash 1, sparge, then boil the wort from mash one on the stove while I conduct mash 2. I sparge mash 2 and then boil the two worts separately and combine when the volume allows. This usually leads to about a 6 hour overall boil time (6 on one and 3-4 on the other). I've mostly done 12-13% stouts with this method. I add DME if I miss the gravity or need an abv bump due to my small system. Hope this is all helpful
     
  2. Blootster

    Blootster Initiate (0) Dec 3, 2015 Kentucky

    Sorry for the late reply (didn't get notifications on this thread). Yes I finally brewed this beer. Recipe used HERE with very detailed notes on the brew day, and a partigyle beer we made from it.

    Since the brew date was 9/14 and it's still in primary so I can't say how it turned out. Color seems lighter than I would expect, but it could just be lighting. However, the aroma from the fermentor is pretty phenomenal, it smells like roasted dark/milk chocolate, or a fresh coffee infused dark chocolate bar.

    I'll post updated pictures to the thread when I get home.
     
  3. Blootster

    Blootster Initiate (0) Dec 3, 2015 Kentucky

    I actually studied Bertus's methods for a few weeks on his dogfish posts since I was curious. I decided not to use simple sugar because it doesn't add much to flavor and could thin out the beer (just for the sake of ABV) so I opted for all barley/grains, OG was 33+ brix, and it fermented pretty smoothly using wlp090.

    I'm waiting a few more weeks before taking gravity samples and deciding what the next steps are.
     
  4. Blootster

    Blootster Initiate (0) Dec 3, 2015 Kentucky

    Hey, thanks a lot for sharing this! I did a lot of research trying to find techniques/comments from these guys but no luck. I went with wlp090 (3 liters to start, decanted and pitched into 1 liter that was high krausen at pitch) and I suspect it did fine (no gravity taken yet). I might increase oat% for my next stout, we'll see how this one turns out.
     
    spersichilli likes this.
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