Recipe Advice

You're relatively new to brewing and you want to brew a beer for some event. My recommendation would be to play it safe and use a proven kit/recipe. I'm not saying don't make the beer you're thinking about as a learning experience...but I'd at very least have a less risky backup in case the experiment doesn't trun out the way you hope.

 

Agree with Vikeman. Go with something proven. Norther Brewer has great kits; here's a Stout Kit from NB that is similar to what you are shooting for, although the ABV will be slightly less.

 

The value in using a kit is that presumably someone has brewed it before and thought about how the ingredients will come together. I think this is especially useful with extract kits because different extracts are made differently. Some have crystal malts in them, some have roasted malts in them, even some of the pale extracts have carapils in them. If you don't know your extract well, you can't really be sure what ingredients to build into the recipe. On the other hand, if Northern Brewer's Imperial Stout kit includes some sort of dark extract, you can be pretty confident that they already did some troubleshooting to accomodate for the fact that the dark in their dark extract comes from mostly crystal (or roasted) malts.

So, if the advice of using a kit doesn't sit well with you, consider this alternative advice: Build your recipe around a light extract as a base malt and get your colors from crystal and roasted malts.

And this additional advice: To begin to get an idea of how much specialty malt to use, look to well-established recipes, like those in Brewing Classic Styles or those in Northern Brewer's kits.

As an example of how not to do things (which I think reinforces the advice above), my first recipe was intended to be a malty amber with a touch of chocolate malt and crystal malt and amber extract. What I got was an overly sweet porter like beer because (1) I didn't realize that the amber extract already had a significant amount of crystal malt and (2) I had no concept for a "touch" of crystal and chocolate malt.

 

I don't know much about their kits, but I can say that as far as ingredients go, NB and Midwest sell pretty much the same products.

 

Imperial Stouts do not drink the best (in my oppinion) without some age on it. I prefer one year. Stouts are an easy beer for extract brewers. Formulating your own recipes and drinking the results are what makes this hobby fun. Good luck!

 

Yes, building recipes around pale extracts is the best way to go. This is not to imply that dark extracts are crap - just that they are limited because you don't know exactly why they are dark. (So, not crap, but still a crapshoot?)You could probably make a 100% extract beer with a dark extract, taste it, and then build an enhanced recipe around that extract by layering additional specialty malts around them according to your sensory perception of the fermented extract. Of course, Briess (or whoever) might change the formulation of their extract, and you would be back to square one.

I mentioned Northern Brewer specifically because they give links to recipes on their site. You can actually get a great deal of the recipe info from MW too by enlarging the picture of the box on their kits' web pages - ingredients are listed on the boxes. I buy from both stores. My understanding is that they are now sort of partners, at least in their mail order operations, and I wouldn't be surprised if price gaps disappear. But maybe I am misinformed and delusional. It wouldn't be the first time.