Help with my first RIS

[Schikitar]

Howdy all,

I'm pretty new to brewing and my second BIAB I put down last week was a RIS, I used the following recipe;

Batch size (fermenter) - 26 Litres
SG: 1.089

• 8 kg Golden Promise
• .75 kg Chocolate
• .4 kg Dark Crystal
• .4 kg Brown Malt
• .4 kg Amber Malt
• .25 kg Rolled Oats

• 50g Columbus @ FWH
• 1/2 Whirlfloc @ 10mins
• 30g Columbus @ Flameout

• US-05 and S-04 (I had a packet each of these on hand and didn't want to underpitch so I decided to rehydrate and use both, crazy?)

I use a Crown 40L urn so I ended up doing a reiterated mash (mashed half the grain bill normally, then mashed the second half in the same wort). I did a 90 minute boil to get down to 28L, in hindsight an extra 1-2L would have been good to fully fill the cube after kettle loss). I no-chill at the moment so the 30g hop addition was meant to be 10 minutes so I moved it to flameout just to keep hop junk out of the cube.

The recipe called for a SG of 1.084-1.089, so I was pretty happy to hit 1.089. Now it's been in the fermenter since Monday (maintained at 20 degrees) and it was pretty active for a few days but has now slowed down. I'm considering a dry hop as it has good bitterness but next to no hop aroma or flavour. If I was to dry hop is there a particular hop that I should consider to compliment the columbus and this style of beer, or just go with more columbus? Or leave it alone...

Aside from that, at this point it's pretty much done (looking to bottle in another week and a bit) but I've been thinking about splitting the batch and making some tweaks. So, lets say I end up with 24L of wort, I was thinking about putting 8L straight into bottles as is, then 8L to a secondary and use some bourbon soaked french oak dominoes and then lastly with the remaining 8L I was thinking of adding some freshly brewed espresso whilst bulk priming. I'm hoping these experiments may then inform where I take the recipe next. Or is this all too much, I realise I might be getting too excitable by it all!

Your words of wisdom welcomed...

 

[homebrewnewb]

cant help you out with the BIAB technicalities but i can tell you, you might want to cold steep the coffee rather than brew it.
https://byo.com/mead/item/315-brewing-with-coffee
or maybe not, cold steeping might be a bit easier depending on what you're aiming for.

 

[Schikitar]

Oh cool, thanks for that, I'll give it a good read. I certainly plan to taste at the end of fermentation to decide if I need to push those burnt/coffee notes further or not. I wasn't sure what the process might be outside of directly adding espresso (I had found a few recipes that do it that way and thought it must be acceptable methodology) but I'll give cold steeping a look! Cheers!

 

[homebrewnewb]

I was re-reading a bit more, I don't think you need to aroma-fiy your RIS, it's not really called for in the style if you focus on the malty side, but it's your beer so you can do what you want.
BCJP states hop aroma can be very low to quite aggressive, so that's expansive.
If you really wanted to, maybe Citra/Amarillo combos are pretty stock aromas for any US bittering hop, but you risk making it something else i really don't think it will assist your style and might mitigate the whole point of the coffee/malt base, bit of a head scratcher that.
If you did decided you wanted more aroma you might want to go a bit more earthy/spicy to complement coffee and toasty malts so maybe a Fuggle or Willamette? where's Yob?

 

[malt junkie]

Lots of healthy yeast.... lots.

 

[homebrewnewb]

Very fair point! To elaborate on what healthy might mean, don't forget the oxygen for those cells to respire. I used olive oil in one batch for sterols just to make sure there was plenty of building blocks for those guys.

 

[Stouter]

Got my oxy caps from the bulk buy you were also in on and was thinking to try something along the same lines. An RIS will store nicely with those caps.
I'm also using a Crown 40L, and sounds like the reiterated mash method worked well if you hit the upper intended range.
Some more thinking, a few more beers, and I'll give it a go.

 

[homebrewnewb]

re-re-reading it, you've used an ale and a lager yeast? that's ganna be interesting.
its not uncommon to use different strains, it's just usually you pitch them serially. hmm, whatever you do please keep us posted! so long as your sanitation is maintained it should turn out, and turn out interesting.

 

[n87]

re-re-reading it, you've used an ale and a lager yeast? that's ganna be interesting.
its not uncommon to use different strains, it's just usually you serially. hmm, whatever you do please keep us posted! so long as your sanitation is maintained it should turn out, and turn out interesting.

S-04 is English Ale yeast,
US-05 is American Ale yeast

Both Ale yeasts

 

[homebrewnewb]

ah righto i thought it was the saflager

 

[Stouter]

Can anyone recommend other yeast options for this. I've just started trying Wyeast and haven't gotten into the calcs for it yet, but would I be able to use a single pack and build it up enough?

 

[homebrewnewb]

I've used the white labs scotch ale in the past. You would be able to build a starter from a single pack if you needed.

 

[mofox1]

I've used the white labs scotch ale in the past. You would be able to build a starter from a single pack if you needed.

Just done a 10% RIS using the wyeast equiv of that. Fermented out in under 5 days @ 16.5°C (was most of the way there after 3), although the last couple days let it creep up to 18°C.

Good strain of yeast, but a BIG pitch of healthy yeast + plenty of O2 is the main factor here. RIS was 30L, yeast was the full cake from a 23L 1.050 - 1.060 something stout. Also note that I racked the "yeast cake" stout into a separate fermenter for it to finish off/ clean up as soon as the fermentation had (more or less) finished and the yeast had dropped out - which, again, was around 5 days due to O2 and a big pitch of an active starter. RIS was immediately poured on top and O2'd. This meant that the yeast for the RIS didn't spend too much time inactive/hungry at ferment temps.

I'm by no means an expert.. have only done a few at or above the 10% mark, but concentrating on yeast volume & viability has drastically improved ferment times and prevented that painfully slow, asymptotic approach to FG and the uncertainty of whether it has actually finished fermenting.

 

[MartinOC]

RIS is ALL about the malt, with enough simple, basic bittering to balance.

Don't try to complicate things.

Edit: LOTS of healthy yeast. LOTS!!!

RDWHAHB.

 

[Schikitar]

Lots of great feedback there guys, thanks for that! I might not fiddle with dry hopping and leave it alone this time, I do want to focus more on those darker, malty tones so I'm still thinking of splitting the batch up for some experimentation, that way when I do another full batch I'll know which direction I want to take the recipe as it's one I want to build on and refine a little more.

I don't want to start a debate on oxygenation but my brother passed on this interesting read, just thought I'd share it - https://www.morebeer.com/articles/oxygen_in_fermentation - I dunno, I'm still learning the basics so it goes above my head.

Anyway, I'll chime back in when I make some decisions and get some bottling done etc., (@Stouter, I just bottled an XPA with those caps and did some with reg caps for comparison down the track, I'll do this stout too). Oh yeah, that reminds me, for bulk priming my ales I've typically gone 6g/l of regular table sugar, that's worked pretty well I think, not sure what to aim for with an imperial stout, recipe says about the same but I'm not convinced..? One day I'll get around to kegging but not yet, my wife would be even less happy! Ha!

 

[MartinOC]

Mate, a good RIS is hard to make & really easy to screw-up. Surprising, considering how simple it is. Most of the examples I see at Vicbrew are way too sweet & under-attenuated. A dry example really stands-out.

Consider for your future brews to "drop" (ie. transfer & re-oxygenate) into another fermenter after about 18-24 hours, then let it go to finish.

These babies are an exercise in patience, so don't expect a good example to come good for at least 3 years. Good ones will last 10+ years if you package them carefully.

 

[mofox1]

These babies are an exercise in patience, so don't expect a good example to come good for at least 3 years. Good ones will last 10+ years if you package them carefully.

And yet my keg says "drink me now"...

 

[Schikitar]

Most of the examples I see at Vicbrew are way too sweet & under-attenuated. A dry example really stands-out.

Yeah, this is really good point and no doubt it's going to take a lot more experience to get it right but I'd rather have a crack and learn than never to have tried at all! ;D

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Roast barley will take the edge off the sweetness. I'm surprised to see so many stout recipes without it.

 

[MartinOC]

And yet my keg says "drink me now"...

You put RIS into a keg? Bloody phillistine! Bottles, my dear Sir...BOTTLES!