Russian Imperial Stout - Have you brewed one?

[Yob]

You put the bummock ale in with the ris?

 

[droid]

yes, i know i know call me a philistine - at that time it was doing my head in trying to work out how to fill and i didn't want 120ltrs of 10% brew.

so its a BRIS which is a Bummock RIS. the ingredients in the bummock ale only representing 20%

hopefully it will be worthy of swapping a bottle for someones bummock beer, so i can taste it

 

[Judanero]

When looking at alcohol tolerances of yeast its not an absolute.

Jamil has stated just about any ale strain will go to 12% and most to 15%.

But you have to pitch enough and aerate enough.

A cake of s04 took a ris from 1115 to 1030 in 2 days.

I wondered how much further I could push it. I drew off some and added sugar and it kept on going.

I suspect it went over 12% and still carbed in the bottle.

If i had pitched a couple of packs instead of a cake it probably wouldnt have.

It was two packs for 5L.. I would have thought that enough, admittedly I didn't give it any 02 only a solid cube shaking for about 5 mins- something I've never done before.

It was impromptu that I even fermented the 5L, I just figured it'd be getting tipped out otherwise.

 

[butisitart]

i'm pretty mesmerised by all this. so after you've done so much time in a secondary, and you finally bottle it, (serious question here cos i'm thinking about trying it), do you lay the bottles on the side during conditioning?? cos it sounds like wine or champagne proportions to me. or is there a tradition on that side of it??

 

[manticle]

Not done ris but done a few aged beers (over a year). I do reseed but bottles stay upright.

 

[Markbeer]

That is enough yeast. What i was getting at was the so4 yeast hadnt reached its alcohol tolerance but rather attenuated as far as it could go with that wort.

You can always draw a sample and add sugar and see if it can go higher.

I love my RIS. Favourite style after proper AIPAs.

It was two packs for 5L.. I would have thought that enough, admittedly I didn't give it any 02 only a solid cube shaking for about 5 mins- something I've never done before.

It was impromptu that I even fermented the 5L, I just figured it'd be getting tipped out otherwise.

 

[gap]

i'm pretty mesmerised by all this. so after you've done so much time in a secondary, and you finally bottle it, (serious question here cos i'm thinking about trying it), do you lay the bottles on the side during conditioning?? cos it sounds like wine or champagne proportions to me. or is there a tradition on that side of it??

The only reason for laying down champagne or wine is if they are sealed with a cork. The cork will dry out and shrink if the bottle is upright, it will remain wet if the bottle is laying down.

 

[Ditchnbeer]

I brewed my first RIS recently and learnt a lot - my 2nd will be much better. My efficiency was way lower than usual and I hadn't allowed for that, so I was shooting for 1100 but only got 1090 with added sugars. But I used 2.5 packs of US-05 in 14L batch, used real oxygen to aerate and it got down to 1020 so happy with the ferment. The first bottle was drinkable and now putting it away for minimum 6 months. I cant wait to brew the next one, I'll be much better prepared, know my system better when doing a high gravity brew. Regardless of achieved gravity from grains I'll always add a can of goo.

 

[Markbeer]

If you are a 3 vessel brewer its cheaper, for me anyway, to just throw in more grain.

For a can of goo I can get 5kg of malt. I would rather just have the lower efficiency.

Of course a biab brewer might find adding extract easier as I used to do.

 

[lael]

Kentucky breakfast stout clone. Still in secondary on oak chips but so far amazing. Recipe from hbtalk.

Don't remember the OG... But it was above 1.090 lots of problems with mash getting stuck and sparging was super slow, but eventually got the sugars out into the boil

I've done quadruppel clones in my system before, so I think it was the dark grains exploding into powder when milled that caused most of the issues. Might have been over ambitious with the amount in the malt pipe also

 

[TheWiggman]

Recipe copy and paste from an earlier post:

Recipe: Russian Imperial Stout
Brewer: TheWiggman
Asst Brewer: J-Dog
Style: Imperial Stout
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 16.88 l
Post Boil Volume: 14.04 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 12.00 l
Bottling Volume: 11.25 l
Estimated OG: 1.080 SG
Estimated Color: 81.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 66.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.7 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.220 kg Pale (Traditional Ale) Malt - JW (6.9 EB Grain 3 87.5 %
0.090 kg Carafa III (1034.3 EBC) Grain 6 1.9 %
0.300 kg Crystal, Medium - Simpsons (157.6 EBC) Grain 4 6.2 %
0.120 kg Roasted Barley - JW (1150.0 EBC) Grain 5 2.5 %
0.090 kg Chocolate Malt (1100.0 EBC) Grain 7 1.9 %
30.73 g Challenger [7.60 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 38.6 IBUs
30.73 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 9 27.9 IBUs
1.0 pkg London Ale Yeast (Wyeast Labs #1028) [12 Yeast 11 -
1.50 g Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 1 -
1.50 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent 2 -
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 mins) Other 10 -


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 4.821 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Add 15.53 l of water at 71.2 C 66.0 C 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 76.0 C over 10 min 76.0 C 10 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 9.17 l water at 75.6 C

I did this a few weeks ago with a fresh 1.5l starter. Result was 13l of 1.085 (watered down from 1.090) and ended up with a brewhouse efficiency of 79% which I'm stoked about.
Pitched at 17.5°C (ambient), fermented at 20°C for the most part with a few hours at >22°C because I didn't have the fridge hooked up and it generated a lot of heat.
Went from 1.085 to 1.024 in 5 days. Read that again if you want - FIVE days. I gave it a gentle rouse to see if would get down further but it was done. Looking back I did a single infusion mash, which I rarely do, and this is where I stuffed up.

• Heated to 71°C using HERMS
• Added grain, mash temp down to 65°C
• Waited a few mins and started recirc.

The HERMS water was still really hot so the HERMSOUT temp went from 71 > 65°C over a few mins. This knocked my FG up a bit but I'm not too bummed.

15 days on the cake total, and bottled with 48g dextrose (1.8 vols CO2) bulk primed. Considering how quickly it chewed down I'm 100% confident that it carbonate fine. The smell was bloody intoxicating, just delicious. It tasted very nice too despite its youth.

So after all that I ended up with 13l of 8.4% RIS. It'll sit on the shelves for a year preferably and might crack one after news years for a 'taster'. Considering I paid $15 for an RIS on the weekend this is a very cheap way of making very good beer.

 

[Yob]

I call bullshit on aging RIS, fookin awesome at about 2-6 months.... I'm a bit biased though.. None of mine have made it past about 6 months... Much to martin's Dismay... lol..

In the olden days of yore, aging was required to mellow out much of the crappy malts they were using... We are not cursed with such issues... I do agree that the taste will change over time though.

I swear the barrel version will get some age though.. I swears it... It's got at least a month on it already

I've only taken 6 bottles out to date.. Just to sample like.. And enter comps etc..

 

[madpierre06]

Reporting back on mine, the batch using the cold steeped addition was my favourite. It had a lot more body, flavours were deeper, greater depth in the coffee influence without being overpowering. Having said that, if you want a beer that is more sessionable but is gonna sneak up and kick you in the balls after half a dozen, try the whole bean version. Will certainly be doing this again, and maybe try some tweaking of background flavour additions.

Have only one bottle left, that's of the whole bean version. Sitting on that to try one particular addition tryout.

 

[TheWiggman]

I call bullshit on aging RIS, fookin awesome at about 2-6 months....

Fair call, it tasted schmicko already. DrS has been recently quoted at saying his RIS has hit prime at 5 years, so even though it might be a winner sooner I'm definitely going to put a few bottles aside. I think the trick is to brew more so that there is always surplus, and there will always be a handful at the back of the pile. Speaking of which, here's my big beer stash -



Oh yeah baby oo-ee mama. 9.6% EBW, 8.7% old Ale, 8.4% RIS. The EBW is a standout and is absolutely a better beer 12 months down the track. Only 1 bottle left though

 

[takai]

I just put down an RIS today, ended up at 24°/1.103 OG, but planning on adding some more dextrose to the fermenter after a few days to see how high it may go.

Trying to figure out how i should account for this in the alcohol/OG calculations though. Should i just add the dextrose to the recipe as if it was a late boil addition, or is there another way?

 

[Mardoo]

Add in as if late boil.

 

[takai]

Cool, and just assume 100% efficiency (i don't see what could affect this)

 

[mofox1]

Efficiency shouldn't matter... brewmate will treat sugar additions as 100% (or in other words won't apply the eff% calcs) and I assume that beersmith et al would do the same.

Depending on what software you use, you may need to adjust the dex amount to cover the kettle/trub loss.

 

[Black n Tan]

I agree with Mofox1 that you may need to adjust for losses between kettle and fermenter. This is how I would do it: kettle volume/fermenter volume x quantity dex added eg. if your fermenter volume is 23L and you lose 2L, then 25L/23LX1kg=1.09, so you would add 1kg dex to fermenter but enter it as 1.09kg in BS to allow for kettle losses. If your losses are small then it will make little difference.

 

[takai]

Yeah, my kettle losses are quite small, about 1.01/1.00kg.