Russian Imperial Stout

[Kai]

I know these seem to be popular at the moment, but I was hoping I could get some feedback on a tentative RIS recipe I have assembled. I have no real experience with big beers and by habit try to be conservative in my recipe formulation, something perhaps a little at odds with a style like this one. Also the only other partial stout I've attempted was more Australian Colonial than Russian Imperial.

Anyway, ingredients, estimates and method are approximately thusly:

3200g JW ale malt 5 EBC
700g munich 20 EBC
400g wheat malt 4 EBC

100g TF roast barley 1200 EBC
100g Weyerman carafa special II 1150 EBC
100g black patent 1200 EBC
100g TF chocolate malt 1000 EBC
100g roast wheat 1000 EBC
200g TF dark crystal 275 EBC
200g Weyermann caraaroma 350 EBC

1.5kg pale LME
200g molasses
300g demerara sugar

35g Northern Brewer @ 60, 9.9% AA
30g Goldings @ 30, 4.5% AA
30g Goldings @ 15, 4.5% AA

Wyeast 1318 London Ale Yeast III

20L at 1.085, ~9%
106 EBC
64 IBU

Mash and boil have to be split into two lots as I can only handle 2.5kg of grain at a time.
Mash temp 67C
Specialty grains added near the end of mash
extract and adjunct added near the end of the boil

I was planning on brewing a 1.040 bitter with the yeast and either pitch the RIS straight onto the cake or reclaim a hefty portion of slurry, then fermenting in the low 20's.


So, how does it look? Too much of something or not enough of another, or anything I should do differently?

 

[GMK]

These are my thoughts

Up the chocolate to 250gms
Molases is very strong stuff - i would drop that down to 50-100max
Up the Munich to 1 kg and u will definately need to increase the hops.

I would add the LME last and use it to reach your Final gravity if it is short.
The Bigger the gravity the less hop utilisation there is.
u could double the amount of hops and do some
mash hopping 35 gms of EKG and
FWH 50 gms of Northern Brewer.

Hope this helps.

 

[Guest Lurker]

Unless you have tried a beer with molasses and liked it, I personally would reduce the molasses to 0 g. Actually, even if you like molasses maybe try crystal rye for a kind of similar flavour. For a big stout I like to head for about 10% dark grains , so I would up the roast barley and the chocolate. For black patent my magic number is 0.9%, I dont like the charcoal with any higher than that, but at that level you get a nice crisp aftertaste and its definitely worth including.

 

[Kai]

Well, if even Kenny is telling me to knock back the molasses I might drop it altogether

Will up chocolate to 250, drop black patent to 80, up roast barley to 200. Then maybe take JW back to 3kg and munich up to 900g

That'd make the grain thusly:
3000g JW ale malt 5 EBC
900g munich 20 EBC
400g wheat malt 4 EBC

200g TF roast barley 1200 EBC
100g Weyerman carafa special II 1150 EBC
80g black patent 1200 EBC
250g TF chocolate malt 1000 EBC
100g roast wheat 1000 EBC
200g TF dark crystal 275 EBC
200g Weyermann caraaroma 350 EBC

And I may have to slip in a little more LME, DME or sugar to reach my OG.

Thoughts?

And shall I up the hopping?

 

[Gulf Brewery]

Thoughts?

And shall I up the hopping?

[post="63461"][/post]​

Kai

I would drop
1. one of the roasts
2. the crystal as the Munich is already providing some richness
3. either the black patent or the carafa as they are predominately providing colour here

I would prefer to keep this sort of beer simple, there is enough complexity from the other malts and I think you would be hard pressed to identify what each of the malts adds to the beer when there are so many.

If you need more points, just add more pale malt. I think the hopping should be OK for a biggish beer like this.

Cheers
Pedro


Edited to add this info

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.1 0.08 kg. Black Patent Malt Great Britain 225.54 1034
19.9 1.50 kg. Coopers LME - Light Australia 317.42 7
4.6 0.35 kg. Demerara Sugar Generic 384.25 2
10.0 0.75 kg. Munich Malt Australia 317.42 12
53.1 4.00 kg. Pale Ale Malt (2-row) Australia 309.07 5
3.3 0.25 kg. TF Chocolate Malt UK 275.65 940
2.7 0.20 kg. TF Roasted Barley UK 275.65 1220
5.3 0.40 kg. Wheat Malt South Australi 309.07 3

This at 65% efficiency will give you an OG around 1.087 and a colour of 82 EBC. You could up the bittering with another 5g of NB for around 70 IBU's.

The increase in the grains will give you leeway in case you don't hit your efficiency, just adjust the OG with the LME as needed to get your target OG.

 

[Kai]

Thanks for the help, pedro. I had such a huge grain bill because I was 1) completely inexperienced with this style of beer and 2) had read in multiple places that this is a very complex beer so perhaps wrong assumed a complex malt bill would help that.

Just one question, I've noticed a lot of descriptions saying this beer can have quite a rich fruit complexity to it, and I was hoping for that. Will I achieve it with this recipe?

 

[Gulf Brewery]

Just one question, I've noticed a lot of descriptions saying this beer can have quite a rich fruit complexity to it, and I was hoping for that. Will I achieve it with this recipe?

[post="63481"][/post]​

Kai

The yeast should give it some of its complexity and the mix of malts will definitely add some. If you have too many malts, you won't be able to pick out what malt gives what part to the overall flavour. Start simple, then add other malts to add that extra "bit".

Cheers
Pedro

 

[Kai]

I'll go with that, then. I'm more comfortable with a simpler recipe anyway. Thanks again for the help.

Now to work out what I'll do for the bitter

 

[Kai]

Also, do you guys think 1318 will be an ok yeast? the wyeast description calls it fruity, so I'm wondering if a different one would be better for the RIS and the bitter?