Recipe for the best Imperial Stout ever? (my tastes inside)

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Stu

Stu

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I'm after a recipe for an Imperial Stout.
I'm looking for something between 10 and 13%.
I am looking at buying a wooden barrel which I'll throw a couple of bottles of rum about. And possibly other spirits (please feel free to suggest).

Things I like:
Chocolate taste
Coffee
A warm, sweet mouthfeel
Depth

Things I can't do:
Lactose
Actual chocolate
Sweeteners
Thin taste
Bitterness

Any suitable recipes?
 
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Plenty of roast malts, and then age for a year. I used 30%, a mix of brown, chocolate (900 EBC) and black malt (1500 EBC), 5 or 7,5 % black. And use double the yeast you normally need, the roast malts slow the yeast down.
 
Stu said:
I'm after a recipe for an Imperial Stout.
I'm looking for something between 10 and 13%.
I am looking at buying a wooden barrel which I'll throw a couple of bottles of rum about. And possibly other spirits (please feel free to suggest).
Click to expand...
Maintaining a barrel is a lot of work, you may want to consider wood cubes etc as an alternative, particularly to start with while you're figuring out your recipe. If you like sweet and warming then rum is probably your best bet.

This presentation from Tyler King of the Bruery has lots of good tips on making these things :
https://quaff.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/HighGravityFermentation-1.ppt

One other tip - yeast that should be used more generally and in particular for this kind of stuff are the alleged Rochefort derivatives like WLP540 and BE-256 - and dregs from Rochefort 10 are even better if you can harvest them cleanly, they're noticeably more complex than the yeast lab versions but of course there's always more risk of picking up nasties. British in origin, nice fruitiness, but more adapted to high ABV than your average British yeast.

One option might be Fuller's imperial version of their porter?
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...m-the-horses-mouth.642756/page-3#post-8674860
 
Last edited:
Stu said:
I'm after a recipe for an Imperial Stout.
I'm looking for something between 10 and 13%.
I am looking at buying a wooden barrel which I'll throw a couple of bottles of rum about. And possibly other spirits (please feel free to suggest).

Things I like:
Chocolate taste
Coffee
A warm, sweet mouthfeel
Depth

Things I can't do:
Lactose
Actual chocolate
Sweeteners
Thin taste
Bitterness

Any suitable recipes?
Click to expand...
This might be of interest, my bourbon barrel-aged Imperial Stout. Loads of useful information in this thread because I recorded pretty much everything from sourcing the barrel to experiments in bottling. Some good Q&A, the recipe, feedback sheets from a national competition (it scored 41/50), etc.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/barrel-aged-imperial-stout.99462/

With these beers you really do need high bitterness but you won’t taste it, it balances the beer.
 
Don't expect the same Brewhouse Efficiency as standard beers, factor in for it being reduced. Have some DME in stock, as a backup if you don't hit your numbers on OG.

A subtle addition of peated or other smoked malt and vanilla extract could go a little way to replicating barrel aged flavours without the extra work.
 
The main problem with barrels is that they permeate oxygen. The smaller the barrel, the more oxygen ingress. For some beers, like lambic, this is no problem with all the good germs from the fermentation.

But a traditional beer will become stale.

And barrels in the 19th century were coated with pitch inside, so no barrel tastes and no oxygen.

What plastic is your barrel made of?
Isn't a corny keg made of stainless steel?
 
chthon said:
The main problem with barrels is that they permeate oxygen. The smaller the barrel, the more oxygen ingress. For some beers, like lambic, this is no problem with all the good germs from the fermentation.

But a traditional beer will become stale.

And barrels in the 19th century were coated with pitch inside, so no barrel tastes and no oxygen.

What plastic is your barrel made of?
Isn't a corny keg made of stainless steel?
Click to expand...
I've no idea what kind of plastic. I've had it years - one of the usual pressure barrels we've all got hanging about (That probably never gets used).
And yes, a Corny should be good. I'm just aware that people have said once you use them for certain beer types, you'll struggle to get them right for regular beers.
 
Stu said:
Problem is, what kind of container if not a barrel?
I have a plastic barrel and corny kegs. Surely those would leave their own taste long-term.
Click to expand...
Stainless vessels and oak in the beverage is brilliant.

And easy been doing it for years. Barrels are a pita and they fade.
 
Last edited:

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