Raspberry Imperial Stout

[teadixon]

Hi,

This is a half-sized recipe, taken from Charlie Papazian's 'Home Brewer's Companion' - I’ve converted it from US to UK and then halved it.

I’m brewing this up as a Christmas Brew to give away to friends and family. Papazian recommends ageing it a little so I’ll let people know to save it if they can.

This is an extract recipe, converted to all grain following advice from the good people on this forum.

13 L (1/2 of 26L recipe)

2.5kg plain amber DME

Substituting: - 3.75kg malt
I read that: 'Amber extract is typically 90 percent to 95 percent pale malt, up to 5 percent crystal malt, and/or up to 3 percent chocolate or black malt. '
So:
92% Pale Malt = 3.45kg
5% Crystal = 187.5 g
3% Black Malt = 112g

Adding that into my recipe gives:
=

Pale Malt = 3.45kg

475g crystal malt

225g debittered black roasted malt (Carafa Special 3)

170g roasted barley

114 chocolate roasted malt

35g any bittering hops
He states any high alpha hop, EG Chelan, Magnum, Newport, Apollo
I may use some Simcoe or Chinook, as I have some left over from another brew.

Steep:
14g cascade or citra - I’m using citra
14g Nelson Sauvin

2.5 k raspberries [fresh or frozen]

+

sugar for bottling

Yeast: White Labs Cry Havoc

My questions:

Imperial Stouts usually have some sugar, no? Should I add some in or will my grains be enough? I'm guessing the DME would help add food for the yeast.

I can't get Cry Havoc, any suggestions for a good yeast for this?

 

[strange-steve]

I'm not familiar with that yeast but a quick Google suggests it's a pretty clean all rounder, I'd be tempted to use something like Nottingham or US05 instead.

Sugar is often added to lower the fg when making big beers however for an imperial stout I don't, I just try to balance the relatively high fg with a decent hop bitterness. The sugar in the raspberries will lighten the body a little anyway.

 

[teadixon]

Thanks Steve,

That's interesting - I had assumed sugar was to raise the ABV.

And I had forgotten about the sugar in the raspberries.

I ended up ordering some Dry English Ale Yeast as I just made a stout with that. I have some US05 in the fridge though so may use that...

 

[strange-steve]

Nah you can raise the abv by simply adding more grain but if the og is high then the fg can be too high depending on attenuation of the yeast, which can make the beer seem very full bodied, heavy or overly sweet. In some styles you want to lighten the body to make them more easy drinking, but I think a RIS should be a sipper rather than a guzzler so the sugar isn't needed imo (unless perhaps the og is ridiculously high).

 

[teadixon]

(unless perhaps the og is ridiculously high).

What counts as ridiculously high? I'm aiming for 1.080 on this one, which is as high I've gone so far (though I am new to this game).

 

[strange-steve]

What counts as ridiculously high? I'm aiming for 1.080 on this one, which is as high I've gone so far (though I am new to this game).

That's not too high, I was thinking 1.100+. I have a recipe I'm gonna brew someday, it's a Dark Lord clone recipe and it has an OG of 1.165 which is insane! It has over 15 kg of grain in a 19L batch plus a kilo of sugar.