Stone imperial Russian Stout clone extract recipe

[Crawfordid]

Hiya guys been talking on the forum about doing this recipe for a while but havent had the time to make it. I wanted a challenge and this beer has a number of elements that I havent really worried about before. Namely making a massive yeast starter since it is such a high gravity beer and also trying to cobble together some sort of blow off valve since it will likely be pretty active.

Recipe is from
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3128-stone-imperial-russian-stout-clone
With a few alterations on weights and volumes

(5 gallons/19 L, partial mash)
OG = 1.096 FG = 1.020
IBU = 65 SRM = 63 ABV = 10.7%

Ingredients
3.5 kg light dried malt extract
1 kg Pilsner malt
1 kg amber malt
650 g roast barley (500 °L)
650 g black malt
20.8 AAU Warrior® hops (60 min.) (34g at 17.5% alpha acids)
White Labs WLP002 (English Ale) yeast x2 made into a 4 L yeast starter
2 packets of EC-1118 champagne yeast

Cost me about 50 quid for everything

Step by Step
Place the grains in a large nylon bag(I had to use two as a lot of grain). Partial mash the crushed grains in 7.7 L (I used 10L) of water at 66 ºC for 45 minutes. Washed with 7 L of 77C hot wash. Add water to make 23 L of wort, add dried malt extract and bring to a boil. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops beginning. Cool the wort and transfer to fermenter. Aerate and pitch yeast. Ferment at 68 ºF (20 ºC).

Going to ferment it until the gravity stops dropping then transfer into two separate carboys. Will keep one as per recipe then in the second one i will add in some medium toast american oak chips soaked in whisky and pitch champagne yeast into both to finish them off and leave for 4 weeks before bottling.

Will add photos as go along. What do people think?

 

[ezraburke]

Looks good. I too am building a RIS recipe with the intention of adding whisky-soaked chips and aging.

What's the logic behind the champagne yeast in this?

 

[Crawfordid]

Havent decided fully if going to use it or not, been reading up on brewing these sort of beers and a lot of brewery's seem to use the champagne yeast to get the brew up those last few percentage points. Although with a sufficient yeast starter it should probably over come this. But i dont know as ive never tried brewing something this strong before. So its kind of a backup if it stops dropping those gravity points. One article ive posted mentioning this below

http://www.keystonehomebrew.com/201...ermenter-russian-imperial-stout/#.Vv1en_krK1t

Saying that my S.G was 1.082 (no where near the 1.096 from the recipe) so dont think will end up needing it but will keep an eye on it.

Also was just looking at your recipe which looks pretty damn good! The only thing I would say is that everything ive read has commented on the fact you need crap loads of yeast or it dosent finish fermenting/ gives off flavours as its stressed. I used a yeast calculator tool which helped me calculate my starter size etc

 

[MyQul]

I think the champagne yeast may dry it out too much. The WLP002 should be ok as long as you pitch enough.

Being tight if it was me I'd just brew a smaller beer first then harvest loads of the yeast cake and chuck it into the RIS to save on buying two packs of yeast and makinga huge starter

Blow off tubes are pretty easy to make (as long as they dontget blocked up). See post 2. http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61638&highlight=racking

 

[Cqr]

A learners question would Nottingham do, if I was brewing this
Sorry to jump on your post crawfordid, I still learning

 

[MyQul]

A learners question would Nottingham do, if I was brewing this
Sorry to jump on your post crawfordid, I still learning

Yes as long as you pitched enough (probalbly two packets. There yeast calc's to find out exactly how much). However notty is quite different from WLP002. 02 is supposed to be the fullers strain promotes maltyness in a beer. It also has fruity esters.
Whereas notty is quite clean. So with yeast it all depends on what effect on the beer your trying to achieve.

 

[Cqr]

Yes as long as you pitched enough (probalbly two packets. There yeast calc's to find out exactly how much). However notty is quite different from WLP002. 02 is supposed to be the fullers strain promotes maltyness in a beer. It also has fruity esters.
Whereas notty is quite clean. So with yeast it all depends on what effect on the beer your trying to achieve.

Thanks, so much to learn

 

[Crawfordid]

Tried my first lot of this over the weekend! Its beautiful! rich and full bodied, good bitterness and lovely after flavours, its also not harsh despite the ABV as you get with some imperial stouts, thoroughly recommend. I prefer the original recipe but the variant with the oak chips and whisky added is delicious as well although quite different - much smoother taste with a slight kick at the end.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I used a single re-hydrated packet of MJ belgian ale yeast for my RIS-KEY business 10%+ ris. turned out nice