Russian imperial stout mods

[seanb9]

good day to you all (sorry im english and thats how american tv programes portray you)

 

Well im new here so hi first of all.and now onto business

i have alot of idea test the waters batting around my head some may come to fruition some may not. I just like to bat ideas around and see which tangent they take. But anyway ive been looking at the coopers russian imperial stout and thinking lets take it up a notch or ten.

The orginal recipe is

1.7kg stout kit

1.7kg dark ale kit

1.7kg lager kit

1kg of dextrose

So my mods would be simple but ill explain the reasoning behind them as i go. First id dump the 1.7kg lager kit for 1.7kg of liquid malt extract as its cheaper and i feel any lager type tastes would be destroyed by the stout and dark ale. next i feel i wanna up the dextose to 1.5kg just simply to make it even more of a knock you sideways beer maybe taking abv to 12% . Next id use 2 sachets 7g each of champagne yeast i saw a shop bought russian stout one with it in to give it a dryer taste so id like that. Then id just a nice 12g gram real ale yeast sachet summat like like gervins. so that would take my yeast bill to around 22g as i notice cooper say with it being so high in abv the yeast can struggle so i thought more yeast to help the cause or should i consider 2 sachets of real ale yeast.

So your thoughts anyone giving the amount of yeast should i brew it in the bath or local swimming baths....

[Hairy]

Welcome to the forum Sean! Don't feel bad about being English, we all have issues in life that we must overcome [biggrin]

 

Firstly, the problem I see with swapping the Lager can for liquid malt is the loss of bitterness. The lager can is hopped so you will need to do a hop boil to replace that bitterness.

 

As for the yeast, check out the MrMalty website for the correct pitching rate. It is a big beer you will have there.

 

And perhaps the bath tub is a good idea; a nice open ferment and imagine the flavours you would pick up.

 

Or perhaps fill the FV to 18 litres and add the additional water when the krausen dies down. It will be volcanic.

 

Good luck with it.

[MARKP18]

so that would take my yeast bill to around 22g as i notice cooper say with it being so high in abv the yeast can struggle so i thought more yeast to help the cause or should i consider 2 sachets of real ale yeast.

 

Another thing to watch is the alcohol tolerance of the yeast, most ale yeasts tolerance is around 9-10%, hence chucking in the champagne yeast in the kit that you saw.

 

Could chuck them both in at the start, or use the ale yeast for primary and then add the champagne nearer FG. Probably won't make much difference with that receipe but something to think about.

 

(disclaimer, this comes from book learning have not done a brew >7%, so take with a pinch of salt, do your own research etc)

[seanb9]

Ah yes forgot about the hops in the lager kit tho i have challenger hops here so i could just make a hop tea

As for the yeast i was planning on just launching the champagne and ale yeast yeasts togther into one big foaming frenzy. That coulkd work. Another solution is to find a belgian ale yeast which are notourisley high in abv so that could work as well.