Big Stout Stuff

After much thought, i am going to try for a less American imperial stout than Old Rasputin. Maybe more like an imperial tropic stout-ish. Tone down the hop bitterness and flavor, more toward balancing the hops n malt.

What do you think?

71% Golden Promise
22% German Dark Munich
4% Roasted Barley
3% UK Chocolate
~40 ARM Mosher
~1.100-1.104
~1.024-1.026
~10% ABV
~50 IBU Tinseth

~75 Ca, 5 Mg, 25 Na, 100 Cl, 60 SO4
Will be using the double mash, no sparge method. Targeting ~ 5.4ph

40g Magnum FWH
30g EKG and 30g Fuggles at 10min

Wyeast 1450 at 65f till 50% ADF, then free rise to 72f.

I think I’d up the roast a bit.

I was thinking that too, but have always heard to keep roast the same and just increase base malt for an imperial. In a 6 gallon batch, this one will be 1lb roast barley and .75lb 425L chocolate. It’s what my american stout uses. Hmmm, got me thinking now

Taking this from a different angle. Would a pound of roast barley and 3/4 of a pound be too much for a porter? Because I’m aiming for roast character being present but not the dominant thing

What you have looks ok but have you considered adding Brown Malt?

Take a look at the stout recipes (any of the recipes actually) posted on “Shut up about Barclay Perkins”.

I used brown malt once and must not have gotten the right kind. I’ll look that up

There are at least 2 variations.  One is 35L and also sometimes called amber malt.  It’s made by Baird.  Fawcett puts out a 70L brown malt that I use and really like.  Although I think it works better in porter than stout.

I like amber and brown malts when added to darker beers but some don’t like them.

If you’re a think for yourself type person you may be able to gather ideas from “Let’s Brew!”:

Thanks Denny I might have to try some out

I personally like roasted barley + chocolate in stouts, and brown or chocolate + black patent in porter. No reason it wouldn’t work well, either. Just personal preference.

What do you think of my recipe? As the key helper in my base stout, I value your opinion

I think it looks pretty good, but maybe another 1% of roast barley or chocolate might be a good thing, too. Bet it’s tasty. I like the dark Munich touch.

Edit -  Given the choice, I’d bump the RB up to 5%

Ok thanks

Based on Denny and Hoosierbrew’s wisdom, here’s the final draft.

6 gallon target
20lb Golden Promise
6lbs Dark Munich
1.5lbs Roast Barley
1lb 425 Chocolate
28.5 total

OG ~1.105 at 60% brewhouse, but who knows? Will be first try at a double mash.

I think that looks pretty good IMO.

I’m  eager to hear how the double mash goes! Is the grain bill getting evenly split, or is the dark stuff only going in one of the mashes?

Calculated total acid needed for full batch, then recalculated removing 10lbs Golden Promise and 4lbs Dark Munich. That tells me how much to add to first mash and second mash. The second mash adds 10lbs GP and 4lbs Dark Munich.

My only thought is that would make a great candidate to parti-gyle, but that might be an unnecessary level of complication.

When Jim first mentioned (on another thread I think) wanting to try a double mash, I thought exactly that! The old timers making “majority beers” and the like with the process would always have “capped” the last mash with fresh malt and run off a normal strength beer.  I recall Jim said no way he was going to have time and space for that. Thanks to Jim for inspiring me to dip back into London and Country Brewer to contemplate things I’ll never try.