imperial stout

You can't make an impy stout with only 10 lbs. of extract or in only 6 weeks. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's just the nature of the style.

------->Denny

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:37:17 GMT, "res055a5" said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

If you don't use "more than 10.5 pounds of extract" the alcohol won't be high enough to be an imperial stout.

The higher the alcohol content, the longer the beer takes to finish.

You can probably make an ale that tastes like an "imperial stout lite" faster and with less malt, but it won't be a real imperial stout.

Bah.... you can get pretty darn close. I once made an imperial stout with

i just brewed up my version of "the king of beers imperial stout" that i got from a book. My variations on it were: used 11 # amber malt, 2 # pale malt extracts used fuggles hops for bittering and Mt. Hood hops for aroma. used 2/3 # light brown sugar instead of one #. made six gallons instead of five. used an unknown amount of grains (don't have a scale, but guess 1.5 pounds). specific gravity came out 1.090

So the next questions are: 1. how long should i leave it in the primary fermenter and 2. how long in the carboy? and 3. how long in the bottles before serving? should I leave it in the carboy until it reaches about 1.030 spec. grav.? rich

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 02:20:17 GMT, "res055a5" said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

Until the SG doesn't drop for 3 or 4 days.

Until it drops clear.

Depends on temperature but, with an IS, 6 months isn't long, and a couple of years is ok too. But you can probably start drinking it after a few weeks. Or you could leave it in secondary for 6 to 12 months. People do it either way - age in a carboy or age in the bottle.

Leave it in primary fermentation until it stops fermenting (3 or 4 days with the same SG.)

The only reason for a carboy is so that the precipitates will precipitate out. That should happen pretty quickly - a day or two at most, usually a few hours.