Notes: The goal is to brew an imperial stout that will improve with age so I can brew it every year and start piling up a few years worth.
Things I've tried to far:
1. 2# roasted barley and 2# of chocolate malt: this ended up being a little too roasty. Like badly burnt coffee. I decided to drop it down to 1.5# each.
2. Vanilla: this was good, took the edge off of the aggressive roastiness.
3. Tanka Beans: interesting flavor, but not great in an imperial stout. I'm thinking it would be good in a nut brown ale. It just seemed out of place with the roastiness.
4. Cocoa nibs: good but I did not use enough.
5. Malted oats as part of the base: did not come through in the flavor at all. going to skip this moving forward.
6. Add enough corn sugar to get it up to 13% abv: doesn't seem to have improved it. going to skip this moving forward.
Next time:
- otter base malt, 1.5# each roasted barley and chocolate malt, special b instead of normal crystal malt, vanilla and cocoa nibs in half of it.
random ideas of stuff to try:
-I'd like to try a mexican chocolate version where I use some kind of chili pepper, some cinnamon, anise etc...
-A beligan version might be good. Back the roasted malt off some, add some candi syrup and use belgian yeast. maybe throw in some plums or berries etc... for good measure.
-It would be interesting to see what happens with like a year on oak. I might brew this twice in a row and stick one of them in the back of my closet with some oak cubes for a year. |
