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Recipe: Bluewood SB4 Imperial Stout
SB stands for “stout base.” With thanks to Bluewood Brewing owner-brewer Cam Lund, this is a homebrew-scale recipe for one of five base imperial stouts that they use for their blending stock.
This base recipe heavy on chocolate wheat; the intention is to barrel-age it then blend with other threads. Designed to incorporate some of the softer notes of chocolate as opposed to bitter baking chocolates, this recipe is intensely sweet and roasty, requiring extended conditioning.
Also see Brewing Ultra High-Gravity “Super Monsters,” the Bluewood Way for details about their chaptalization-like process to kick the ABV up to liqueur-like heights.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.150
FG: 1.050
IBUs: 50
ABV: 13.1%
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This base recipe heavy on chocolate wheat; the intention is to barrel-age it then blend with other threads. Designed to incorporate some of the softer notes of chocolate as opposed to bitter baking chocolates, this recipe is intensely sweet and roasty, requiring extended conditioning.
Also see Brewing Ultra High-Gravity “Super Monsters,” the Bluewood Way for details about their chaptalization-like process to kick the ABV up to liqueur-like heights.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.150
FG: 1.050
IBUs: 50
ABV: 13.1%
[PAYWALL]
MALT/GRAIN BILL
19 lb (8.6 kg) Maris Otter
6.5 lb (2.9 kg) chocolate wheat
1.75 lb (794 g) de-bittered black
12 oz (340 g) roasted barley
12 oz (340 g) flaked oats
HOPS SCHEDULE
2 oz (57 g) Warrior at 90 minutes [50 IBUs]
YEAST
Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale, Omega OYL-015 Scottish Ale, or similar
DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains and mash at 151°F (66°C) for 75 minutes. Recirculate until your runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 90-plus minutes—or as many hours as it takes to hit your target gravity—adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill the wort to about 62°F (17°C). Aerate thoroughly and pitch a healthy yeast starter. Ferment at 64°F (18°C). As fermentation slows, allow free-rise to ambient temperature. Continue to condition on yeast for 3 weeks before crashing and transferring to a secondary vessel for extended conditioning. Package and carbonate to about 1.8–2 volumes of CO2.
BREWER’S NOTES
Pure oxygen or extremely vigorous aeration is a must with this recipe, as the yeast require large amounts of oxygen and nutrients to finish this one out cleanly. Collect as much wort as possible, using the largest kettle available—depending on your system’s efficiency, your last runnings will still be sweet. The more sugars rinsed into the kettle, the better! The recipe will finish very sweet by most standards, which is why we prep these recipes with barrels in mind.
