Bourbon Oaked Russian Imperial Stout

A few months ago, a friend of ours asked if we would make a beer for his wedding. Of course we said yes. When we asked what he wanted, he said he wanted a barrel aged imperial stout. Challenge accepted. After a month of planning we knew two things. One; we don't have bourbon barrels. Two; this is going to be a big ass beer. To accomplish the barrel aged profile without a barrel, we decided to go with a few ounces of french oak cubes soaked in Maker's Mark. I started soaking the oak cubes ASAP to ensure we would get maximum exposure to get the flavors we wanted.

Then came nailing down a recipe. I played around with a few different ideas, both in terms of OG and grain bill. The idea being that this was going to be a huge complex beer, I went with an expected OG of 1.114 and planned on a long slow mash to bring the FG down to the mid 1.020's and a final ABV of around 12%. I used primarily pale malt, with a combination of roasted barley, caramel and chocolate malts for color and complexity. I also decided to use a small amount of flaked barley to add a bit of smoothness to it. To help ensure we would hit a low enough FG and maintain the body that we wanted, I knew I was going to want to use some adjunct sugars. Weapon of choice? Molasses. I knew that molasses would give us enough fermentable sugars to help reach our goal, and it would also give a unique sweetness that would go well with this beer.

Now that the grist was set, I had to figure out what yeast I wanted. I haven't been happy with the stouts I've made or had that have used cali ale yeast (the most common yeast used for RIS, at least on a homebrew level). I had been experimenting with a London ale strain on our porter and have been very happy with the results. The only problem is that it's not designed for a beer of this magnitude. Solution? I need a ton of yeast. So after weeks of building up enough yeast, it was finally brew day.

The crew came down from LA to help out and everything went smoothly. It was definitely a long brew day with a 2 hour mash and 90 minute boil, but that didn't phase us. We hit our numbers and ended up with a little over 6 gallons in the fermentor. Its happily (and violently) fermenting away as we speak. I'll give fermentation a while to clean itself up before racking to a secondary vessel and adding the oak, where it will condition for a while. Really looking forward to how this comes out.