A stout darker than your worst nightmares...

I wrote my first beer recipe yesterday. I went with the dogma of "go big, or go home".

Big is somewhat of an understatement.

After some prompting from Phil, we decided that an Imperial Stout was the way to go for our first all grain recipe. Ok, well, what's my biggest problem with stouts? Often, at least to me, they're boring. I mean, there are exceptions, but let's face it, most stouts stick to the basic architecture of not much of a malt profile, little or boring hop schedules, and greatly lacking in complexity. Well, that just would not do for me. I was going big, remember.

So here's the basic stats, and I'll include a link to the recipe if anyone has the stones to take the time for this one.

Original gravity: 1.133
Planned terminal gravity: 1.033
IBU's: 74
ABV: 13.3% (+)
SRM: 101° (!!!!!!)

The whole story here

314 days from striking water to popping the top on one of these beasts. I included a tertiary fermentation that includes 7 days of dryhopping. Champagne yeast in the secondary, spices and misc semi-fermentables in the primary and secondary. 180 days in the secondary, 30 in the tertiary, and 60 in the bottle.

So needless to say, this isn't a quick brew. Think Xmas 2010. Or 2011.

The problem I've run into though is the high price of whole leaf hops. Again, with the going big idea, whole leaf hops were the only way to go. Well, that drives the price of a 22oz bottle up towards the $10 cost mark. That's a lot. We need investors/people to buy these bottles, or we could just end up with a nice private reserve of some ridiculous stout.

I'm kind of hoping for the last option.

Cheers!