Imperial Stout Kit / Bourbon Barrel Stout

Just ordered the kit to make the imperial stout. I love bourbon barrel stout. Just wondering if I can turn the imperial stout into an imperial bourbon barrel stout by simply adding bourbon and oak chips like in the bourbon barrel porter kit. Or is the recipe for a bourbon barrel stout completely different than an imperial stout?

I ordered the same kit (hopefully the in process status changes to shipped soon, here’s lookin’ @ you NB). My research has indicated many people doing this successfully. I have the porter in the fermentor currently and intend to do a very similar additions with the stout. I think I will use 20-24 oz of bourbon vs. the 16 oz called for in the porter though. Probably some Madagascar vanilla beans and coffee too.

I might add some oats to it to smooth it out a bit. I would just hate to find out after 4-5 months of preparation I ruined the batch by adding bourbon and oak cubes to it.

Elaborate on the process and such that you would recommend please. Or more clearly, how would you go about this on a 5 gallon extract kit? Thank you.

I made this kit last winter and turned it into a bourbon stout. What I did was soak 2 oz of medium american oak cubes in 2.5 cups of makers mark for 2 weeks. I added the oak cubes and the bourbon during the last two weeks of secondary ( I aged the stout in secondary for the full 4 recommended months). I also added two vanilla beans during the last week of secondary. Due to the long secondary I added a packet of champagne yeast at bottling to ensure carbonation and let it carbonate for 5 weeks. The beer turned out really darn good with a nice thick tan head when poured.

I opened the first one the second week of December and it was pretty oaky still. I had one March 4th for Fat Tuesday and the while the oak flavor has subsided it still needs a few months to mellow out and blend a little more. However it is a damn good beer in my humble opinion! When I brew this kit again I will probably only add the oak and bourbon for one week. Hope this helps.

Thanks for this. I was lucky enough to obtain some actual oak chips from real bourbon barrels in Kentucky (Maker’s Mark, and Jack Daniels which is not actually bourbon, but . . . .) I will follow your general technique.