Help with Stout recipe

Brewer's Friend 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
T

Tazzster

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2014
Messages
47
Reaction score
3
Hey Everyone!

I was looking for some help with a Stout recipe. This is my first all-grain as well, so I was trying to keep it easy. I was also aiming for the sweeter side of things. Anyway let me know what you guys think...

9 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb Flaked Oats
1 lb English Chocolate Malt
0.5 lb English Roasted Barley
0.5 lb English Dark Crystal

1 oz Fuggles - 60 min
1 oz Fuggles - 30 min

Wyeast 1318 London Ale III

Thanks Everyone
 
Well. Assuming a 5 gallon batch it looks good. A bit heavy on chocolate for me personally but not outside extremes. I'd go with maybe .5lbs but again that is just my preference from using chocolate malt YMMV.


Sent from somewhere to someone
 
jigtwins said:
looks like a stout to me. What temp are you mashing at?
Click to expand...

154

isn't that what you are supposed to do?

And why we are talking about mashing... I'm going BIAB and I was wondering does it matter if you heat water first and put the grain in... or put the grain in and heat it up?

Also, I was thinking of mashing with 5 gallons. I don't know how much water I will lose to the grains.... a gallon maybe? Then I can sparge with 1.5 - 2 gallons. Does that sound right?
 
I punched this into BeerSmith, and from what you have posted, it looks like a decent crack at a oatmeal stout which would be on the maltier side of the style. There are lots of recipes out there, but it's fun to make your beer uniquely yours. I say brew it! :mug:
 
Dam. 12 lbs of grain in a bag. I'm curious of your setup. But, yes, heat the water up, then add the bag of grains. When done mashing, you can sparge to bring up the amount of water. How do you plan to rest the 12 lbs of grain on top of the kettle to sparge?
 
Stout should have a higher percentage of Roast than Choc, maybe swap the two around. My stout recipe has basically the same base malt, crystal and flaked, but one pound roast and no Choc at all.
 
70ls1nova said:
Dam. 12 lbs of grain in a bag. I'm curious of your setup. But, yes, heat the water up, then add the bag of grains. When done mashing, you can sparge to bring up the amount of water. How do you plan to rest the 12 lbs of grain on top of the kettle to sparge?
Click to expand...

My 15 gallon brew pot is on the UPS truck and should arrive sometime today. I will do my mash there and then dunk sparge in another pot I have... It is only a 5 gallon pot so I am a little worried there. I may need to do some shifting of pots. I am planning on buying a colander today the will fit on top on pot. So I can let things run out and give it a good squeeze. Which reminds me I still need to have my wife make a bag.

That is my plan so far.... I'm kinda making it up as I go along.
 
Yeah, the biggest BIAB I've done is a batch with 9 lb of grain and it was a handful. I use a 10" stainless strainer on top, set the bag on it carefully and slowly rinse to get my boil volume. After rinsing, i set it on top of the bottling bucket and let it strain while the batch started to boil. I added the amount from the bottling bucket into the kettle then. That was only for a 3 gallon batch. I couldn't imagine going bigger with my same setup.
 
70ls1nova said:
Yeah, the biggest BIAB I've done is a batch with 9 lb of grain and it was a handful. I use a 10" stainless strainer on top, set the bag on it carefully and slowly rinse to get my boil volume. After rinsing, i set it on top of the bottling bucket and let it strain while the batch started to boil. I added the amount from the bottling bucket into the kettle then. That was only for a 3 gallon batch. I couldn't imagine going bigger with my same setup.
Click to expand...

I did a 31 pound BIAB last weekend.
 
Tazzster said:
154

isn't that what you are supposed to do?

And why we are talking about mashing... I'm going BIAB and I was wondering does it matter if you heat water first and put the grain in... or put the grain in and heat it up?

Also, I was thinking of mashing with 5 gallons. I don't know how much water I will lose to the grains.... a gallon maybe? Then I can sparge with 1.5 - 2 gallons. Does that sound right?
Click to expand...
The mash temp matters. Mash higher for more body and lower FG, and mash lower for a lower FG and thinner body. I agree with wailingguitar too. More roast than chocolate. I do like chocolate in my stouts, and I personally try to keep the roasted barley lower to avoid the astringent bitter taste they may leave. Maybe add some dehusked carafa 3.
 
Traditionally you would have used black patent or brown malt rather than any unmalted grains. Chocolate will do, though.
 
wailingguitar said:
Stout should have a higher percentage of Roast than Choc, maybe swap the two around. My stout recipe has basically the same base malt, crystal and flaked, but one pound roast and no Choc at all.
Click to expand...

This is from Beersmith...

Brewing an Oatmeal Stout

The grain bill for an oatmeal stout typically starts with UK or American pale malt, which generally comprises about 60-80% of the grain bill. Oats are the next major component, making up 5%-25% of the bill in most recipes, though some extreme examples use as much as 30% oats. I personally recommend targeting the 10% oats to start with.

A variety of grains are often added to enhance body and complexity including Caramel/Crystal malts, Cara-Pils, Cara-Foram malt, flaked barley, and occasionally even wheat or flaked wheat. These typically are included in the 5-10% (each) weight range. When using Caramel/Crystal malts, the darker versions are often favored to add color and caramel sweetness to the beer.

The stout character and color is usually achieved by using Chocolate malt and Black Patent malt (along with the Caramel mentioned earlier). These are typically constrained to 4-10% (each) of the grain bill to achieve a stout character without creating an overwhelming roasted coffee flavor, as oatmeal stout should be in the “sweet stout” family, and not dry like Irish stout. Stout roast and roasted barley is generally not used in oatmeal stout as it adds too much “coffee” or “burnt” flavor to the mix.


... According to that I should leave out the roasted barley all together...
 
Tazzster said:
This is from Beersmith...

Brewing an Oatmeal Stout

The grain bill for an oatmeal stout typically starts with UK or American pale malt, which generally comprises about 60-80% of the grain bill. Oats are the next major component, making up 5%-25% of the bill in most recipes, though some extreme examples use as much as 30% oats. I personally recommend targeting the 10% oats to start with.

A variety of grains are often added to enhance body and complexity including Caramel/Crystal malts, Cara-Pils, Cara-Foram malt, flaked barley, and occasionally even wheat or flaked wheat. These typically are included in the 5-10% (each) weight range. When using Caramel/Crystal malts, the darker versions are often favored to add color and caramel sweetness to the beer.

The stout character and color is usually achieved by using Chocolate malt and Black Patent malt (along with the Caramel mentioned earlier). These are typically constrained to 4-10% (each) of the grain bill to achieve a stout character without creating an overwhelming roasted coffee flavor, as oatmeal stout should be in the “sweet stout” family, and not dry like Irish stout. Stout roast and roasted barley is generally not used in oatmeal stout as it adds too much “coffee” or “burnt” flavor to the mix.


... According to that I should leave out the roasted barley all together...
Click to expand...

I have brewed professionally for 25 yrs, have made many oatmeal stouts and not a single one had a higher % of Choc, and no stout I have ever brewed, commercially or otherwise, has had no roast in it whatsoever. The GABF guidelines, which are the AOB touchstone, do mention a chocolate-like flavor, it is also clear from the description that Roast should be there. One could assume that without it a beer might get lower marks. That being said; your beer, brew it as you want, you're the only one you have to please.
 
wailingguitar said:
I have brewed professionally for 25 yrs, have made many oatmeal stouts and not a single one had a higher % of Choc, and no stout I have ever brewed, commercially or otherwise, has had no roast in it whatsoever. The GABF guidelines, which are the AOB touchstone, do mention a chocolate-like flavor, it is also clear from the description that Roast should be there. One could assume that without it a beer might get lower marks. That being said; your beer, brew it as you want, you're the only one you have to please.
Click to expand...

Thanks Wailing, I had not seen the GABF guidelines before.

They appear to be at odds with what BeerSmith has on their website...weird. One favors Chocolate and Black while the other favors the roasted barley.
 
Tazzster said:
Thanks Wailing, I had not seen the GABF guidelines before.

They appear to be at odds with what BeerSmith has on their website...weird. One favors Chocolate and Black while the other favors the roasted barley.
Click to expand...

No sweat. Hope I didn't come across as snippy, hadn't had my coffee yet!
 
+1 on Marris Otter. I typically add 1lb of english brown and 1lb of wheat. I also cut back on the chocolate malt to 0.5lb. I really enjoy tasting the different grains at the LHBS. I've never used black patent, but thats because I'm a creature of habit.
 
Roast (unmalted) barley is a relatively newcomer to stouts, you won't find it in many historic recipes. Didn't Guinness only get into it in the 1970s/1980s? Whitbread ignored both black malt and roast barley in their stouts for pretty much the whole 20th century too.

ps: I should dig out some of the descriptions of the old Guinness malts, but their black malt was meant to be paler than black patent, and their amber malt darker than the British version, so I guess that chocolate malt would be a good match for the black.
 
JKaranka said:
Roast (unmalted) barley is a relatively newcomer to stouts, you won't find it in many historic recipes. Didn't Guinness only get into it in the 1970s/1980s? Whitbread ignored both black malt and roast barley in their stouts for pretty much the whole 20th century too.
Click to expand...

The relatively fine gradation of malt by color is pretty new. Most stouts would have been variations of light, medium (which is very different than what we know as medium crystal malts today) and black malt. Black malt would have not been roasted barley as roasted barley is an unmalted dark malt, it would have been closer to black patent.

Roasted barley was not used because it was illegal until 1880--no grains could go into the brewing of beer that had not been malted, and paid the malt tax.

If you read through the historical sources you'll notice nothing but scorn for roasted barley, it being seen as cheap and a poor substitute for black patent malt. Which is of course a sharp change from today where black patent is a thing of unspeakable horror for some.
 

Similar threads

W
English Bitter - Partial Mash - finally got back into brewing
Replies
1
Views
508
mbauer013
M
G
Kolsch recipe - need help
Replies
31
Views
2K
superiorsat
S
H
Citrusy Pale Ale to clean out the freezer
Replies
7
Views
749
lumpher
lumpher
yard_bird
New Challenge for Brewing: Stouts
Replies
13
Views
637
DuncB
D
zinn
How does my creamy pumpkin ale recipe look?
Replies
4
Views
1K
Leezer
Leezer
Brewer's Friend 300

Latest posts

Back
Top