First brew for critiquing - Viking Stout

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JakeWallace

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I'm new to home brewing, after receiving a Mr. beer kit for Christmas. I've been reading everything I could get my hands on, including Tap Into The Art and Science of Brewing by Bamforth, a reference guide put out by Brew Your Own magazine, Home Brew Favorites, and a ton of recipes, and after building a 5 gallon primary fermenter I came up with this recipe using locally available ingredients. I'm going to build a secondary tonight, and I already bought a Cornelius keg with a CO2 tank and regulator to force carbonate it. Let me know what you guys think, or what you would have done differently and why. Thanks.

YEAST:
Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast

HOPS:
1/2 oz. Fuggles Hops 4.8% Bittering @ 50 minutes
1 oz. Kent Goldings Hops 4.9% Flavoring @ 10 minutes
1/2 oz. Fuggles Hops 4.8% Aroma @ heat off

FERMENTABLES:
1 lb. Victory Malt
1/2 lb. Caramel Malt
1 lb. Chocolate Malt
1/2 lb. Black Patent Malt
3/4 lb. Steel Cut Oats - 12 oz.
1 lb. Munton's Plain DME
2 lbs. Carlson Briess Sparkling Amber DME
3.75 lbs. Coopers Stout Extract Syrup
3 oz. Robust Molassis (Unsulphered)

OTHER ADJUNCTS:
6 oz. Lactose
1 tsp. Irish Moss
1/4 lb. Sumatra Whole Bean Coffee
4 oz. Giradehelli 70% Cäcoa
4 tsp. Gypsum

Brita filtered 2 galloins of tap water to a 16 qt. stainless steel pot, heeted to 170°F and treated with gypsum. Put all the grainss into two boil bags and steeped at 155°F for 60 minutes. Removed boil bags and sparged in an 8 qt. pot with pre-boiled, 80° filtered water for 90 minutes while I worked with the extracts in the original 16 qt. pot. I turned the flame to high and stired in the DMEs and the liquid extract, and the molassis and brought to a boil. I added the bittering hops and the chocolate to a nylon mesh boil bag and boiled for 50 minutes before adding the flavoring hops and the Irish moss. I stirred in the lactose and boiled for another 10 minutes, turned off the heat, and added the last of the hops and the coffee beans. After 10 minutes I added 1 1/2 gallons of filtered, pre-boiled water @ 80° and added the water from the 8 qt. pot, transferred it to the 5 gallon fermenter where I topped with filtered cold water and put it out in the snow to cool. The gravity was at 1.070 when I pitched the yeast. The primary fermenter was placed on a tile floor in my garden apartment that has an ambient temperature of 76°. Within 6 hours there was activity in the air lock, and by 12 hours the water in the air lock was bubbling vigorously. At 24 hours, fermentation started to slow, but it's still bubbling about once every 1-2 seconds. I'm planning 5 days in the primary and 2-3 weeks in the secondary before transferring into the keg through a few layers of nylon mesh bags to catch any solids that might make it through to that point.
 
Honestly, I think you have way too much going on here - 3 different types of extract, molasses, coffee, chocolate, lactose, oats. If nothing else, I would have eliminated the amber and stout extracts and used with some light or extra light DME instead and built the color and flavor with the specialty grains and cut out the molasses (I don't think you're going to get anything from it with all the other flavors going on). Personally, I would have simplified even more - probably by removing either the cacoa or the coffee. Also seems like a lot of gypsum to me.

I would also ferment much cooler than 76F - somewhere closer to 65F - you're going to end up with a lot of fruity esters in this - especially when you consider that the beer will raise above the ambient temp during fermentation.
 
Thanks for the reply. I knew people would say I went way over board with the ingredients, but I wanted to go a little crazy with this one, and either have it fail and get it out of my system at the beginning, or have it turn out okay. I'm the same with cooking and it usually works out.

I didn't want to use gypsum at all, but I knew my tap water has a really high pH, so I planned to use 1-2 tsp just to get it down to 7 or so, but every time I took a pH reading it was still too high to even give me a reading with a basic testing kit. I stopped at 4 tsp, and that's when my chocolate oatmeal stout turned into a chocolate coffee stout. The coffee was a last minute addition to attempt to lower the pH a bit more before it was time to pitch the yeast.

I can't really do anything about the temperature. I usually keep my condo at 79-80, but I turned the heat down to ferment the beer. The fermenter is on the tile floor in the coolest area of my condo. What's the point of living indoors if you can't stay toasty warm in the cold Chicago winters? I usually drink lighter European lagers like Becks, Pilsner Urquell, Grolsche and occasionally Stella Artiou, so I plan to do a lot of lagering in my refrigerator in the Mr. Beer 2 1/2 gallon fermenter, but until then I wanted get some practice in, going through the steps, and I figured a highly experimental stout would be a good lesson in the mechanics of home brewing. And if it turns out to be drinkable, all the better, but if not it's not the end of the world. My main concern right now is figuring out a way to keep the fermenters at a lower temperature, because there's no chance of my thermostat getting set below 77. In the mean time I moved this batch up against my sliding glass door to try and lower the temperature a few degrees.
 
the victory malt and oats really needed to be mashed. s-04 throws nasty esters above about 72. at 76 ambient, your beer was probably fermenting well into the 80s. cooling it down now will do nothing since the yeast makes all the nasty flavors at the very early stages of fermentation. that much gypsum is going to make the beer taste very minerally and it will likely have a sharp, harsh bitterness. now, one or more of a few things will happen. you'll taste the **** beer, and having gotten this out of your system, will follow simple instructions like ferment below 70 and don't go crazy with ingredients. or you'll taste the **** beer and decide brewing just isn't for you. or you'll be so amazed that that dirty liquid you're drinking was made by you, that you'll convince yourself you like it, and post back here that it's the best beer you've ever had.
 
Feel free to get it out of your system.

That being said, with that much going on it's going to be impossible to learn very much from building this recipe. If it turns out good, or it turns out bad, you won't know why.
 
Lets put it this way. I occasionally expirament like this myself sometimes. It never turns out superb, but it sure is fun.
 
Thanks for the reply. I knew people would say I went way over board with the ingredients, but I wanted to go a little crazy with this one, and either have it fail and get it out of my system at the beginning, or have it turn out okay. I'm the same with cooking and it usually works out.

I didn't want to use gypsum at all, but I knew my tap water has a really high pH, so I planned to use 1-2 tsp just to get it down to 7 or so, but every time I took a pH reading it was still too high to even give me a reading with a basic testing kit. I stopped at 4 tsp, and that's when my chocolate oatmeal stout turned into a chocolate coffee stout. The coffee was a last minute addition to attempt to lower the pH a bit more before it was time to pitch the yeast.

I can't really do anything about the temperature. I usually keep my condo at 79-80, but I turned the heat down to ferment the beer. The fermenter is on the tile floor in the coolest area of my condo. What's the point of living indoors if you can't stay toasty warm in the cold Chicago winters? I usually drink lighter European lagers like Becks, Pilsner Urquell, Grolsche and occasionally Stella Artiou, so I plan to do a lot of lagering in my refrigerator in the Mr. Beer 2 1/2 gallon fermenter, but until then I wanted get some practice in, going through the steps, and I figured a highly experimental stout would be a good lesson in the mechanics of home brewing. And if it turns out to be drinkable, all the better, but if not it's not the end of the world. My main concern right now is figuring out a way to keep the fermenters at a lower temperature, because there's no chance of my thermostat getting set below 77. In the mean time I moved this batch up against my sliding glass door to try and lower the temperature a few degrees.

You are doing an extract beer, there is no need to even look or care about the pH of your water.

You'll probably get a very estery beer at those temperatures... and speaking of which are you about 90 years old? 80F? Bad circulatory system?
 
You are doing an extract beer, there is no need to even look or care about the pH of your water.

Thanks, I didn't know that. Other than the amount of certain elements being pulled from the grains, I would have thought that pH had little to do with anything other than having the best possible environment for the yeast to thrive while keeping bacteria, molds and fungi at bay. I would still assume that pH plays an important role in that, and would prefer to keep the pH within a good range for the yeast to thrive while making it as harsh of conditions as possible for other micro-organisms. Or is that not usually an issue that's considered when home brewing?

I need to worry about having my fermenters warm in the winter because I keep my house at 65 or lower. I can't imagine 76 in my house that's crazy.

65, if you had someone paying you rent you'd be breaking slum lord laws. To me that's crazy. I also breed pythons, so I've had to keep my ambient temps here in the mid 70s, and I guess I got used to it. The snake room is kept at 82-88 depending on the time of year, and I have my coffee in there every morning just for the warmth.To each his own I guess.

I got a large wine chiller that uses a thermal electric chip and heat sink, so I can do my next batch at 65-68, and probably even use it to lager 5 gallon batches, but that will be close. I might have to cut out a square in the back and add a second piezo chip to get that low. I'm glad I found something, because I was worried about it from the beginning, but I didn't know what I could do. The pale ale kit I did was fairly fruity, but my neighbor said he liked it so I gave the last 18 bottles to him.

My secondary is finished, and I just transferred the stout into it. It smells like Guiness, so my fingers are crossed that it will be drinkable, but either way I'm going to start a much simpler batch this weekend and keep it in the wine cooler, so I should be okay from here on out.
 
The extract will sufficiently drop your pH into the normal ranger for beer. It's a concern when all grain brewing for the mash. Too high of a mash pH will reduced efficiency and can extract tannins in the sparge.

BTW, I keep my place 62 in the winter.
 
uh I keep my apartment 65 in winter...so does everyone else around here... It is more than sufficiently warm.

Holy ****, I had no idea that the HBT forum was the collective authority on what people are supposed to keep their thermostats set at. I apologize if I ruined anyone's week by letting it slip that I keep my condo warmer than 65°. I'm a skinny guy and I love the heat. What can I say... :confused:

Getting back on topic, the 76° I mentioned earlier was the warmest it would have gotten, knowing that you want fermentation to happen lower than that. Realistically it was lower than that for most of the process. My fiance took last week off work, and needless to say she likes the condo cooler than me, so from the time I pitched the yeast until hour 12, the temps were 71° or so. From hours 12-24 it was up to 76, and 24-36 was back down to 71° - 72°. It was still warmer than I would like to ferment at, but looking back it was quite a bit cooler than 76 for a good part of the process.

I have the 28 bottle wine cooler now, so temperature won't be an issue any more. I also build and sell custom reptile incubators, so another option I came up with is to use a cabinet incubator with a digital thermostat and put it out on my patio in a storage closet. The thermostats I use can heat or cool from 50° - 140°, so I would be able to heat it up into the 60s. That might be a better option since I can build one specifically to hold 2x-4x – 5 gallon fermenters.

And honestly, I know that there's no need to use so many ingredients, but will using smaller amounts of several different malts and extracts do any harm? I never planned to make adjustment to this recipe after this batch is finished, so I don't exactly need to know what elements are the cause of certain flavors.
 
Holy ****, I had no idea that the HBT forum was the collective authority on what people are supposed to keep their thermostats set at. I apologize if I ruined anyone's week by letting it slip that I keep my condo warmer than 65°. I'm a skinny guy and I love the heat. What can I say... :confused:

To each his own - my father-in-law keeps his house at a balmy 57 in the winter (yes, I'm serious). We need a hat and jacket when we eat over there.


Getting back on topic, the 76° I mentioned earlier was the warmest it would have gotten, knowing that you want fermentation to happen lower than that. Realistically it was lower than that for most of the process. My fiance took last week off work, and needless to say she likes the condo cooler than me, so from the time I pitched the yeast until hour 12, the temps were 71° or so. From hours 12-24 it was up to 76, and 24-36 was back down to 71° - 72°. It was still warmer than I would like to ferment at, but looking back it was quite a bit cooler than 76 for a good part of the process.

I have the 28 bottle wine cooler now, so temperature won't be an issue any more. I also build and sell custom reptile incubators, so another option I came up with is to use a cabinet incubator with a digital thermostat and put it out on my patio in a storage closet. The thermostats I use can heat or cool from 50° - 140°, so I would be able to heat it up into the 60s. That might be a better option since I can build one specifically to hold 2x-4x – 5 gallon fermenters.

You're beer is still going to be quite "fruity" and estery, which there is nothing really you can do about now. Seems like you have a good plan for future batches though. Whatever works best for you to keep temps in the 60s. Though of course you could just start brewing saisons and belgians - temps in the 70s (even 80s) are perfect for those styles.

And honestly, I know that there's no need to use so many ingredients, but will using smaller amounts of several different malts and extracts do any harm? I never planned to make adjustment to this recipe after this batch is finished, so I don't exactly need to know what elements are the cause of certain flavors.

My main "issue" with so many ingredients is that the flavors are going to get all muddled together - not sure if all those different flavors will blend into something you want to drink. Of course some beers are chock full of ingredients, but it takes a lot of practice and experience (and a careful touch) to get all the flavors to play nicely together. It is hard enough to get the right balance with just a few ingredients (something I am still trying to learn).
 
At least you have a good attitude about it. Really. The aforementioned suggestion that you do belgians and saisons isn't a bad one. Those really thrive in temps like you're cultivating. You can even mix it up and do an american style beer with a belgian yeast, and get good results. Like a hoppy american ipa fermented with a belgian yeast. A combo like that can really work. The problem with yeasts that arent meant to go that high isnt just that they will throw a lot of esters at those temps. Theyll also produce fusel alcohols and a bunch of other nasty compounds that not only make the beer taste bad, but will leave you with a killer hangover. It sounds like youll be able to control your temps now with the wine fridge so that should help out future beers. But I'll bet this current beer you;ve got going is going to cause killer hangovers, if not taste weird too.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'll probably just get the wine cooler up and running, and possibly build a large cabinet incubator at some point. My plans might change along the way, but for now I'm aiming to find a couple of good European style lager recipes, adjust them batch by batch until I think I have the perfect beer, and just consistently brew them over and over so I always have delicious beer on tap. If anyone has any suggestions for a Pilsner Urquell, Becks or Grolsche clone I'm all ears.

If I enjoy it enough to take the hobby any further than that I might make an occasional batch of different ales to give away, but I'm particular about the beer I drink, since I drink so much of it, so brewing my own pilsner to keep on tap that never runs out will be about the greatest thing I can think of.

That's why I was never really concerned about this batch. Sure, if it's drinkable I'll drink it, but I would never replace drinking Pilsner Urquell with a sweet stout. It might replace my morning "breakfast beer", but other than that it's just a novelty and a little practice going through the motions and making sure I can get through all the steps without any contamination, etc.
 
I find that you can more easily get away with more ingredients with a stout. This beer will probably be fine, but a bit fruity as said.

As for pilsner urquell, I can tell you the exact ingredients they use.
100% Bohemian Pilsner Malt, 100% Czech Saaz Hops, WLP800 or wyeast 2278. Soft soft water and a decoction mash. Somewhere in the 1.050 range with around 40 IBUs.
Incredibly simple, but great style of beer.
 
I find that you can more easily get away with more ingredients with a stout. This beer will probably be fine, but a bit fruity as said.

As for pilsner urquell, I can tell you the exact ingredients they use.
100% Bohemian Pilsner Malt, 100% Czech Saaz Hops, WLP800 or wyeast 2278. Soft soft water and a decoction mash. Somewhere in the 1.050 range with around 40 IBUs.
Incredibly simple, but great style of beer.

That's why I chose a stout for my first batch since I wanted to get nuts with ingredients. I've seen some recipes for stouts that don't make mine look crazy at all, although I'm sure that the brewers who came up with them had the experience to where there was rhyme and reason for the lengthy combinations of ingredients.

I tasted the beer a couple of hours ago and even though there were some fruity undertones, I think the laundry list of ingredients are doing a lot to cover up the esters. It really wasn't that bad. It definitely won't be added to my list of favorites, even if it had been fermented at lower temps. But I've paid for worse. And luckily, I haven't had a hangover for several years now, so that shouldn't be an issue for me at least.

Thanks a lot for the Pilsner recipe! I know what my next batch is going to be.
 
To make a really outstanding pilsner, you really need everything to be on, since off flavors will show up in spades.
Use a good quality pilsner malt. Either from Germany or Czechoslovakia if you can find it. Czech saaz hops are essential if you want a BoPils. Otherwise for a german pils, there are a few noble hops that will work. Soft water is about as important if not more so as to everything else. Finally a pils lager yeast, properly fermented at lager temperatures(50F solid), a Diacetyl rest and then a good long lagering period at sub freezing temps. A decoction mash can really make it stand out as well.
 
It hasn't conditioned as long as I planned, but I got my keg system set up a couple of days ago, so I transferred this batch into it and started force carbonating. It tastes great to me, way better than I expected. The fruity undertones are completely gone, as is almost all the sweetness that was there after primary fermentation.

I bought a cheap bottle of porter last week that tasted horrible, and I told my fiance that I bet this batch would taste just like the porter in all the bad ways; odd caramel/smoke flavor, too sweet, fruity... but this has dried out nicely and has a very smooth flavor with good body. The chocolate and coffee come through just enough to know they are there. I would definitely buy this beer, and I'm not saying that because I made it. :D I've been drinking it for a couple of hours now, and it's just as good as any micro brew stout I've ever had, which is a huge surprise to me after the negative critiques here.
 
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