Stout Brewday (Birthday Black)

For my dad's 50th birthday (11/17) I decided to convert one of his old extract recipes to all grain and brew up a batch that will be ready for the big day. I browsed through his recipe notes until I came across the comments "Real Good!" written on a beer he brewed for the 1996 New Year, one he called "Year Out Stout".

I brewed up this batch yesterday, (8/30/09) and took a couple of photos I'd like to share

Heating the strike water



Grains



Grain tag

First runnings, nice and dark!






Here's a shot of the tun and where the water level was. This was my biggest grain bill yet,



Still draining. I've been having some efficiency issues so for this batch I drained very slowly to see if it would help. As you can see, I have the ball valve opened only far enough to get a steady stream from the tun. My target OG was 1.071 but I ended up with 1.065. Maybe it's the crush?

Sparge water rinsing the grain for a couple of minutes



First runnings heating up and waiting for second runnings



I planned to do a 90 minute boil on this batch so I knew I wanted to get the level high so I could end up with 5+ gallons, but as you can see the grains didn't absorb quite as much as I expected, so I ended up with a little bit extra

Help Fermcap HELP!



Finally have the boil under control, no foam over but had a couple small splash overs



After the first hop addition

Grain mess



Well into the boil now



And wouldn't you know it, the Amarillo IPA that I had anticipated would be done fermenting before the Stout Brewday of course, was not, so I had to improvise. Cleaned up the bottling bucket, had a #2 Homer lid and a 2.75 weight I merely set the lid on the bucket, did not tighten it up and covered up the lip around the lid with foil. I'm banking on the idea that "bacteria falls down" to help me get through this fermentation safely. I'm trying my darndest to RDWHAHB but after this catastrophe I will definitely be buying a second primary or at least a lid that I can seal with an airlock for my bottling bucket. Less than 12 hours after pitching, the 5 inches of headspace in the bucket was filled with krausen, which in turn was slowly knocking the lid off, nothing a 2.75lb weight can't fix. Still plenty of space for the gas to escape.


Hope you enjoyed

Curt

Looks like that will be a tasty brew! Great idea of converting a recipe for him! Hope it turns out killer man!!!

Looks good!!

beautiful!!

thats a damn tasty lookin wort, mind sharin the recipe!?

Nice job, thanks for sharing the pictures. I order my fermenting buckets from US Plastic. Their shipping to SE Michigan is extremely fast because they're in Lima, OH.

6 & 7 Gallon Buckets - US Plastic Corporation
Bucket Lids - US Plastic Corporation

Drill a hole for an airlock and insert a rubber grommet available at any hardware store. About $10 gets you a new 7-gallon fermenter.

Awesome idea for a brew! I saw the crush on the grain and though "what a bad crush" even before I saw your statement about low efficiency, so that is my bet too.

Let us know how it turns out!

Neal

Mmmm looks good!

Thanks for sharing those pics...I can almost taste the roasty goodness! If there is one good reason to go on living this life, it's drinking a stout!

Looks so close for a boil over.

i concur that crush is sub standard. you sir need a mill now.

nealf said:

Awesome idea for a brew! I saw the crush on the grain and though "what a bad crush" even before I saw your statement about low efficiency, so that is my bet too.

Let us know how it turns out!

Neal

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sully said:

i concur that crush is sub standard. you sir need a mill now.

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Thanks for the feedback guys. A grain mill is not in the budget at the moment so I'm wondering if there's something I can have done differently at the LHBS? Perhaps have the grain crushed one "notch" finer?

Curt

fishkid said:

Thanks for the feedback guys. A grain mill is not in the budget at the moment so I'm wondering if there's something I can have done differently at the LHBS? Perhaps have the grain crushed one "notch" finer?

Curt

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Did you go to Cap N Cork by chance?

Mustangj said:

Did you go to Cap N Cork by chance?

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Yep, their hours are better than Kuhnhenn's.

fishkid said:

Yep, their hours are better than Kuhnhenn's.

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Let me guess!! House crush!? CnC house crush was .38 last time I had them do it.

I agree with you on Kuhnhenn.(we wont get started on that topic) I've been going to Adventures in Homebrewing.

If they will adjust it down then that would be ideal, if not see if they will run it through twice I guess.

sully said:

i concur that crush is sub standard. you sir need a mill now.

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Wow, I didn't even notice it was crushed. Yeah, I'd bet thats the problem.

looking good curt! i can't believe you had no boil over, mad skills, right?