my first stout

Ok I've done some reading and this is what I've come up with any and all
Helpful Comments are welcome.

1 tin coopers stout
1kg dry dark malt extract
1kg brown sugar
5g Yeast from tin(is this enough)
20L water

Not sure if I should add 200g lactose for thickness or if there's anything else I should
Add if there's a stout guru out there id love to hear suggestions and comments

Well, it kindof depends what type of stout you are looking to brew, there are quite a few. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Stout
However I would think you could steep some grains to make a very good extract stout, we can give you some suggestions if you know what type of stout you like or can give us a commercial example that you want to approximate.

I'm looking for something dry like a guiness but I want the ABV to be
Between 6% - 8%. So am I on the right track? My main concern is whether I have
Enough yeast or not..... thanks for the help

Dry yeast is cheap enough, you can use 2 packets if you wish.

I know yeast is cheap but I'm wondering how much I
Need there's 5g under the lid but most recipes call for
10-12g.

Paulielow said:

I know yeast is cheap but I'm wondering how much I
Need there's 5g under the lid but most recipes call for
10-12g.

Click to expand...

You need to put all of the yeast in the beer! One packet (11gm) of Nottingham does a pretty good job on an average gravity beer. Thats 11gm of fresh dry yeast. As the yeast ages it's effectiveness diminishes quite a bit.

If you can purchase some more yeast than I would highly recommend it. I normally pitch 2 (11gm) packets of dry when I use it. You really want a lot of yeast in your beer. The more yeast you have the less they have to work to make your beer. If you don't pitch enough then they have to work harder and cannot make the best beer they can for you!

Check out mrmalty.com and his yeast calculator. The guy that put that together is quite knowledgeable.

I don't know about the lactose, adding it should give some extra body to the beer. It is not very fermentable so adding it during the boil is good. It may give your beer a little "sweetness" which I personally like in a stout. Ahhh, throw it in and if your beer is too sweet then don't add it next time!

Good luck

I would start with something a little more conservative.

Coopers Au. Stout kit
1.5kg light DME
500g sugar
250g Roasted Barley steeped
Kit yeast

It will only yield about a 4.4% ABV but should provide more of a dry stout profile.

I think PT Ray is on the right track here with the Light DME and the roasted barley, but I would keep the sugar to keep the ABV up and the F.G. down. I would also pitch one packet US-05 instead of the kit yeast. There isn't enough yeast in there in the first place and the US-05 ferments very clean and has the high attenuation you need to pull of a good dry stout. Here's my vote:

1 tin coopers stout
1kg light DME
1kg brown sugar
1 pack Safale US-05 yeast

Thanks for all the ideas guys can I get the US_05 yeast
In oz or is it just for the US

Shouldn't be a problem getting it down there, mate

http://www.babbrewers.com/files/story/2005/03/2005-03-DriedYeast.pdf

Just realised how old that PDF was and that it didn't actually have Safale US-05 on there.

But, it's available in a brew shop in NZ so seems logical that you could get hold of it in Oz.

http://www.brewshop.co.nz/

Ok so with all the good advice this is what I've ended up with

1 tin coopers stout
1kg dry dark malt
1kg dark brown sugar
500g dry corn syrup
11.5g safale s.04(pinched at 28 degrees)
22l water

Smells awesome already and hasn't even started fermenting yet
Think I'll ferment it for a full month and then age in bottle for 3
Months before I touch it. Any thoughts?

Paulielow said:

Think I'll ferment it for a full month and then age in bottle for 3
Months before I touch it. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

That 4 months is going to go by very slowly

Hope you have plenty other batches on the go to keep you from tampering.

Looking forward to hear how this comes out

Yes mate my first brew finished today so I've got a month for that to mature
Then that should keep me going till the stouts ready besides this is gonna be my baby I
Won't touch it till its matured I want it to be perfect. I'm also thinking of getting a
Second fermenter to start my aussie old brewing then I'll never run out

Forgot to mention the OG was 1.066 I thought it was a bit low but
I think my hydrometer might be busted it tilts to the side constantly
So maybe that has something to do with it....

Just curious, why'd you choose S-04 over US-05? In my experience, S-04 tends to attenuate a bit more than US-05, so it'll keep the beer dry which is what you want but it has a stronger flavor than 05, which isn't really a part of the Guinness flavor profile. It'll still make a good beer, just not quite in the same clean, dry style as Guinness. Keeping your ferment temps down in the mid 60's will help and by all means, don't let this ferment over 72 degrees F.

I think you're O.G. looks good. It should easily put you in the 6-8% ABV range you were looking for. Which end of that you get depends highly on the LME and DME and how much unfermentables are in them.

I choose s.04 accidently and the LHBS said I would work fine so I just went with it,
It wasn't till I got home home(30km away) that I realised that I had grabbed a different
Yeast. The room its in now sits at about 21 degrees ambient and the brews at about
24 degrees, so should I try to cool it down or will it be ok

Keep double posting for some reason, well I'll use this to mention its been 14hours
Since I pitched the yeast and its bubbling and frothing like a champ even up into
The airlock and with a nice head.

Paulielow said:

Smells awesome already and hasn't even started fermenting yet
Think I'll ferment it for a full month and then age in bottle for 3
Months before I touch it. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

Could not have said it better myself:rockin:

Paulielow said:

I choose s.04 accidently and the LHBS said I would work fine so I just went with it,
It wasn't till I got home home(30km away) that I realised that I had grabbed a different
Yeast. The room its in now sits at about 21 degrees ambient and the brews at about
24 degrees, so should I try to cool it down or will it be ok

Click to expand...

You've probably got more brewing experience than I, up to my sixth batch now starting beginning September, but here's what I'm understanding from advice and threads I've read. The S-04 will handle fermentation temperatures from between 19-25*C. The wort, whilst in the attenuation phase, is generally going to be a couple to a few degrees above ambient temp. If you can keep the wort down close to 19-21*C for the first few days after pitching you'll get less chance of forming some of the off flavours caused by higher fermenting temps.

My first batch was done in the beginning of September and the temperatures were soaring, hitting 35*C in the daytimes. Even though I was using a swamp cooler the fermometer was sometimes up around 26-28 degrees. So, first few days I really blew it on fermentation temp BUT at least it was pretty constant, I wasn't getting huge, extreme, swings in temp, that might possibly stress the yeast. Tasted my first bottle from that batch back on Sunday and it wasn't too bad really, considering. It'd been warm conditioning for two weeks and I just pulled it straight from the box without chilling in the fridge at all.

Anyway, if you're not already using some method, such as a swamp cooler and rotating bottles of ice, to keep fermentation/wort temp down at the lower numbers of the yeast's range, that'd definitely be a good place to start for getting consistency, quality and better flavours in your brewing.

Having said this, when the wort is more in the conditioning phase (after the really active initial fermentation frenzy, high krauzen) , a slightly higher temp might help the yeast do their "clean-up".

With the most recent batch have managed to keep fermometer showing somewhere between 18 to 21*C since, last Sunday, the beginning of fermentation. Probably try to keep there for about another 10 days then let it get up to about 23*C over the next week or two.

If at all possible, try to get it down to 22 or lower. With ambient at 21, you're going to need ice to counter the heat from the fermentation. I put my fermenter inside my brew kettle and fill the kettle with ice water. The first two to three days are the most critical with S-04. Again, don't fret, it won't ruin your beer if you're higher, it'll just add more English ale fruitiness to the brew. I fermented an English Pale with S-04 this summer that got up to 25. You can definitely taste it in the beer, but since English Ales can have a bit more of that character, it's quite to style. I'd imagine a stout would do a better job of hiding it.

Well its been in the primary for about three weeks now it looks great and smells awesome.
But when I checked the gravity it was at 1.021, which is also where my last brew stopped at
I'm thinking my hydrometer might be faulty. I'm also trying to decide whether to prime
With caster sugar or brown sugar, anyone have any input on the type of carbination
Achieved by each? Is there a difference?

Sounds like the 1.020 curse https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/1-020-curse-63896/ though I would expect it to go lower with the sugar and corn syrup in there. You can easily check your hydrometer by putting it in plain tap water and adjusting for temperature. It should come out to 1.000. As for which sugar to use for carbonation -- it's your choice. You might get a _slight_ molases flavor from the brown sugar, but not much. Either one will work just fine and produce the same amount of carbonation per gram.

well its been a full month in the primary and the og is 1.020
so im thinking of bottling today would there be any benefit from leaving it for another week? from my calculations the abv is about 6% so im pretty happy with the results so far will this increase during carbination and aging or will the increase be miniscule?

I reckon you'll be good to go to bottling. 4 weeks in primary should have let the yeast do a nice bit of cleaning up and mellowing/melding of flavours. Three weeks warm conditioning and then chuck a couple in the fridge for a few days and you'll be enjoying a nice drop, I'd wager

You'll probably gain a couple of points increase in ABV from priming but not all that much. I.E an increase from 6% to 6.2%, maybe slightly more.

thanks for the input...

its been bottled for about two weeks now so only 2.5 months to go... maybe a little longer. my mate convinced me to taste it the other day and i have to say it was thick and smelt good but it taste like cat piss at the moment so ill be aging before i taste it again...

Well its been another month since last tasting and I had to see how the flavours were developing and I have to say its mellowing out nicely it still has very strong liquorice and estery flavours but I think another 2 to 3 months and this will be the bomb....

Brewcraft carries us_05 yeast down there.

Cheers bob I had a word with my LHBS and he stocks it now so she's all good thanks...