critique this please

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gunnyart

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Recipe:

4 ¾ lb liquid dark malt extract
1 lb dry dark malt extract
1.5 lb roasted barley
1lb flaked barley
¼ lb black patent malt
1 oz Fuggles pellet hops 4% alfa acid
1tsp Irish moss

S04 dry yeast

I mashed the grains for 1/2 hour @ 160 deg

Boiled the wort for 60 min.

all the hops at the begining of the boil no finishing hops

Made a yeast starter

O.G. 1.048

Does this sound like the Dry Irish Stout that I hope it will be?

What F.G. should I expect to get?

It took 18 hours to get vigerous in the bubbler and it stayed vigerous for two days. Now it's down to about 40 seconds between bubbles. Should I take my next gravity reading?

Won't I get a head of oxygen in the bucket if I take off the lid to take the reading?

I'm planning to go straight to liter size bottles, so would I be advised to let it stay in the primary a while after the hydrometer says its done?

Thanks guys, Art
 
Dark extract plus 1.5lbs of roasted plus 0.25lbs of patent is a LOT of roasted, be prepared for this brew to require a lot (~6 months at least) of aging before it mellows out.

It's far too soon to worry about gravity readings. Give it another week before you start checking. For a dry stout I'd hope for an FG around 1.010 or less but with extracts that can be tough sometimes. I'd say anything around 1.015 (assuming fermentation had stopped) is good.

I would primary at least 3 weeks if you're not going to secondary, then bottle (again, assuming fermentation is complete).
 
Thanks, What do you mean by mellows out? I'm sure I won't be able to wait 6 months to drink it.
 
gunnyart said:
Recipe:

4 ¾ lb liquid dark malt extract
1 lb dry dark malt extract
1.5 lb roasted barley
1lb flaked barley
¼ lb black patent malt
1 oz Fuggles pellet hops 4% alfa acid
1tsp Irish moss

S04 dry yeast

I mashed the grains for 1/2 hour @ 160 deg

Boiled the wort for 60 min.

all the hops at the begining of the boil no finishing hops

Made a yeast starter

O.G. 1.048

Does this sound like the Dry Irish Stout that I hope it will be?

What F.G. should I expect to get?

It took 18 hours to get vigerous in the bubbler and it stayed vigerous for two days. Now it's down to about 40 seconds between bubbles. Should I take my next gravity reading?

Won't I get a head of oxygen in the bucket if I take off the lid to take the reading?

I'm planning to go straight to liter size bottles, so would I be advised to let it stay in the primary a while after the hydrometer says its done?

Thanks guys, Art

You have already made this beer so I will make some suggestions for next time. As bradsul mentioned you have a lot of dark malt products there, way too much IMO. Bear in mind that a beer like Guinness stout is made with about 10% roasted barley with the remaining 90% of the ingredients pale malt and unmalted barley. Point is that you don't need to use so much dark product to make a dark beer. Switching the dark extracts for light extracts will still get you a dark stout and you will have a smoother flavor and a beer that won't take forever to be ready to drink. You also are getting minimal imput from those barley flakes. They are not contributing any fermentables without being mashed because you are just soaking out a few starches, gums and proteins by steeping them. You need base malt with enzymes in the mix to mash. Only one ounce of Fuggles in that beer may also not be enough to balance the malts.

Here is another way to approach the beer next time. :mug:

2 lbs Light dry extract
3 lbs Light liquid extract
1 lb pale malt
.5 lb flaked barley
1 lb roasted barley
.5 lb chocolate malt

2 oz Fuggles boiled for 60 minutes

Do a mini-mash with the grains, strain & drain then add the extracts and procede as usual.
 
gunnyart said:
Thanks, What do you mean by mellows out? I'm sure I won't be able to wait 6 months to drink it.
The beer will taste overly roasted and maybe even a little acrid for quite a while before the flavours meld together and the roasted flavour lessens a bit. It will probably be a great beer if you give it enough time to age.

You do have another option if you really don't want to wait to drink it. That would be to brew another lighter beer and blend the two together. Personally I would just bottle it and stash it away for 6 months to a year and brew other beers in the meantime. Which isn't exactly a hardship if you think about it. :D
 
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