How's this for a good solid Stout?

Here's a recipe I'm trying 1st of the week. What do ya think?

1/2# 120L Crystal Malt,
1/2# Roasted Barley,
1/4# Black Patent Malt,
1/4# Chocolate Malt,

6# Dark plain DME,
1# Amber plain DME,

1oz. Cascade Hop pellets, 7.8%AA, bittering,
1oz. Willamette Hop pellets 4.9%AA, finishing,
1 tbsp. Gypsum,
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp. Irish moss.
Crush the Grains, Add to 2 gal. cold water in brew pot, bring to 160*, hold 10 minutes. Shut off heat.
Dip out bulk of grain & Sparge with 2 to 3 qt. hot boiled water. Add to brew pot.
Add 3# Dark DME, and Bittering hop pellets, salt & gypsum. Bring to boil.
Boil 35 minutes.
Add 3# Dark DME and 1# Amber DME and Irish moss.
Boil 20 minutes. Add finishing Hop pellets & shut off.

Is it enough Bittering Hops? Enough grain? Is it Dark enough? Strong enough?

You don't say what kind of stout you're shooting for (dry/sweet/american, etc) but I'd say that's pretty close.

28 IBU is a little low, I might bump the bittering to 1.5oz - 2oz (41-55 IBU)
30 SRM is on the low end of the color range for a stout, maybe up the black patent (I'd get the debittered black patent and let the roasted barley carry the grain bitterness)
I also might reduce the crystal 120 to 1/4lb or get rid of it altogether
You'd be around 6% abv, high for a dry stout but I'm sure it would be good.

My opinions only, would be interested to see what others have to say.

Bil said:

You don't say what kind of stout you're shooting for (dry/sweet/american, etc) but I'd say that's pretty close.

28 IBU is a little low, I might bump the bittering to 1.5oz - 2oz (41-55 IBU)
30 SRM is on the low end of the color range for a stout, maybe up the black patent (I'd get the debittered black patent and let the roasted barley carry the grain bitterness)
I also might reduce the crystal 120 to 1/4lb or get rid of it altogether
You'd be around 6% abv, high for a dry stout but I'm sure it would be good.

My opinions only, would be interested to see what others have to say.

Click to expand...

I'm getting about 42 SRM and 39 IBU on this recipe using ProMash.

Oh... and I have never seen debittered black patent before, but I have seen debittered chocolate malts before (aka Carafa).

I got my numbers from BeerTools Pro, I can't really speak to the comparative accuracy of the numbers. The color difference depends on the assumed values, I would guess. I've got:

Dark DME 30L
Amber DME 10L
Roasted Barley 312L
Black Patent 500L
Chocolate Malt 350L

As for the IBU, does ProMash use the Fowler formula? I didn't take into account the higher utilization from late extract addition, but even so all the other calculations seem to be in the 22-33 range. I haven't done enough comparisons to really know anything about the various calculations, I just use the default on my program.

And I haven't seen debittered black patent before either! I made it up! Or actually, I was thinking of debittered black malt. I've never compared but some people consider black malt and black patent interchangeable, so I think that's where I got mixed up.

promash has a lighter color for the dark DME (20L), but a darker color for the roasted barley (450L) and patent (525L)

ProMash uses the Rager formula for IBU calculations (Fowler isn't even an option.... Rager, Garetz, Tinseth, or Generic are the options).

I didn't make any adjustment for the late extract addition, but I also just plugged it in as a full volume boil. I did make sure to plug in the proper alphas and mark the hops as pellets.

Whatever.... I've seen some major differences in the results from various recipe calculators, so I'm starting to not put too much stock in them.

Walker said:

Whatever.... I've seen some major differences in the results from various recipe calculators, so I'm starting to not put too much stock in them.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the conventional wisdom seems to be just pick one and stick with it. That said, clearly Old John's only option is to brew two batches and send some samples to us for analysis.

I've made pretty much that same recipe,...With the addition of 1/2# of Malto-dextrine powder, and 40L Crystal Malt, instead of the 120L Crystal....... it came out to a nice, sweet Stout....Pretty Mellow.
It was not real opaque, though.

Oh, and sorry, my Stout just doesn't ship very well.
Thanks for the help, though.

I followed a couple of your suggestions.
I used an ounce of Chinook hop pellets @ 11.4 AA, for the Bittering. That'll give me a bigger IBU. And I went to 4 tsp. of Gypsum, because we have soft water.
For the rest, the only other change was to add 1/2# of Malto-dextrine powder, to make it clearly a Sweet Stout.
The Wirt looks Black as Coal. The Foam was nice & Brown. Color should be good enough.
I pitched 2, 7gr. pkgs. of Cooper Yeast. It was bubbling in 5 minutes.
Any thoughts or Comments??
Thanks,
Old John

Old John said:

Here's a recipe I'm trying 1st of the week. What do ya think?

1/2# 120L Crystal Malt,
1/2# Roasted Barley,
1/4# Black Patent Malt,
1/4# Chocolate Malt,

6# Dark plain DME,
1# Amber plain DME,

1oz. Cascade Hop pellets, 7.8%AA, bittering,
1oz. Willamette Hop pellets 4.9%AA, finishing,
1 tbsp. Gypsum,
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp. Irish moss.
Crush the Grains, Add to 2 gal. cold water in brew pot, bring to 160*, hold 10 minutes. Shut off heat.
Dip out bulk of grain & Sparge with 2 to 3 qt. hot boiled water. Add to brew pot.
Add 3# Dark DME, and Bittering hop pellets, salt & gypsum. Bring to boil.
Boil 35 minutes.
Add 3# Dark DME and 1# Amber DME and Irish moss.
Boil 20 minutes. Add finishing Hop pellets & shut off.

Is it enough Bittering Hops? Enough grain? Is it Dark enough? Strong enough?

Click to expand...