Birthday recipe for my Dad

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fishkid

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My dad has been my biggest influence in my brewing and drinking good beer. He brewed back in the mid 90's and got me started with his old equipment as well the recipes for the beer he made.

His 50th birthday is coming up on 11-17 and I thought it would be a good idea to take one of his old extract recipes, convert it to all grain and brew up a batch for his birthday.

I looked through all of the comments on his recipes until I came across a recipe titled "Year Out Stout", dated 10-22-95 and had "* REAL GOOD!" written on the recipe.

I converted the recipe using BeerSmith and came up with the following recipe. I'm curious how everyone thinks it looks:

Code:
BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Jr.'s Year Out Stout
Brewer: Curt Jr.
Asst Brewer: 
Style: American Stout
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0) 

Recipe Specifications
-------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal      
Boil Size: 7.08 gal
Estimated OG: 1.069 SG
Estimated Color: 35.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 80.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU      

14.00 lb      Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            Grain        91.80 %       
0.75 lb       Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)           Grain        4.92 %        
0.50 lb       Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)                Grain        3.28 %        
2.00 oz       Nugget [13.60 %]  (60 min)                Hops         79.0 IBU      
1.00 oz       Williamette [4.60 %]  (2 min)             Hops         1.1 IBU       
3.00 tsp      Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min)  Misc                       
1 Pkgs        Whitbread Ale (Wyeast Labs #1099) [StarterYeast-Ale

Thanks in advance,

Curt
 
If you want to keep it original to your old man's recipe... go for it, but I would be a little hesitant brewing with those %'s of black patent and roasted barley. I have found that when you have a similar amount of each and no crystal malts adding some sweetness, the beer can have a burnt/instant coffee taste. Also, I would probably lower the IBU's for a BU:GU ratio around 1.0 max.

You might want to check out Jamil's Obsidian Stout clone, as he did for his brewing network show. It's a really good recipe!
 
If you want to keep it original to your old man's recipe... go for it, but I would be a little hesitant brewing with those %'s of black patent and roasted barley. I have found that when you have a similar amount of each and no crystal malts adding some sweetness, the beer can have a burnt/instant coffee taste.

Um. You do realize this is a stout, right? Stout is supposed to have a dominant roasted-barley character. They are not supposed to be sweet.

Just sayin'. :mug:

Personally, I prefer the classic 'roasted barley only' stout. If I change it at all, I add a small amount of chocolate malt.

For my part, the recipe looks fine as it stands. If he liked it then, chances are he'll like it now.

Besides, if you took one of his recipes and modded the hell out of it, it's no longer his recipe, is it?

"Happy birthday, Dad! Here's a pint of your old recipe. I decided to pay tribute to you by brewing up one of your old recipes. Well, I say it's your old recipe, but I completely changed the grist. Oh, then I completely changed the hops profile. [pause] So really it's not your recipe at all, it's my recipe, but happy birthday anyhow."

Somehow that just doesn't have the same 'oomph', if you get my meaning. ;)

Cheers to you, and many happy returns to your father!

Bob
 
Um. You do realize this is a stout, right? Stout is supposed to have a dominant roasted-barley character. They are not supposed to be sweet.

While it is supposed to have a roasted character it is not supposed to be so much that it tastes like a bear **** in you mouth. At that level of RB in there and BP it will be much to harsh and astringent.






Yes, a bear has **** in my mouth.
 
Um...ew. :D

I guess if you really feel that it'll taste like bear poo, I'm outvoted, then. Unfortunately, it also outvotes Jamil - whose stout uses exclusively Black Patent, to my surprise - Guinness, and myriad other stout brewers.

Odd, that.

Keep in mind the percentage of roasted grains is less than 9%. I certainly don't need to quote the grist for classic Dry Stout for you, Reverend, because I think I know from your posting history that you know darn well what that is. Suffice it to say the roasted proportion is quite within spec.

You're also ignoring that the OP wants to brew his Dad's old recipe, just subbing pale malt for the extract. I thought I made that clear in my last post.

Regards,

Bob
 
I would like to stand corrected. In my head it seemed like a ton of BP and RB in there but I did find one of my recipes for a comparinson and I think he is right on the money with his percentages.

I was thinking in my Oyster stout recipe (the latest stout made) that in 12 gallons I used 1lb of each which is less than his recipe and that beer is nice and roasty and a perfect dry stout with an odd briney character from the oyters.

Boy was I off, i used a lot more than that. Good thing I do not judge recipes :) just the actual beer.
 
a couple points:

the extracts produced back 10-20 years ago werent as fermentable as the ones today. They probably left some residual sweetness. Also, extracts generally arent 100% 2-row grain.

I agree most here that the Black Patent and Roasted Barley additions seem high. Personally i would half each of them, add some chocolate and a touch of darker roasted crystals. Adjust the base malt if neccessary to keep OG close to the planned value.

Also most extracts are boiled with less water than you use for an all grain batch. You're going to get better hop alpha acid extraction. I would reduce the first hop addition for that fact not to mention a bit for the style (aim for 1:1 ratio of OG to IBU).
 
Wow! Thanks for the great feedback everyone. The initial recipe called for the following extract:
6.6 lbs Dark LME
.5 lbs Amber DME
2.25 lbs Light DME

I just used the convert feature of BeerSmith to convert the recipe and it only came back with 13.xx lbs of 2-row without any speciality malts. I guess I didn't really think about the residual sweetness the extract might leave behind. My thoughts are to drop the black patent down to .5 lbs and add .5 lbs of chocolate malt. Do you think the .5 lb of chocolate will sweeten it up enough? or maybe .5 lbs chocolate and .5lbs of Crystal 80L?


Thanks again for all of the feedback! :mug:

Curt
 
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