irish stout dark grain treatment

I'm brewing an Irish stout this Sunday, for the first time, and am wondering what the majority of people are doing with the roasted barley. Where is the perfect level of dark coffee bitterness aquired? Full mash, added at vorleuf, steeped for length of boil, steeped at end of boil, or cold steeped and add tea to beginning or end of boil, or cold steep and add tea to fermenter after pasteurizing? I had originally planned, and purchased, the amount of roasted barley for a full mash, but after reading a couple articles on it becoming too astringent, if used in a full mash, I thought I would hit up the brewing minds and see where everyone else is having the best luck getting that perfect level of coffee flavor and bitterness that a good Irish stout should have without being astringent. Any advice would be grealy appreciated.

I toss all the malt onto the bag and do a single infusion full volume no sparge mash. I have read about some people steeping the dark grains to reduce the harsh char tones. My Guniess recipie is fine without that IMHO. I had a vanilla porter with smoked malt that ended up tasting like a drag race. I might try steeping that. For guiness I have also read recipies that call for setting a saucer of guiness on the counter to sour. I just use acid malt.

It depends on what final flavor you're going for.

If you fancy a dry stout, I go with 10% roasted barley for the full mash. I normally use some sort of permutation of BierMuncher's outstanding Ode To Arthur, and I love the bit of bite that all that roasted barley and acid malt give.

I've also used a similar recipe, but dropped the roasted barley to 5%, used 5% chocolate malt, and put both in the mash only at vourlauf. It was much smoother, with emphasis on the chocolate, espresso, and toffee flavors. It was awesome.

Both styles I stick with 24-25% flaked barley because it gives such an amazing creamy head.

Think I'm gonna go full mash with this one and try adding at vorlauf for an oatmeal stout. My grain bill for this one is
68% marris otter
20% flaked barley
7% black roasted barley
5% chocolate
2.25 oz EKG @ 60min

How are your runoffs going with so much flaked barley?

We shall see. This is the first time I have tried this. Gonna be 1.25 qt/lb in a keggle with false bottom. I guess if its looking too thick I might add some more water at mash out. Hopefully it won't come to that.

My 2 roller monster mill gap is set at .040" and I've never had an issue with runoff.
I fly sparge so it's slow anyway

The traditional way is to add it all to the mash. I haven't heard of any brewery that adds it late. Of course, they have their water chemistry top of mind and adjust accordingly.

re: potential sparge problems - rice hulls are super cheap. For 50 cents, you can ensure you get to relax with a beer vs curse at a tun on brewday.

That's the same gap setting I use and I also fly sparge so that's encouraging to hear.

I consider myself to be a pretty traditional brewer when it comes to technique and I use distilled water and try to adjust to fit certain regions. It's worked pretty well for me so far. Hopefully this one follows suit. Thanks for all the replys. Love this forum.

I can't just go out and buy rice or oat hulls here. They don't exist here. Too late to mail order and wouldn't want to anyway.

Last dry stout I made, I used about half as much flaked barley and curiously enough found I had to runoff a little faster. When I slowed down, I would eventually get a stuck sparge and have to restart. We'll see this time. I think it cooled off a little during sparging and that gummed it up. Gotta try to keep the temp up during runoff. I fly sparge as well, for the record.

Out of curiosity, what are u mashing in?

Jdaught said:

Out of curiosity, what are u mashing in?

Click to expand...

RIMS in a converted keg.

Restarting a stuck sparge is easy, so not really a big deal. But of course, a little quicker if I don't have to deal with a stuck sparge.

Ill be using HERMS in converted kegs for the first time, just got my pump. I've been direct firing in a converted keg.

Let us know how it goes.

I will. Brewing it tomorrow.

I'm up on Monday.

Well I did my runoff a little bit faster than normal and I had no problems. Pre boil volume was 8.25gal 1.042 SG (shooting for 1.036) and 5.36 pH. Just about to flame out and run through the chiller.

Volume into the fermenter is 5.75 with 1.050 SG (shooting for 1.044) so I think it went pretty well.

Awesome. Good to hear.