Foreign/Export Stout

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

spak

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
59
Reaction score
1
Location
Waterford
After looking on BJCP and Designing Great Beers, I threw this together:

12 lbs Briess Brewers Malt
12 oz Black Barley 500L
12 oz Carafa III special(still on the fence on whether or not I want dehusked or normal. Maybe dehusked would be good to impart a dark chocolate flavor with the dry roasted coffee of the black barley)
12 oz Flaked Barley
1.5 oz Magnum(no idea on AA atm, shooting for 60IBU so I may adjust)

5.5 gal Final
1.070-1.018 ~ 6.9%
US-05 yeast

No mash calcs yet, will likely just shoot for 152 or so(Tastybrew calcs are my go to guys). Use moderately mineral enriched MI spring water to get a fairly low mash pH for a bit of acidity? I still havent taken a lab sample of that water though, but i know that my tap water is hard as hell and I may never want to use it. I do not enjoy drinking it, so I'd rather not have it in my beer.:p
 
A few things -
It looks a bit one-dimensional IMHO - only 10% specialty malts and 1 of them (so far) will contribute more for color than flavor.

I would probably go with the husked carafa so you will get some additional flavor - I may not go with III because it can be very acrid when paired with such a high lovibond black malt (which I have found is more along the lines of burnt/charcoal flavors more so than coffee).

Since you do not have any crystal malts I may boil for 90 minutes or longer to develop melanoidins/caramelize the sugars and give the beer a bit more character (similar to how you get the nice toffee and caramel notes in scotch style ales).

My last suggestion would be to bitter with a lower AA hop; this would give your beer a slight background of hop flavor since you would have to use substantially more of it. It would be very subtle but I think it helps to add another layer of complexity to the flavor of this stout. After all you are looking at an export style FES that is nearing 7% abv - people expect more flavor complexity the higher the abv goes.
 
I agree w/ skibb on the lower AA bittering hop which will indeed carry some slight hop flavors in the finished beer; Kent Goldings at 60 mins is what I'd probably go with. As far as the grains go I'd add anywhere between 1 - 1.5 lbs of a combination of different Crystal malts so a slight tough of caramel sweetness can help to balance out all that roastiness. Other than that looks to be a good recipe
 
Thanks for the feedback guys, I will probably drop the lovibonds on everything and use a bit more regular roast as the main specialty to get the pronounced roast coffee with Carafa I and some dark crystal and the flaked barley. Will definitely use an Engish bittering hop with moderate AA

Something like

1 lb Roast 300L
12 oz Carafa I
8 oz medium-dark crystal (80L?)
12 oz flaked barley

:mug:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top