anniversary irish ale

[mcbar]

My father is retiring in 8 weeks and I thought I would brew him a batch of beer to celebrate. He enjoys Smithwicks and Guiness so I was thinking something in that vein. From chatting with him I think he enjoys roasty flavor - but I decided to split the dark portion of the bill between roast, chocolate and crystal. I'm hoping this will give a more balanced, complex flavor than just going all in on roasted barley. Also I'm not a huge fan of roasty beers and I want to be able to enjoy it with him

This is what I came up with:

5 gallon batch

8 lb marris otter
2 lb flaked barley
0.2 lb roasted barley
0.2 lb chocolate malt
0.2 lb crystal 60L

1.25 oz Fuggle - 60 min
1.5 oz EKG - 5 min

wyeast 1084


I don't have much experience brewing dark beers. Is 8 weeks going to be enough for this thing to ferment, condition and mellow out? Any other advice or suggestions?


Edit: Here is the updated recipe based on discussion below:

8 lb marris otter
2 lb flaked barley
0.4 lb roasted barley
0.2 lb chocolate malt
0.2 lb crystal 40L

1.5 oz EKG - 60 min
0.5 oz Fuggles - 20 min

wyeast 1084

 

[mdindy]

I would recomend bottle aging for as long as you can, I always thought my dark beers felt a little harsh till it aged atleast a few months and then would taste fantastic.

 

[ericbw]

8 weeks should be plenty of time for that. It doesn't seem to have the level of roasted barley that a stout would/should have. It's more like a heavy version of a red, or a brown ale with RB in it.

Not sure what your normal process is, but even if you do a 4 week primary, you still have 4 weeks to condition. For a red, I do 4 weeks in the fermenter, and it is usually much better at 3-4 weeks after that.

Personally, I would move the last hops back some, to maybe 15-20 minutes. . If he likes roasty, then you don't want to over-hop it and cover up the roast. Again, that's just personal preference.

 

[mcbar]

Thanks eric, helpful advice. Heavy, roasty red is kind of what I was going for, so hopefully this fits the bill.

I normally do 3-4 weeks in primary followed by 3 weeks in the bottle. I'm glad to hear that 8 weeks should be sufficient, although I'm sure it will continue to improve beyond that.

Good suggestion on the hops. Right now I'm shooting for about 25 IBU's. Does that seem appropriate? Should I bump back the late addition and adjust it to keep the IBU's about the same but with less hop flavor and aroma?

Thanks again for the advice!

 

[mcbar]

Playing around a bit with the idea of doubling the roasted barley to 0.4 lbs, or 3.7% of the grain bill. I do want some roasty flavor to come through, but I tend to err on the side of caution when playing with new ingredients.

I ended up grabbing crystal 40L instead of 60L because that's what my LHBS had in stock.

Still deciding exactly how I want to handle the hops.

Come to think of it, this will be my first all grain batch too!

 

[estricklin]

Playing around a bit with the idea of doubling the roasted barley to 0.4 lbs, or 3.7% of the grain bill. I do want some roasty flavor to come through, but I tend to err on the side of caution when playing with new ingredients.

I ended up grabbing crystal 40L instead of 60L because that's what my LHBS had in stock.

Still deciding exactly how I want to handle the hops.

Come to think of it, this will be my first all grain batch too!

Welcome to AG then!

I would also advise against the late hops in a roasty beer like that, I've tasted some that have had late hops and I find it unpleasant. Sometimes in high gravity porters or something of that nature I think it's ok. Maybe move it to 15 min.

I love brewing (and drinking) the dark ales. If your wanting that roasty to come through I wouldn't be scared of .4 lbs. Also, you might consider some Crystal 120L. It adds a raisiny caramely note that's almost a burnt sugar or light roast.

8 weeks will be plenty of time.

Edit:

And 1.5 oz is just a lot of hops for that beer even at 15, I hadn't paid close attention to the amount the first time I read it. I was thinking .25 to .5. I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't add a good dose of late hops, you may enjoy that, and if it's what your going after don't let us (me) talk you out of it. I was only trying to point out that you may not like the combination of the dark specialty grains and a moderate hop presence.

 

[mcbar]

Welcome to AG then!

I would also advise against the late hops in a roasty beer like that, I've tasted some that have had late hops and I find it unpleasant. Sometimes in high gravity porters or something of that nature I think it's ok. Maybe move it to 15 min.

I love brewing (and drinking) the dark ales. If your wanting that roasty to come through I wouldn't be scared of .4 lbs. Also, you might consider some Crystal 120L. It adds a raisiny caramely note that's almost a burnt sugar or light roast.

8 weeks will be plenty of time.

Edit:

And 1.5 oz is just a lot of hops for that beer even at 15, I hadn't paid close attention to the amount the first time I read it. I was thinking .25 to .5. I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't add a good dose of late hops, you may enjoy that, and if it's what your going after don't let us (me) talk you out of it. I was only trying to point out that you may not like the combination of the dark specialty grains and a moderate hop presence.

Thanks, that's helpful! Maybe I will throw caution to the wind and up the roasted barley slightly.

I'm not shooting for a particularly hoppy beer - but I definitely don't want it to come out sweet (my dad is not a fan of sweet stouts). Typically when figuring out my hop additions I use brewtoad and aim for a balanced hop profile (OG/IBU's). Personally I'm not a huge fan of hoppy beers, and I also have a fairly poor sense of smell so I rely on the calculator a lot when it comes to recipe design. But I do get the idea of adding the hops earlier to get the bitterness with less aroma.

Any more specific advice on hop addition time and amounts? I'm pretty set on fuggles and ekg - beyond that I'm totally flexible

Edit: I think I might have the hops backwards too. Maybe 1.5 oz EKG at 60 min and 0.5 oz Fuggles at 20 min?

 

[estricklin]

Thanks, that's helpful! Maybe I will throw caution to the wind and up the roasted barley slightly.

I'm not shooting for a particularly hoppy beer - but I definitely don't want it to come out sweet (my dad is not a fan of sweet stouts). Typically when figuring out my hop additions I use brewtoad and aim for a balanced hop profile (OG/IBU's). Personally I'm not a huge fan of hoppy beers, and I also have a fairly poor sense of smell so I rely on the calculator a lot when it comes to recipe design. But I do get the idea of adding the hops earlier to get the bitterness with less aroma.

Any more specific advice on hop addition time and amounts? I'm pretty set on fuggles and ekg - beyond that I'm totally flexible

Edit: I think I might have the hops backwards too. Maybe 1.5 oz EKG at 60 min and 0.5 oz Fuggles at 20 min?

Those are my 2 favorite hops for beers like that by the way, I keep 1-2 pounds of each at all times. I would say that hop schedule looks good, 1.5 Goldings at 60 and a half ounce of Fuggles for 20 sounds perfect.

Oats are a good way to add some body without adding sweetness, but your flaked barley will do that too.

 

[mcbar]

Those are my 2 favorite hops for beers like that by the way, I keep 1-2 pounds of each at all times. I would say that hop schedule looks good, 1.5 Goldings at 60 and a half ounce of Fuggles for 20 sounds perfect.

Oats are a good way to add some body without adding sweetness, but your flaked barley will do that too.

Awesome, thanks again for your help! I edited the first post with the updated recipe. I'm planning on brewing this weekend. I will keep you guys updated!

 

[mcbar]

Brew day went pretty well. One thing I learned is that, while my setup worked fine doing PM batches with ~5 lbs of grain, it had trouble accommodating the 10.8 lbs I was working with this time. I normally use SWMBO's canning pot to "dunk sparge" my grain for 10 minutes or so - I was hardly able to this time, so my efficiency suffered. I may stick to adding a few lbs of extract until I upgrade my kettle - or buy/make a proper mash tun.

I mashed for 90 minutes at 152F with 3.5 gallons of water. I attempted to pour over and dunk sparge at 170F - but the canning pot could barely hold the grain bag, nevermind all the water. I did my best to pour the sparge water over the grain and I squeezed the crap out of the bag.

I did a 90 minute boil and followed the hop schedule I listed above - I also added a half tablet of Irish moss at 10 minutes.

With about 40 minutes left in the boil I heard my daughter crying. This was post hot break and the kettle looked calm so I decided to go see if SWMBO needed a hand - which lead to important lesson #2: like a toddler, the kettle knows the second it's unsupervised and will immediately boil over! I came back less than two minutes later to find my burner out and hot wort running over the side of the kettle. Oops, another hit to efficiency.

In the past I've rushed to pitch my yeast, so I resolved this time to make sure I was no higher than 65F. This ended up taking about two hours. I transferred the wort to my primary and beat the **** out of it with my mash paddle, after adding about 1.5 gallons to top it up. OG was 1.050 - quite a bit below what I was expecting On the plus side, it smelled and tasted pretty good!

At this point my yeast starter was about 12 hours old. I would have preferred to give it another few hours, but I was starting to get tired and concerned about leaving the wort for too long - and I was seeing some good growth in the starter so in it went.

Currently fermenting at 62F ambient temperature. I plan on leaving it alone for 3 weeks.

 

[mcbar]

I decided to pull a sample today. Hydrometer read 1.012, which gives me an attenuation of about 75%. According to Wyeast that's about as low as this yeast goes, so I'm going to start getting ready to bottle. I've been trying to bring the temperature down, but I'm not having much luck getting lower than about 58F ambient. I will likely add gelatin tonight and bottle sometime this week.

Sample tasted good. Slightly flowery aroma with caramel and malt, with complex malt flavour and light roastiness, no sweetness. Some nice subtle vanilla and coffee flavours. Color is golden brown. Right now there is still a lot of trub and some yeast suspended in the sample. Hopefully the gelatin helps with that.

I'm planning on carbing it to around 2.2 volumes.

 

[mcbar]

I broke my own rules today and cracked open a bottle (it's been conditioning for two weeks). I am super happy with how this brew turned out. My wife and I agreed that this is one of, if not the best beer I've made so far, and neither of us is a huge fan of dark beers. Can't wait to see how it matures - and I can't wait to share a few bottles with the old man! I will definitely be brewing this again

 

[ProfessorWoland]

Most stouts I've done can be drank pretty green. I've not done a high alcohol one yet.