Another recipe post. This time it's Stout.

[DHaught]

Not sure if this should be here or in the recipe's sub forum since I am a beginner. Move if necessary.

Ok so I started another thread about an APA recipe I put together using guidance from "the complete joy of homebrewing". This was the other recipe I came up with as an experiment just for fun and to see if it was more fun to make up recipe's than to buy kits all the time.

So this one was supposed to be a stout and I guessed at a few things and I think I may have ended up using not enough hops based on some feedback I got from an online recipe spreadsheet that I found after I had already brewed this batch.

I was hoping for some feedback about this recipe. Does this sound like a stout? Am I in the ballpark for the grain bill and what would you do different, if anything, with the hops?

Edit: 5 gallon batch. 3 gallon boil.

7 lbs. Dark DME
1 lb. Crystal 120
1/3 lb. Black patent malt.
1/4 lb. Roasted Barley.
1/2 lb. American Chocolate malt.
3 inch. stick brewers licorice.

Steeped grains at 155 for 30 min. Boiled all with 2 oz. fuggle flowers for 60 min. Added 1 oz. glacier pellets for last 10 min.
Topped off with spring water, aerated, and US-05 yeast.

O.G. was 1.070
Fermenting at about 68 to 70 degrees.

Any feedback?

 

[djonas]

Seems like an interesting beer! Certainly within the ballpark of a stout. I think you may get some deeper dark caramel flavors since the Caramel 120 makes up 11% of your grain bill, which is a significant amount. But if you like your stouts a bit sweeter or fruitier then there are no problems! Also, I've not brewed with licorice per se, but I have added about 0.25 oz of dried star anise to a beer of mine and it came out mighty powerful. Let me know how the licorice turns out.

The hops seem okay; I haven't had much dealings with Glacier but it seems to have been added at a good time. I'll give you some advice about bittering though. In general, hops added at 60 minutes are strictly for bittering purposes; they impart little to now flavor. So you can find some higher alpha acid hops than Fuggle, which well let you use less hops to get the same amount of bittering. For example, 1 oz of 10% AA Centennial bitters as much as 2 oz of 5% AA Fuggle but costs half as much! Also, Fuggle is a very good aroma and flavor variety so I save hops like these for late in the boil.

I guess the short answer is that it looks like a stout to me. I can comment about how it reflects traditional recipes but that's no fun and it feels counterproductive to me anyway! Since you already brewed it just sit back and wait for it to finish up and enjoy a damn good lookin' brew!

Oh and I think that making up recipes is way more fun than brewing kits! You get total control of what you brew and you learn more about the ingredients that way. I guess you may end up with a few batches that you may find less than perfect but once you tweak them to your liking, you've got a reflection of yourself that you can be damn proud of!

 

[DHaught]

Ok, well I was going by the recommendations of my LHBS online when I was ordering the grains and they recommended a 10 - 15% range for the 120 in stouts. I don't have any experience with judging how the taste profile changes with different types of grains. I am hopeful about this batch though. It smelled as good or better than any of the kits I brewed before.