Far Out Stout

[arp]

Hey everyone! This is my first post and my first recipe so I'm reaching out in case anyone thinks this is horrendous. I'm brewing it tomorrow so if I don't hear back we'll just see how it goes!

I'm going for a full-bodied base stout that I can tweak in the future for more exotic recipes. Obviously the base recipe will go through iterations as well, but I'm hoping this is a good first crack at it.

Grains:

Pale Dry Malt Extract - 8lbs - 72.7%
Caramel Malt 120L - 1lb - 9.1%
Chocolate Malt - 1lb - 9.1%
Roasted Barley - 1lb - 9.1%

Hops:

1oz Magnum - 14%AA - Boil 60 minutes
.5oz East Kent Goldings - 5% AA - Boil 10 minutes

Other:

Maltodextrine - 8oz - Boil 30 minutes

Process:

Steep specialty grains at 160F for 20 minutes. Bring to a boil. Add 2lbs DME at start of boil and 6lbs DME at 30 minutes. Add hops according to schedule directly to wort. Quick chill using immersion cooler (usually takes ~15 minutes) then dump into primary through a strainer. Aerate and target pitching yeast at mid-high 60s, with primary fermentation temp in the same range.

I'm unsure of the time it will spend in primary right now, I'm guessing ~10 days based on my schedule. Secondary will probably be 2 weeks or so with whatever adjuncts I choose to add in the future (vanilla, coffee, chocolate, etc.).

Let me know what you guys think - either way I'll be back to share how it went!

 

[passedpawn]

[moved to regular forum; recipe database is reserved for tried and true recipes]

 

[arp]

[moved to regular forum; recipe database is reserved for tried and true recipes]

Thanks - sorry about that!

 

[JosephN]

Honestly, and this is coming from a guy that has been brewing for 8 months but has 21- 6+ gallon batches in the books. The roasted barley is waaaaay too high. You need to add just a few ounces of it, maybe 6oz at most. The chocolate could be cute back between .5-.75#, and the crystal/caramel probably shouldn't go much higher than .5#. Seriously thought if you use that much roasted barley I think you are going to hate the outcome as it will taste stupid bitter and burnt. Also one thing to look at in the future is German Carafa 1-3. It's basically similar to roasted barley, and wil add roasted flavor and color, but it doesn't have the burnt husks to add that burnt bitter bite.

 

[mcgimpkins]

Hey Arp, welcome to the forums. I don't see anything "wrong" with your recipe, it should make a good stout. I'm guessing your are using American Ale yeast? (Safale US-05 or something like it.) Personally I would just brew it plain to begin with, then if you like it and think vanilla, coffee, or chocolate, would add to the flavor.

Just make sure that everything is clean and sanitized, you pitch enough yeast (I usually pitch 2 packets of Safale US-05), and fermentation stays at or below 70F and you should have a good beer.

 

[arp]

Honestly, and this is coming from a guy that has been brewing for 8 months but has 21- 6+ gallon batches in the books. The roasted barley is waaaaay too high. You need to add just a few ounces of it, maybe 6oz at most. The chocolate could be cute back between .5-.75#, and the crystal/caramel probably shouldn't go much higher than .5#. Seriously thought if you use that much roasted barley I think you are going to hate the outcome as it will taste stupid bitter and burnt. Also one thing to look at in the future is German Carafa 1-3. It's basically similar to roasted barley, and wil add roasted flavor and color, but it doesn't have the burnt husks to add that burnt bitter bite.

Thanks for the heads up about the roasted barley. I wasn't sure how to interpret my research - some say "just a little will do", others say "it's the backbone of a stout and should be used up to 10%". I think it will be all I have on hand tomorrow (unless my LHBS has Carafa on hand) so I'll probably take your advice and cut the specialties a bit. If they have Carafa maybe I will sub it in for the roasted barley.

Hey Arp, welcome to the forums. I don't see anything "wrong" with your recipe, it should make a good stout. I'm guessing your are using American Ale yeast? (Safale US-05 or something like it.) Personally I would just brew it plain to begin with, then if you like it and think vanilla, coffee, or chocolate, would add to the flavor.

Just make sure that everything is clean and sanitized, you pitch enough yeast (I usually pitch 2 packets of Safale US-05), and fermentation stays at or below 70F and you should have a good beer.

Thanks for the welcome and advice! That's definitely what I plan to do - learn the base beer well, then add and modify depending on what I want to brew. Yeah I'm using Safale S-04 for this batch - seemed to be good (or adequate) for stouts based on what I read. My last two batches I've only used one packet of dry yeast - is there any potential harm from using two? Does rehydrating the single packet help attenuation? (I've only ever pitched dry.)

 

[mcgimpkins]

Yeah I'm using Safale S-04 for this batch - seemed to be good (or adequate) for stouts based on what I read. My last two batches I've only used one packet of dry yeast - is there any potential harm from using two? Does rehydrating the single packet help attenuation? (I've only ever pitched dry.)

To answer your first question no, you cannot harm anything by pitching two packets of yeast. When brewing you want to assume that something (some other yeast, mold spores, etc) got into you wort. The more yeast cells you have, the more likely they are to out-compete anything else that may be wanting to grow and reproduce in your wort. By pitching an extra packet of yeast you are doubling your yeast cell count and going to make a better beer with less of a chance of off flavors. You can make a good beer with only one packet of yeast, just the same as with liquid yeast you can make a good beer without a starter, however I have found that adding that extra packet, or creating a starter, gives you the extra bump to make great beer without off flavors.

Second question, I have pitched dry yeast dry and created really good beer, however I have read various articles stating that you can loose up to 50% of your yeast pitching directly into the wort. Therefore, I have been trying to make it common practice to rehydrate my yeast. What I usually do is when I start heating up my water I put 300 ml of water in a pot and boil it for 15 minutes to sanitize. After the 15 minute boil I am left with 200 ml of water which is the amount I want to rehydrate 2 packets of yeast. I cover the water pot with tin foil and let it sit while I do the entire mash and boil (I do all grain). While I am finishing the boil, I check the temp of the water, usually it has cooled to the 80s. If I need to I might add some heat to it to get it to 85, then I pitch the yeast into it and let it sit for 20-30 minutes, while I chill the wort. It will foam up and be ready to pitch. I hammered out this method via trial and error, I hope this helps.

 

[JosephN]

I'm wondering how it went today?

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

Honestly, and this is coming from a guy that has been brewing for 8 months but has 21- 6+ gallon batches in the books. The roasted barley is waaaaay too high. You need to add just a few ounces of it, maybe 6oz at most. The chocolate could be cute back between .5-.75#, and the crystal/caramel probably shouldn't go much higher than .5#. Seriously thought if you use that much roasted barley I think you are going to hate the outcome as it will taste stupid bitter and burnt. Also one thing to look at in the future is German Carafa 1-3. It's basically similar to roasted barley, and wil add roasted flavor and color, but it doesn't have the burnt husks to add that burnt bitter bite.

It's not too much roasted barley at all. Gold medal NHC American stout recipes are almost that exact same RB/Chocolate %.

 

[arp]

Brewing now, will update in a little while!

 

[JosephN]

It's not too much roasted barley at all. Gold medal NHC American stout recipes are almost that exact same RB/Chocolate %.

Medal or not, that's too much for my palate.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

The roasted barley is waaaaay too high. You need to add just a few ounces of it, maybe 6oz at most. The chocolate could be cute back between .5-.75#, and the crystal/caramel probably shouldn't go much higher than .5#. Seriously thought if you use that much roasted barley I think you are going to hate the outcome as it will taste stupid bitter and burnt.

Obvious question: is the the 300-something Lovibond "roasted barley," or the 500-something?

Either way, gonna have to correct this; a stout recipe kit I've been inspired to brew four times now (just bottled the most recent yesterday, in fact) has 1.00 LB of 575L roasted barley in an 11lb all-grain recipe (9 pale 2-row, 0.5 chocolate 300-something, 0.5 cara-pils). And I'm not known for my tolerance for bitterness... >.>

 

[arp]

Well that was a fun brew night! Despite my brewing partner being MIA, not being able to find distilled water anywhere close to me (my tap water is borderline undrinkable), and sub-freezing temperatures outside, I decided to brew anyway.

Some notes about how things went:

- I used Poland Spring water instead of distilled (which I've used every time so far).
- I was going to reduce the specialty grains to 12oz each figuring it'd be better to go low than high, but my LHBS mixed all of the specialty grains in one bag (I ordered 1lb of each), so I just went with it.
- Last brew we boiled 6.5 gallons down to under 5 and had to top off at the end, so I decided to boil 7.
- Specialty grains steeped for 25 minutes at 157-162ish, plus a few minutes after to drain the bag.
- Added the maltodextrin at 60 minutes because I read in a few places it doesn't matter much where it gets added and I wanted less to worry about.
- Added 2lbs of DME at 60 minutes and the other 6 at 30 minutes since I've read this can help reduce the extracty taste.
- Hops added on schedule.
- Chilled to high 60s in about 15 minutes.
- Ended up with 6 gallons of wort after the boil (?!?!). Used sanitized mug to scoop out half a gallon so my fermenter doesn't explode.
- Pitched dry yeast straight at 64 degrees.
- OG: 1.07 (?!?!)

I'm perplexed at how Beersmith predicted an OG of 1.066 for 5 gallons, yet with the same ingredients I got 1.07 for 6 gallons. I'm also perplexed at how I ended up with 6 gallons in the first place - I figured empirical evidence plus an extra cold night would mean at least 1.5 gallons of boil-off. I'm not sure what to do with extra wort in that situation, since I don't really have any 1-gallon fermenters on hand.

Anyway, I'm happy with how the wort tastes. Each of the specialty malts show up, and the 1lb of roasted barley didn't dominate the flavor. I like the burnt caramel-like contribution from the Crystal 120L, but it might be better with a lighter caramel taste - the next batch might use 60L. It's sweet, which is cool with me, but I might end up wishing I had more bitterness if the FG finishes high. Not sure about the hops - they don't show up in the flavor profile much, so I can't say if/how I'd change that. The mouthfeel is nice and full right now, just need to make sure not to over-carbonate.

Overall: despite a pretty hectic and cold brew day, this will end up being a solid brew. Can't wait for it to start bubbling!

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

Medal or not, that's too much for my palate.

He's asking for a recipe critique for a full bodied American stout and has the correct grain percentages, and because you don't like the taste you tell him it's too high.

I believe you said 4-6 oz of roasted barley, you're kidding right? That's color correction for an Irish Red, not a full bodied american stout. I would suggest getting more than 21 batches under your belt before giving out this kind of advice.

Giving advice against proven specialty grain ratios to a new brewer because it doesn't suit your particular palate is not a good way to help someone.

 

[JosephN]

He's asking for a recipe critique for a full bodied American stout and has the correct grain percentages, and because you don't like the taste you tell him it's too high.

I believe you said 4-6 oz of roasted barley, you're kidding right? That's color correction for an Irish Red, not a full bodied american stout. I would suggest getting more than 21 batches under your belt before giving out this kind of advice.

Giving advice against proven specialty grain ratios to a new brewer because it doesn't suit your particular palate is not a good way to help someone.

One thing I noticed yesterday was that he was asking about a stout and for some reason I was thinking of a porter. My mistake. I was going off of a porter that I had at a local pub that tasted like straight up 500+ LB roasted barely. When I asked them about their grain bill I came to notice that they used about a pound per 5-6 gallons. To me it had such a dry, burnt, bitter taste and I just couldn't drink it. Just a few weeks before having this pint I went through my grain and tasted each type. When I got to the roasted barley it just stuck in my teeth and that flavor was around for at least an hour. This caused me to really be able to pick out roasted barley. It kind of reminded me of chewing up espresso coffee beans. Anyways I'm sorry if you all feel that I gave bad advice, I never intend to do that, in fact I love teaching people new things. I think I just got styles mixed up. Oh and btw my Porter even has .6# of black patent in it, and that's just a little too much for my liking in a porter.

 

[arp]

Everyone has their own opinions!

I'm thinking now that my grain bag was a little crowded, it's possible i didn't get full flavor extraction from everything. It was a nylon 8" x 14" (I think) grain bag for 3lbs of grain. This may be another variable that needs tweaking if a bigger bag would mean more flavor extraction.

 

[mcgimpkins]

Everyone has their own opinions!

Welcome to Homebrewtalk

Post up some pics of your final product when you have it carbonated in a glass. You are probably fine, I doubt you have to worry too much about your bag size, but look at your color and see if the beer tastes like a "stout". If for some reason you are off, then you have some sort of brown over a stout. In particular, if your gravity is where you want it to be and your color is optic like a stout, then you are on the right track. If not then chalk it up as a learning exercise (I've had a bunch of those). Relax Don't Worry, Have a Home Brew (RDWHAHB).