Leftover Stout

[TanaUmaga]

friend gave me his home brewing supplies the other day including a 15 Gal keg for boiling and a cooler for Mashing the Grain. He also gave me his leftover grains. As a tribute I decided to brew a batch with everything he gave me.

I used:
10 lbs of Pale 2 row malt
1 pound of Chocolate Malt
1 pound of crystal 60
1 pound of flaked Barley
i pound of black Barley
1.5 Lbs of liquid amber extract

I Mashed for 60 minutes at 152
I Sparged with clean 170 degree water and some of the Mash fluid to make approximately 3.5 Gallons of Wort.
I boiled for 60 minutes adding 1.5 Oz of kent Goldings hops at 60 and .5 Oz at 30
I pitched Liquid Irish Ale yeast WLP004 when it all felt cool to the touch.

Within 12 hours it was bubbling away happily. Now 48 hours later is has just about stopped.

Items of interest. I am pretty sure all of the grains had been sitting in zip lock plastic bags for at least a couple of years maybe longer before I used them.

My friend told me the 10 lbs of pale 2-row had been cracked but there is a 50/50 chance it had not been?

My expected ABV from playing with on-line recipe web sites was around 7%. I did not take a OG reading. (I know I should have)

The wort smelled thick and pretty good going into the primary. I diluted to 5.5 gallons.

Any thoughts on my experiment? I am nervous because my yeast has slowed down earlier than I expected.

-TU

 

[MrHadack]

First, the recipe:
With all that chocolate malt and roast barley I'm afraid that beer is going to be way over the top with roast flavors. You could have used half that amount and it still might have been too much. Also, the hop amounts might have been a little on the light side, but again, all this doesn't really matter if it's what you intended to do.

As for the potential of the pale malt to be un-milled, that would be a big problem. Here's a picture of un-milled malt and then a picture of milled malt. Which looked most like what you used?

With regard to fermentation, it might just have slowed down but is still active. Definitely wait a week or two and then check the gravity. See where it's at.

 

[BackAlley]

You didn't happen to do a starter did you?


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[TanaUmaga]

I did not go the starter route. Still a little new to the homebrewing adventure. It is on the list.

I have a horrible feeling my grains were not cracked when I Mashed. Anything I can do to up the ABV a week into Primary?

-TU

 

[MrHadack]

I did not go the starter route. Still a little new to the homebrewing adventure. It is on the list.

I have a horrible feeling my grains were not cracked when I Mashed. Anything I can do to up the ABV a week into Primary?

-TU

Do you think all the grains were uncracked, or just the 10 pounds of pale malt?
Either way, that's going to really impact the final result. You can technically add some sugars (boil a pound or so of corn sugar in water for a few minutes, cool it, and then pour it in). But while that will add alcohol, it certainly won't help very much with the body of the beer. It will dry it out as well.

I think your best bet is to chalk it up to a lesson being learned and just see how it turns out as-is. Give it a few days, check the gravity, have a taste sample, and see how it is. Report back and let me know-- I'm curious about it.

 

[TanaUmaga]

I pulled out a hydrometer tonight to check what was going on. From the brewers friend beer recipe calculator I was expecting my OG to be 1.077, The hydrometer reading tonight was right at 1.019-1.020. That appears to be right on per the recipe calculator for a 6.75% beer? In my mind that means the fermentation worked and the brew is moving forward as originally planned.

Talking to the dude at the Local HB Store there was a suggestion to add a little more sugar to the mixture in the form of some boiled then cooled light DME. Just to bump the ABV in case the original grain was not cracked to perfection.

What do you experts thing about my little project?

-TU

 

[chickypad]

You are kind of shooting in the dark without an OG reading. Did you taste the sample? Also, are you saying you only collected 3.5 gal total including the sparge? If so you must have either barely sparged or had a very thick mash. Either way doing only half volume and topping off I don't think you're going to hit the 75% efficiency that your calculator seems to be set for. If you have the 15 gal kettle is there a reason you did such a small boil?