Looking for a great low ABV Dry Stout

[jcole]

Any recommendations on Dry Stout PM recipes along the lines of Guinness Draft?

I'm looking for something with an ABV around 4% as a drinkable session beer.

I see there's quite a few stouts in the recipe database, but I haven't seen anything yet that quite fits the bill.

Thanks,
John

 

[big supper]

70% Base Malt
20% Flaked Barley
10% Roasted Barley

40 IBU's at 60 min.

 

[jcole]

70% Base Malt
20% Flaked Barley
10% Roasted Barley

40 IBU's at 60 min.

Thanks. For a partial mash, what is the recommended percentage of extract to use base malts?

 

[humann_brewing]

The 150 clone recipe edition of BYO had the clone recipe for Guiness. Might just try it myself.

 

[jcole]

Thanks. I'm going to order a copy.

Anyone else have any suggestions? I'm probably going to brew this weekend.

 

[big supper]

Thanks. For a partial mash, what is the recommended percentage of extract to use base malts?

It really depends how big of a mash you are going to do. Here is a rough estimate of what you could do.

3lbs light dry extract

2lbs 2-row
2lbs flaked barley
1lb roasted barley

Edit: Guiness has part of its mash soured. If you really want you could add maybe a couple ounces of acid malt, but it is not 100% necessary.

 

[Barc]

or you could always buy a Guinness and sour it... that just sounds wrong, doesn't it?

 

[jcole]

Thanks for the input so far. I've attached a PDF on my working recipe for the Dry Stout that I'm planning for this weekend.

Any suggestions?

John

View attachment johns_dry_stout.pdf

 

[Barc]

Malt qty seems very low, especially to get up to 1.040+... I'd probably throw in some Roasted Barley (4oz maybe), maybe a bit of Chocolate, and maybe decrease the 60L a tad. But, that's just me.

 

[jcole]

What will the Roasted Barley and Chocolate do for the flavor?

 

[Donner]

BYO had a Beamish clone not too long ago. I'm a big fan of Beamish. Here is the AG recipe, but it should give you an idea.

OG=1.041
FG=1.009
IBU=40
SRM=50
ABV=4.1%

Ingredients:
6.00 lbs crisp british pale ale malt or similar malt made from Marris Otter
1.75 lbs Great Western Flaked Barley
17.0 oz Great Western roasted barley (500° L)
7.6 AAU Challenger pellet (0.95 oz) (60 min)
2.5 AAU Kent Golding Pellet (0.5 oz) (15 min)

WLP004 (Irish Ale)

 

[smashed4]

big_supper's recipe, albeit simplistic, is exactly right for a Guinness clone... Add White Labs Irish Ale Yeast and you got pretty much everything.

For Guinness:

70% Marris Otter
20% Flaked Barley
10% Roasted Barley

OG should be 1.038 and FG 1.006 (!!)
IBU, around 40.. Single addition at 60 since there is no hop taste/aroma.


I tried this recipe many times, with many variations. The above malt bill gives excellent results, and it seems to be the consensus for the Guinness draft recipe. Also, Roasted Barley is *the* irish stout malt. Forget the black patent or chocolate malt, not needed at all... Same for the crystal.

For a partial mash, I would calculate the amount of malts like if it was All Grain, and then remove only a part of the Pale Malt, and replace it with the calculated amount of extract that will provide the same specific gravity...

The problem is that this recipe calls for 20% flaked barley.. if you reduce the amount of pale malt in the partial mash by half, that means you will have around 40% flaked barley.. That would be the maximum, otherwise conversion will be difficult (flaked barkey has no enzyme)... So, you might want to reduce the amount of flaked barley.. which should not be too dramatic..


I would suggest concentrating on the above for a first try, but brewing a dry stout like guinness has some real challenge that you might want to tackle later on:

First, Roasted Barley will acidify your mash and might give a more acrid taste to the final beer. Even if Guinness has a nice tang to it, it is not acrid, mostly because the hard Dublin water is good for dark beers and buffers the acidity of the roasted barley... After many failed attempt to correct this problem in my dry stout, I came up with the solution of adding a teaspoon of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) and baking soda in the mash (I do 6 gallon recipes). You will need to do your own trial and error here to see what works for you..

Second, the target OG of 1.006 is not that easy to reach. Make a bigger than normal starter and aerate wort as best as you can. Since most of your fermentable come from malt extract, try finding the most "fermentable" extract.. some extracts are more fermentable than others.. If you would be doing a full mash, keeping the temperature at the lower end of the scale and doing a long mash might help fermentability. Still, I have never reached the 1.006 mark.. My dry stout always finish at around 1.010..

Finally, the famous Guinness twang... I havn't actually got around to tackling this one My next attempt will be setting aside about 1 or 2 cup of fresh wort and letting it spoil by adding a few unpasteurized malt grains in it... Then after a few days, boil it and add it back to the secondary.

 

[Bob]

Okay, you asked for it; here goes.

You asked for Dry Stout, but your proposed recipe has as much to do with Dry Stout as chalk has to cheese. Dry Stout has the 70/20/10% grist outlined above. You can tweak it a little by reducing the flaked barley or subbing some chocolate malt for roasted barley, but that's about it. If you go too far outside the 70/20/10 parameters you no longer have Dry Stout; you've got something else.

2. Believe it or not, I think Irish Ale is the last yeast I'd use. It does not attenuate fully enough to make the stout truly dry. Irish Ale is great for Irish Red, but not Dry Stout. Use a highly-attenuative, dry English yeast like WLP007 or Wyeast 1028.

3. In your partial mash, avoid dark extracts. It's tempting to use them to get your color up, but they're all mashed with greater or lesser proportions of roasted - usually black patent- and crystal malts, which not only reduce your level of control over the final color, but also impacts the flavor. Use the palest extract you can find and get your color from the roasted barley in your mini-mash.

4. Dry Stout has a one-dimensional roasted character which comes entirely from roasted barley. There are other stouts - notably Oatmeal and Sweet Stout - which are differentiated from Dry Irish by the use of other roasted grains, like chocolate malt.

5. Crystal malt will ruin the character of Dry Stout by imparting residual caramel sweetness inappropriate to the style. You need not provide body with it; the flaked barley will add that in spades. That's why it's in there in the first place.

6. +1 on using a highly-fermentable extract. I prefer Muntons; it's about the most fermentable extract I've found.

If you mash 2 pounds of pale malt and one pound each of flaked barley and roasted barley, you'll be fine. If you have the space and equipment, mash six pounds - 3 lbs pale, 2 lbs flaked, 1 lb roasted. That should convert, given the diastatic power of today's pale malts. Just give it enough time.

Have fun!

Bob

 

[mmb]

I'd like to add a little to the conversation.

Dry stout should finish quite low and be fairly "thin" as well. I usually try shooting for 1.010 or there about and mash at around 152* to get a less dexterous wort. Sweet Stout and Oatmeal Stout can be a little thicker (my oatmeal finishes around 1.018 - 1.022) but dry stout should be, at least to my mind, a roasty, bitter session beer that leaves you thirst for more.

Pale malt, roasted malt and some flaked barley with a single bittering hop addition. Crystal additions will just mask the roast profile you are going for.

And save your whirlfloc for something clear. This is black as night and you won't be able to see through it anyway to detect a chill haze.

 

[jcole]

Thanks for all of the continued input! That is exactly was I was hoping for.

I'm re-working the recipe now based on the comments.

Any suggestions as to a good hop choice? I have 2 oz of East Kent Goldings in there for 60 min.

 

[jcole]

...but dry stout should be, at least to my mind, a roasty, bitter session beer that leaves you thirst for more.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[mmb]

Thanks for all of the continued input! That is exactly was I was hoping for.

I'm re-working the recipe now based on the comments.

Any suggestions as to a good hop choice? I have 2 oz of East Kent Goldings in there for 60 min.

Goldings would be to style, but any clean bittering high alpha hop would be good.

With 2 oz of Goldings you may get a bit of hop flavor sticking around just from the amount of hop matter in the boil. Should be tasty! I usually use something like Willamette and save the Goldings for pale ales where the flavor/aroma is more pronounced.

I

Goldings!

 

[jcole]

Following the 70/20/10 rule on a 5.25 gal batch, here's what I have now:

2 lbs 4.0 oz Extra Pale Liquid Extract (3.0 SRM) Extract 30.00 %
3 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 40.00 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 20.00 %
12.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 10.00 %

However, I noticed that the estimated color is at 20.7 where the style guidelines recommend 25.0-45.0 SRM. Thoughts?

 

[mmb]

The Roasted Barley I use comes in a 500L. I had to modify the 300L setting in BeerSmith to reflect the correct color rating. With 12oz 500L it would be around 27 or so. Might be under "Black Barley" in BeerSmith

 

[jcole]

Thanks. I'll go with the Black Barley option and check with my HBS.

 

[Cugel]

Aren't you going to have to use a partial mash to convert the barley? How about mashing 2-3 lbs of maris otter malt with the barley. Then adding in an appropriate amount of malt extract.

Following the 70/20/10 rule on a 5.25 gal batch, here's what I have now:

2 lbs 4.0 oz Extra Pale Liquid Extract (3.0 SRM) Extract 30.00 %
3 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 40.00 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 20.00 %
12.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 10.00 %

However, I noticed that the estimated color is at 20.7 where the style guidelines recommend 25.0-45.0 SRM. Thoughts?

 

[mmb]

Aren't you going to have to use a partial mash to convert the barley? How about mashing 2-3 lbs of maris otter malt with the barley. Then adding in an appropriate amount of malt extract.

That is a partial mash recipe.

And with 500L barley, there isn't too much left to convert. It's pretty well burnt up.

 

[jcole]

Yes, it is a partial mash. I am planning on mashing all of the grains together and doing a late add on the extract. Am I missing something here, or am I good on the ingredients/amounts?

Thanks.

 

[jcole]

Looks like my HBS is out of the Pale or Extra Pale LME.

Would dried malt extract be a good substitute? I think they carry Briess.

 

[mmb]

I used to use Dry all the time because it was lighter to ship

Liquid is about 20% water and that water is removed from the dry.

Liquid Malt to Dry Malt: Liquid x 20% minus= Dry

Example: 2.25 (Lb. Liquid Malt ) x 20% =.45 2.25-.45 =1.8 ( Lb.Dry Malt)

2lbs LDME with the current grain bill would have an OG of about 1.043.

 

[jcole]

Cool. Thanks for the info. Just heard back that the LME is back in stock at the HBS - so here's my shopping list:

2.25 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM)
3.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain
1.50 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain
0.75 lb Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM) Grain
2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %]

1.00 items Yeast Nutrient

1 Pkgs Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) Yeast-Ale

 

[jcole]

I brewed this over the weekend using DeathBrewer's method and all seems to have gone well. In fact, I came closer to hitting the OG than I have on previous batches.

When I was ingredient shopping at the LHBS the guy helping me said that the beer looked too light for the style and there wasn't enough extract in the recipe for a PM. I explained that I was mashing the grains, not steeping them and he suggested getting a couple of pounds of DME as a back up plan.

I took his advice, but surprisingly enough I came out high on my OG for the 5.25 gal batch I made. I think this was probably because I did two sparges with this method than the one described and must have gotten a lot of sugars out of the grains.

I ended up topping the batch off to a little over 5.5 gal to hit my target OG of 1.043.

So, I'm thinking that going forward the recommended one sparge is fine and should get me pretty close to the target OG.

Thanks for all of the help on this thread. I will let you know how it goes in several weeks.

 

[mmb]

Awesome! It's a great feeling when everything works as planned, isn't it?

Now is a great time to brew dry stouts for St. Pat's Day. You'll get a nice well conditioned beer instead of some dyed green insipid lager.

 

[smashed4]

Great, your beer should be yummy!

#1: Anybody knows what is Black Barley and how it compares to Roasted Barley? I guess it depends on the maltster it comes from.. may be some maltster have two different level of roasted barley? A 300L version and a 500L one??

#2: Regarding your LHBS guy telling you the recipe was too light for the style: Dry Stout is one of the most commonly misunderstood beer... Many mis-judge from the color that it must be very strong and high in alcool, while it is one of the weakest beer.. (Guinness has 1.038 OG)... Most recipe you will find for "Dry Stout" or "Guinness Clone" are way to strong..

 

[BierMuncher]

Great, your beer should be yummy!

#1: Anybody knows what is Black Barley and how it compares to Roasted Barley? I guess it depends on the maltster it comes from.. may be some maltster have two different level of roasted barley? A 300L version and a 500L one??

#2: Regarding your LHBS guy telling you the recipe was too light for the style: Dry Stout is one of the most commonly misunderstood beer... Many mis-judge from the color that it must be very strong and high in alcool, while it is one of the weakest beer.. (Guinness has 1.038 OG)... Most recipe you will find for "Dry Stout" or "Guinness Clone" are way to strong..

14 posts in four years? You are a man of few words my friend.

 

[jcole]

#2: Regarding your LHBS guy telling you the recipe was too light for the style: Dry Stout is one of the most commonly misunderstood beer... Many mis-judge from the color that it must be very strong and high in alcool, while it is one of the weakest beer.. (Guinness has 1.038 OG)... Most recipe you will find for "Dry Stout" or "Guinness Clone" are way to strong..

Agreed. That is one of the reasons why I took the time to research the recipe. Most of the stout recipes I was finding all seemed to be too strong or heavy for what I was looking for.

 

[landis]

Its looks like you already made you decision, but the Ó Flannagáin Standard is simple and fantastic.

Good guy too, so that helps

 

[jcole]

That looks like a great beer. I'll probably have to give it a shot down the road. Thanks!

 

[smashed4]

Agreed. That is one of the reasons why I took the time to research the recipe. Most of the stout recipes I was finding all seemed to be too strong or heavy for what I was looking for.

Kudos for doing your homework on the research part!

14 posts in four years? You are a man of few words my friend.

Haha! Well, I signed up a long time ago but never posted... then I forgot completely about this site, only to come back a few months ago and discover I already had an account..

 

[Donner]

Haha! Well, I signed up a long time ago but never posted... then I forgot completely about this site, only to come back a few months ago and discover I already had an account..

I can see you trying to sign up again and wondering "what the? Some A-hole already has smashed4 as a user name? Come on, what are the chances... oh, wait, yeah..."