question about AG stout recipe

[mikemet]

Hi all

I brewed my first AG Irish Stout (allegedly a Guinness clone) on the 5th of August

4# Pale malt
.5# Acid malt
.5# dark crystal
.5# roasted barley
.5# chocolate malt

3/4 oz williamette 4.8% at boil
1 oz stryian golding 4.5% 15 minutes

nottingham pitched at 70

3 gallon recipe

I brewed this in a bag. My indoor quasi pot to pot mash sparge - unable to boil off enough volume, never getting a real great great boil for the entire 60- electric stove -

SG was 1.042 when I tested on brew day 8/5. FG yesterday was 1.022 8/22

Ill be honest- and bottle that thing right now. Fermentation was done early on- with little airlock activity for a long while. I also have the stout in a 5G BB with lots of head space. /shrug. gotta use what you have right.

Im not sure if the extra C02 space is causing some off readings or whatever.

I took a taste of the sample last night and almost crapped my pants. If someone poured me a warm Guinness and passed me this sample, I might not know the difference.

The "instructions" that I used said 10 days fermentation- 3-4 in primary and a week or so in secondary.

I left this straight up in the primary - no secondary.

Im really curious why im getting such a weird FG (1.022) - the FG on the recips is 1.010

Again this was my first BIAB so I may have mashed and bashed and twisted and turned that grain more than you were supposed to.

 

[C-Rider]

Can't answer your question, but I have one of my own.

1-What was the expected SG? 42 kind of low for a stout i'd think

and a comment. You can't over squeeze your grain. Old wife's tail about squeezing to much. I mash in a 5 gallon cooler and make 1.75 gallon batches. After it drips I put a collender under the bag, put the cooler on the floor and using a coffee cup in each hand I press as hard as I can using all my body weight to get everylast drop out of the grain.

 

[Yooper]

Mash temps play a big role in attenuation. If you mashed at, say, 156, it'll finish above 1.020, at least in my system.

 

[mikemet]

Mash temps play a big role in attenuation. If you mashed at, say, 156, it'll finish above 1.020, at least in my system.

thanks thats pretty much what I was looking for. Im still trying to figure out things- and with my current system, some things are going to be a little hard to tell.

 

[inhousebrew]

Yep, most likely mash temp. The higher you mash the higher you'll finish. BIAB on the stove can be tough, I do it and I use two thermometers to check my temp at different spots. I find that if I give it a little heat every fifteen minutes while stirring I can get a pretty consistent temp.

 

[LoneWolfPR]

1.022 is an awfully high FG. I would imagine your final product was quite a bit fuller bodied than guinness. As was mentioned, Mash Temp was probably your biggest issue. Higher temps give you more dextrins (non-fermentable sugars). These contribute to body/mouthfeel and sweetness. Lower temps give you more fermentable sugars. This usually results in a dryer, thinner finish. Belgians tend to mash a very low temps, relatively speaking. I mean like mid to upper 140's. That's why you see so many belgian beers finishing so dry. Guinness is a pretty dry stout, so I would expect you need a mash temp around 150 or so.