Simple Stout???

[Alchemist42]

The short of this is I'm wondering if anyone has any first hand knowledge of a 2 ingredient stout. Namely pale malt and roast barley (and hops). The shortest grain bill I can seem to find also has flaked barely or oatmeal in it.

Please, no 'try it and report back'. I'm going to. But if anyone's done this or had it, would love to hear your thoughts.

 

[alane1]

I did it back in the day...from what I remember it wasn't bad. Two cans of Muntons, a lb. of roasted barley, some hops and yeast. This was also when I thought Icehouse and Red dog were good beers, YMMV.

 

[JKaranka]

You'll find some with just pale and black malts in suabp. It was quite commonplace for black to be 8-12% of the grist (depending on strength ) in porters and stouts brewed outside London. You can also make a two malt stout with 25-35% brown malt and pale malt for the rest.

 

[giraffe]

An irish dry stout is pretty much pale malt, 10-15% roast barley, and 20% flaked barley or other grain (and optionally other stuff). The flaked is there for mouthfeel and head retention in a low gravity beer. So somehow you need to get more body or it may be perceived as thin. You could up the gravity to like 1.050 or so. You could mash higher, or use a less attenuative yeast. This will make it sweeter though.

 

[Alchemist42]

@giraffe, that is the theory at least....except I recall reading some various head to head comparisons and very little correlation was found between mouthfeel, head retention and flaked barely. That is sounds good but doesn't hold up.

And why I asked for people who had brewed it as just pale and roasted. Have you?

 

[JKaranka]

I've only done it as pale and brown. Plenty more body and flavour. Next variant I brew will be just pale and black.

 

[Alchemist42]

I ran some numbers with brown malt and had to get make it over 50% brown to have the color to technically be a stout. Otherwise it was a porter or brown ale.

What percentage did you use?


I don't quite understand what you mean by 'plenty more body and flavor'. Compared to what?

 

[giraffe]

I havent. Yeah, I tend not to use unmalted barley. In my experience it just adds gravity and not much else at all. When I make a stout I usually use flaked wheat like beamish. That said. Why does guiness add so much of it?

And while I love brown malt, and use it frequently, those historical stouts from pattisons book are different than what we concieve of today. And Im not sure the brown malt is the same either (and there is a ton of varience between maltsters) I find in any quanity, it needs to age for 3 months or so to smooth out. Thats alot for a 1.040 beer. [Amber malt is worse. I cant imagine using 30% like some of those recipes. It must have been different]

 

[JKaranka]

You can hit the numbers with less, but I make my stouts above 1055 and most are brown stouts. Are you looking for a Guinness clone instead?

 

[Alchemist42]

No, not a Guinness clone. I would add flaked barely But yes, a Dry Stout. And was going by the basic BJCP guidelines in regard to that. So Brown stout does not apply.

Maybe I should have said to hit the goal of minimum 25 SRM I found you need over 5 lbs brown malt. And if keeping to the OG limits of 1.036 - 1.050 that means over 50% brown malt.

 

[Hanglow]

I did one (although I thought of it as a porter) with 95% MO and 5% BP in a 1.070 beer that was 40 srm according to my notes. It was quite a while ago though, a decent beer iirc. Hopping was challenger and ekg.

You should be able to make a smaller one that tastes good with just pale+BP or RB depending on your preference. But I'd probably bump up the % of the roasted malt for a smaller one