Stout Variations - what's your recipe?

[Willy]

I spent last year focusing on permutations of how to make a perfect stout ... For my taste buds. Lots of permutations available... ABV? Base Malt? Hops? Flaked? SRM.

ABV - I settled on close to 4% - it works for Guiness, and while I love Irish stouts I feel no need to do a certain recipe.

Base Malts - Baird's MO or Simpsons golden promise. A local pale ale or Breiss pale ale will work... But prefer MO or GP

Flaked? - use about a lb of flaked oats. I prefer it to the flaked barley typically used in a traditional Irish Stout.

SRM - how to you get the best taste with the darker malts? Hmmm. I shoot for an SRM of 38/39 and use a combo of Breiss chocolate (350L), coffee malt (from ritebrew.com), and some dark roast (450-500L). Tweaking this part to your taste is very productive. I am still tweaking percentages but right now it's mostly chocolate malt, some coffee, and level up with the 450-500L to get my SRM. The result is delicious. I don't have "my recipe" yet because I am still perfecting it. Getting close.

Hops - East Kent Goldings and Fuggles.

If you have a proved recipe that works for you - I'd love to see it.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

For me a Stout should be around 4.5% but I also like Foreign Export stout at 6.0%. Guinness West Indian Porter is fantastic at about 6.0%.

 

[dmtaylor]

Years ago I spent many hours digesting dozens of recipes, in combination with my own experiences and insights, to come up with a recipe that seems perfect for me and my palate. And I brewed it, and it is indeed very good. Something I learned from Curt Stock many years ago is to not be a minimalist with the malts but just go ahead and put 10 or 12 different malts in if you think they all serve a useful purpose. And so that is what you will see in my recipe, and I do think they all play an important role, such that it might not be the same beer if you took a couple of them out of there for reasons of simplicity or whatever. Just go ahead and add everything in there that you like. That, and use more dark malts than you think you need to. That's what I've learned. Also, personally, I am not a fan of using oats, I find them bland and oily, so I opted to use wheat and rye instead of oats in my otherwise "oatmeal stout". This recipe has medaled in competition as an "oatmeal stout", even without any oats.

So, without further adieu, here is the recipe I came up with, which I've brewed a few times and I do think it's quite good. Note: this is a 3-gallon recipe. If you want a different amount, scale up or down appropriately. Cheers.

 

[Willy]

Years ago I spent many hours digesting dozens of recipes, in combination with my own experiences and insights, to come up with a recipe that seems perfect for me and my palate. And I brewed it, and it is indeed very good. Something I learned from Curt Stock many years ago is to not be a minimalist with the malts but just go ahead and put 10 or 12 different malts in if you think they all serve a useful purpose. And so that is what you will see in my recipe, and I do think they all play an important role, such that it might not be the same beer if you took a couple of them out of there for reasons of simplicity or whatever. Just go ahead and add everything in there that you like. That, and use more dark malts than you think you need to. That's what I've learned. Also, personally, I am not a fan of using oats, I find them bland and oily, so I opted to use wheat and rye instead of oats in my otherwise "oatmeal stout". This recipe has medaled in competition as an "oatmeal stout", even without any oats.

So, without further adieu, here is the recipe I came up with, which I've brewed a few times and I do think it's quite good. Note: this is a 3-gallon recipe. If you want a different amount, scale up or down appropriately. Cheers.

Thanks - excellent insights and experience. Gonna try the rye flakes for sure. Thanks!

 

[Willy]

For me a Stout should be around 4.5% but I also like Foreign Export stout at 6.0%. Guinness West Indian Porter is fantastic at about 6.0%.

I like those higher ABV stouts too. But the tap 6, my stout has evolved into a wonderful, ahhhh, slurp... gone too quick, but only a 4.1 ABV makes that okay. Haha

 

[DuncB]

Would love to try some Phoenix hops, just can't get them here which is irritating.

 

[sibelman]

Would love to try some Phoenix hops, just can't get them here which is irritating.

Unfortunately, U.S. Postal Service rates start at $48USD to ship to NZ. This hop substitution chart suggests Challenger and Northdown as substitutes for Phoenix. fwiw.

 

[dmtaylor]

I think I only used Phoenix because they were specified in some other recipe that I was cloning and I had these leftover to use. Any non-citrus hop would work for this recipe IMO.

 

[mashdar]

Stout is a broad category.

Dry stout: keep it simple, low abv. Maybe 5 lbs floor MO, 2 lbs flaked oats, 12-16 oz roasted barley, fuggles. Consider souring 5-10% like Guinness.

Sweet stout: More of a "kitchen sink" approach. I like ~5.5%, with floor MO, a touch of Crisp brown (coffee flavor), 1lb English C60, and a mix of pale and regular chocolate. 20 IBU EKG. Maybe 30-35 SRM. 154F+ mash.

American stout: Look up a Shakespeare stout clone as a starting point? Hoppy, cascade.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/can-you-brew-it-recipe-for-rogue-shakespeare-stout.178121/

 

[DuncB]

I was keen on the chocolate notes which I don't remember seeing on any other hop type. Thought it would add something to an imperial stout.
Importing hops into NZ would be challenging with our border biosecurity issues.

 

[Steveruch]

Years ago I spent many hours digesting dozens of recipes, in combination with my own experiences and insights, to come up with a recipe that seems perfect for me and my palate. And I brewed it, and it is indeed very good. Something I learned from Curt Stock many years ago is to not be a minimalist with the malts but just go ahead and put 10 or 12 different malts in if you think they all serve a useful purpose. And so that is what you will see in my recipe, and I do think they all play an important role, such that it might not be the same beer if you took a couple of them out of there for reasons of simplicity or whatever. Just go ahead and add everything in there that you like. That, and use more dark malts than you think you need to. That's what I've learned. Also, personally, I am not a fan of using oats, I find them bland and oily, so I opted to use wheat and rye instead of oats in my otherwise "oatmeal stout". This recipe has medaled in competition as an "oatmeal stout", even without any oats.

So, without further adieu, here is the recipe I came up with, which I've brewed a few times and I do think it's quite good. Note: this is a 3-gallon recipe. If you want a different amount, scale up or down appropriately. Cheers.

Ahh Muntons. I used Muntons in a lot of British styles, but alas it's no longer available.

 

[kevin58]

For my money a stout under 6% ABV is porter.

I have nearly 100 porters and stouts saved in my recipe database and a good majority of them use what was once called the classic London trilogy of malts... pale, brown and black. There are sugars and the odd adjunct in many but those three are the base of nearly all. There is a wide range of ABV in the (stout) list but the ones I make the most are between 6% and 11%.

Here is one I like:
Pale Ale Malt - 55.4%
Brown Malt --- 9.6%
Black Malt ----- 5.7%
Flaked Maize -- 2.5%
Invert #3 ------ 26.8%

Cluster - 90 mins - 22.9 IBUs
EKG ---- 60 mins - 15.3 IBUs
EKB ---- 30 mins - 11.8 IBUs

Any good English Ale yeast. I use White Labs WLP002, Wyeast 1099, Imperial A09, or Omega British Ale variants.

EDIT: I forgot to add that this is a Fullers recipe translated from their 1910 brew logs.

 

[Willy]

Here's the recipe for my next batch - a variation on an Irish Stout, the latest tweak.

Baird's MO (2.8L) - 46%
Simpson's Golden Promise (3 L) - 15.3%
Flaked Oats - 15.3%
Breiss Chocolate Malt (350 L) - 12%
Coffee Malt (150 L) - 5.7%
Dark Roast (450 L) - 3.2%
Carafoam (2.5 L) - 1.3%
Melanoidan (30 L) - 1.3%

Hops
EKG 1 oz 60 min
Fuggles 1 oz 50 min

ABV - 4.2%
IBU - 33
SRM - 36.5
OG - 1.041
FG - 1.009

Two step mash
133°F - 10 m
149°F - 50
Mash out - 170

Dunk sparge. (Take the BIAB out and put it in a big kettle, add water and work it like a tea bag to get nice wort and fill boil kettle to full volume. )

Yeast - Nottingham (or US -05)
2 weeks fermenting. Package in a corny keg(s) and let it condition for at least 3 months in a closet.

 

[dmtaylor]

Ahh Muntons. I used Muntons in a lot of British styles, but alas it's no longer available.

I loved it for the simple fact that it was only $1.99.

 

[kevin58]

Ahh Muntons. I used Muntons in a lot of British styles, but alas it's no longer available.

Why is this no longer available? I see sacks of it at my LHBS.

Nevermind. I was thinking malted barley. You have to excuse me I'm on a medication that relaxes blood vessels in preparation for heart surgery but it also relaxes the vessels in your brain.

 

[dmtaylor]

Why is this no longer available? I see sacks of it at my LHBS.

Sacks of yeast?!

 

[day_trippr]

They're very tiny sacks

 

[kevin58]

Sacks of yeast?!

uh oh. I saw Muntons and immediately went to malted barley.

 

[dmtaylor]

No worries

 

[AmarikinBrew]

Munton's yeast big time with the kits from Munton's themselves. Alotta LHBS tell their customer's to ditch the yeast and just use US05.
Might find some free packs thrown under the counter like I did many moon's ago, just ask the owner or counter guy.
If they out of date, just build it up with a starter.....

 

[G_robertus]

I've recently settled on

70.0% Simpsons MO
16.3% Chit malt (I think I prefer this over flakes)
7.5% (Simpsons) RB
3.7% Flaked wheat or wheat malt
2.5% (Simpsons) Chocolate

30-36 IBU FWH English/European hop

WHC Bond/Pub Ale

Target 4.2% ABV, but I've had better efficiency and stronger beer that was also good. It reminds me of O'Hara's. I try to carbonate very low and to get a fake nitro effect

 

[SanAequitas]

ABV - I settled on close to 4% - it works for Guinness, and while I love Irish stouts I feel no need to do a certain recipe.

kevin58: For my money a stout under 6% ABV is porter.

I agree. For me, "Stout" and "weak beer" just doesn't mix. Even our regular beers (various fruit pale is our main brew) are normally 5% or so (two bags DME).

I haven't made too many stouts because I don't brew as much as I wish and my brew-buddies mostly aren't into heavy dark stuff when we do manage to brew (we only brew meads for brewday at one of the guy's houses, usually mine is the beerspot), but every stout I have made is usually in that 8% range. Three or four bags of DME (we always round recipes to whole 3# bags), depending on what extra stuff is going in. Then final water accuracy isn't always that exact, so the 12# batch might have extra water (lowering ABV a bit), or vice versa. We think our jugs are 5.5 and 6.5 gal at the shoulder, but never exactly measured them.

So I don't have a go-to recipe for stouts yet (just the fruit pale one), but it'll depend on what you're wanting, a dry coffee one, or a sweet chocolately drink. Or find you 3-4 recipes so you can mix n match each time you brew so it's not the exact same beer over and over!

 

[lumbergh]

This minus the cinnamon and licorice with US-05 yeast. Best stout I've made by far. Needs 3-4 months of aging. I made some variations with different yeast, but they weren't as good.

https://beerandbrewing.com/fremont-brewings-before-dark-star-oatmeal-stout-recipe/

 

[Corwin1968]

I'm still looking for the best stout recipe but haven't found it yet.

For me, a stout needs to be 8% ABV or higher, with a corresponding higher specific gravity. Never thin, watery and low ABV.