beer Looking for suggestions on what to brew this Friday

I will be brewing this Friday, and it will most likely be a stout. Iggy knows I've been afraid to do so after an incident a few years ago with the "nightmare" stout, and carbonation issues, etc. etc. However, he suggest I confront my fears and conquer them!!11! Anywho, so I'm looking for suggestions on what type of stout I should brew; maybe some chocolate in there; maybe a porter; vanilla; coffee; espresso!; milk; oatmeal; etc. etc. I'm an all grainer looking to expand my horizons! Discuss! :beer:
 
WTF IGG......(;))

5 gallons

mash at 153f for 45 minutes
ferment coolish at 68f or so for 3 weeks, secondary.

If bottling, use 2/3 cup corn sugar. If kegging, carb lightly.

I suggest:

12 lbs 2 row
4 oz roasted malt
4 oz black patent
8 oz crystal 120L

1 oz fuggles 60 min

WL irish Ale yeast.
 
i have a crap ton of 90L that i'll prolly use. what's the usual abv that'll come outta that recipe? how about taste-wise? How long should it condition prior to consuming? I'll be kegging, so I'll prolly age it in the secondary for a while
 
If you can age it like 6 months that is good.;)

2 is OK.

Mine came out to 8% ABV as I recall.

Good mouth feel, a tiny bit guinnessish, but not too much.
 
Welp, I ended up looking at a bunch of dry stout recipes, and formulated something in regards to that, somehwat of a guinness extra stout flavor to it.

8 lbs. 2-row
1 lb. 40L
.5 lb. barley flakes
.25 lb. acid malt
.75 lb. roasted barley

.5 oz Centennial hops for 60 min.
.5 oz. Perle hops for 60 min.
.5 oz. Fuggles for either 45 or 15 min. (haven't decided yet)

S-04 Safale English Dry Yeast

It's a 5.5 gal batch which will get me an SRM around 50, 45 or 41 IBU (depending on either 45 or 15 min. Fuggle boil), and 4.9% abv. I usually like to make higher abv brews, but was suggested by my stout brewing buddy that he usually shoots for around 4. I always get tired of trying to finish a 5 gal keg of high abv stuff anyways. The aging is what I'm primarily concerned about now. 2-6 months, no problem. I'll prolly take it out at 3-4 months and keg it. How about that Fuggle addition? I'm thinkin 45 min. boil. Also, stout buddy puts a pound of oats in pretty much all of his stouts b/c of the creaminess, etc. Any ideas? Similarly, I tend to put like 1/2-1 lb. wheat malt in most of my IPAs and pales for extra "chunk".
 
Well, Fuggles adds both bitterness, flavor, and aroma (although b/c it's relitivly low AA high hopping rates are needed to achive desired bitterness levels), so on that I say throw it in at 30 minutes and a little splag at flame out. Also, I would add some Goldings hops to it to round out the flavors a little (as those two are almost always pared together). You're looking at a very floral hopped beer there right now.
 
ya, this was more of a "you should shoot for this many IBUs, so clean out the freezer and use what you got" kind of beers ha. so basically just clearing inventory for bittering. bittering hops are basically just bittering hops. you wanna just help get your IBUs kickstarted b/c the taste and aroma hop additions add hardly any IBUs. atleast that's what I have experienced. but i know someone's gonna call me out on that and tell me they think i'm wrong...
 
Fr0tran said:
ya, this was more of a "you should shoot for this many IBUs, so clean out the freezer and use what you got" kind of beers ha. so basically just clearing inventory for bittering. bittering hops are basically just bittering hops. you wanna just help get your IBUs kickstarted b/c the taste and aroma hop additions add hardly any IBUs. atleast that's what I have experienced. but i know someone's gonna call me out on that and tell me they think i'm wrong...

You are absolutely on the right track. The aroma and flavor components of hops are very volatile, so if you boil them in excess of about 15 minutes, you lose most of those components, and you are left with bitterness. Using hops for about 10 or 15 minutes will leave behind a decent portion of the flavor components, and using them for 5 minutes or less will leave behind a good portion of the aroma components, plus flavor.

This utility can show you the resultant IBU value for boil time for hops of a particular alpha acid percentage:

http://www.rooftopbrew.net/ibu.php

By the way, some hops are quite versatile and will work for bittering, flavor, and aroma. For those types, it all depends on how long you have them in the boil. There is no magic to it, either. It all depends on whether or not the flavor of some hop is pleasant when used as a flavor hop.
 
brewed with the nugget for 45 min. so i get the background bitterness, but let the roasted malt smell/taste come through more w/ little to no hop aroma. turned out higher starting gravity than i predicted (no complaints here), but i'm fairly certain that's due to my 100 min. rolling boil w/ just under 7 gal, achieving just over 5 gal at the end; vs. my normal 100 min. just-barely-boiling regime with 7 gal starting, and just under 6 gal finishing (i calculate my recipes for 5.5 gal). so i guess i have a decent margin up or down. something else i've heard though, and seen on a few clone recipes for guinness extra stout (main inspiration for this brew) was to take a few bottles of the extra stout, pour into a bowl and let them spoil for a week or so. then boil this concoction (to sanitize), cool, then pour into the fermented wort in the 2ndary fermentor. SUPPOSEDLY this is how guinness gets a more tart flavor in their brews, but i haven't the foggiest. a few guys posted about the clone and said it seems really odd to perform this maneuver, but once you do it you'll never go back. any ideas?
 
Fr0tran said:
brewed with the nugget for 45 min. so i get the background bitterness, but let the roasted malt smell/taste come through more w/ little to no hop aroma. turned out higher starting gravity than i predicted (no complaints here), but i'm fairly certain that's due to my 100 min. rolling boil w/ just under 7 gal, achieving just over 5 gal at the end; vs. my normal 100 min. just-barely-boiling regime with 7 gal starting, and just under 6 gal finishing (i calculate my recipes for 5.5 gal). so i guess i have a decent margin up or down. something else i've heard though, and seen on a few clone recipes for guinness extra stout (main inspiration for this brew) was to take a few bottles of the extra stout, pour into a bowl and let them spoil for a week or so. then boil this concoction (to sanitize), cool, then pour into the fermented wort in the 2ndary fermentor. SUPPOSEDLY this is how guinness gets a more tart flavor in their brews, but i haven't the foggiest. a few guys posted about the clone and said it seems really odd to perform this maneuver, but once you do it you'll never go back. any ideas?

I say leave Oil Spill Stout unadulturated.
 
Fr0tran said:
something else i've heard though, and seen on a few clone recipes for guinness extra stout (main inspiration for this brew) was to take a few bottles of the extra stout, pour into a bowl and let them spoil for a week or so. then boil this concoction (to sanitize), cool, then pour into the fermented wort in the 2ndary fermentor. SUPPOSEDLY this is how guinness gets a more tart flavor in their brews, but i haven't the foggiest. a few guys posted about the clone and said it seems really odd to perform this maneuver, but once you do it you'll never go back. any ideas?

Yes, souring is typical for English stouts. If you're brewing all-grain beer, you can sour a small percentage of your grain before brew day, and if you are an extract brewer, you can sour the grains that you'll be steeping. I haven't heard of souring beer and then adding it to the secondary fermenter, but as long as it's boiled enough to kill the bacteria, it sounds like it would work just fine. I also like the idea because it shows creative homebrew spirit. At any rate, I don't think that you can go wrong doing this. If you decide to try it, please post your results.
 
update: after transferring to the 2ndary, it tastes super full and powerful, with the right bit of twang. however, i've been having other issues...look at post "WTF am I on Jupiter?!" for more insight...
 
Back
Top