Home Brew Forum

I made up this one on Friday evening wth help from a mate of mine:

6kg Pale Malt
375g Amber
375g Light Crystal (60EBC)
375g Chocolate
375g Roast Barley
375g Wheat Malt

200g Dark brown sugar

100g EKGs (5.7%)
20g Target (9%)

2x packets S04.

Lacking a bit in photos as I can't find the cable at the minute However, I got all that malt (just) into a 25L capacity mashtun and the evening generally went well. I landed up with 4 gallons at 1090 - I was tempted to dilute it back down to 1080-5 or so, but in the end decided the headspace was probably for the best so left it strong! As it turned out, this wasn't anywhere near enough as I came down this morning to a beer fridge which was leaking black sticky stout all over the floor.

It got banished to the bath and put in cold water to keep it cool. Even then it kept blowing enormous lumps of foam out the airlock all day. Finally tonight, it seems to have died down a little on the krausen stakes, but the airlock is belching and farting every second or so. Smells are amazing - the stuff that leaked out tastes very bitter and roasty, but with any luck I won't lose any more beer out of the fermenter!

Must get a bigger tun, and must get a better fermenter with a proper blow off tube. I'll also need to redo a hop strainer - the one I made has a pile of old hops in it (got inside the wire mesh of the strainer) and almost impossible to clean...

I'll post some pics when I find the cable!

they might be messy but there is something satisfying in an escaping fermenation

Nice one, sounds like it was fun. Was it your mates firsty see/go at AG brewing, if so some way to start! I weakened and tried a bottle of my IRS on Saturday night. It was great, tasting the choc a bit of bitterness and really quite smooth.Did not expect it to taste in any way decent. Can't wait to see what it turns into in a couple of years.

Looks good coatesg

pantsmachine wrote:Nice one, sounds like it was fun. Was it your mates firsty see/go at AG brewing, if so some way to start!

Yup - it was his first ever brew so "Baptism of Fire" would not be an inappropriate term...

prolix wrote:they might be messy but there is something satisfying in an escaping fermenation

Absolutely - and I got the "fingers of foam" type ferment for the first time on this one. Maybe that should have acted as a warning for me though...

OK - as it turns out I have only two pictures worth posting - the one of the boil was all steamy and the wort is so dark you can hardly see anything!Unfortunately, the pool of stout leaking all over the floor of the kitchen had to be tidied up a bit sharpish so no pics there either.

Here's the hydrometer reading



Here's the foam fingers:



From a brief look tonight, it looks like the ferment is largely over - I took a quick refractometer reading and it could well be done at 1023ish(?), but will take a proper hydro reading tomorrow. I may prime this with molasses when I get to that point...

Confirmed the gravity yesterday night - it is indeed 1023ish - that's 67 points in a shade under 5 days Still the odd glug from the airlock and will leave this on the yeast for at least another week.