Extract#004: Otter Dark Stout

[WishboneBrewery]

Extract#004: Otter Dark Stout

Here's the ingredients:

FWH, grains & Extract in at 40 deg C:

Some Floaters!:

Hot Break, I'd actually stirred it back down before taking this:

Half time, better have a slurp, which was my first ever Extract brew (Hop back Entire Stout):

Boiler run-off, the wort was cooled in the bath upstairs over a couple of hours:

Our tiny cooker! I let this go into the 25L bucket rather than my 15L as I expect the stout to explode shortly!:

Left overs:


Fermentables:
Bulldog Blend Maris Otter Extract - 1500g
Crystal Malt - 185g
Roasted Barley - 185g
Chocolate Malt, Pale - 185g
Crystal Wheat Malt - 100g

Hops:
Fuggle - 60 mins 17g (FWH)
East Kent Golding - 60 mins 10g (FWH) *cheers for adm for the info here on First Work Hops.
Fuggle - 15 mins 10g
East Kent Golding - 15 mins 10g

Yeast:
s-04, pitched at 22 Deg C from a 2 hour fizzing starter and given a really good aeration.

Final Volume: 12Litres
Original Gravity: 1.048 (Actual reading about 1046 after cooling to 22, also after watering down by 3L after boiler run-off)
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 4.2%ABV
Total Liquor: 16.9Litres
Bitterness: 37EBU
Colour: 246EBC (Its a dark one!)

... and my first time sanitising with spray bottle and Iodophor, it feels weird not being able to smell bleech... it it really sanitised?!!!!

[arturobandini]

Looks good...so does that Hop Back Clone

[DarloDave]

That Hop Back clone does look rather nice! Im sure this'll end up being the same!

[adm]

Nice pics, nice looking beer too. Looks like a good day was had!

[WishboneBrewery]

I enjoyed myself...
Yesterdays plan was to go and have a nosey over at the Naylors Brewery open day, but time ticked along and other stuff had to be done.
This is fermenting away nicely this morning, though not as explosive as I might have thought.

Cheers guys

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Nice A stout is on my to-do list for later on this year. I'll probably do the Hop Back Entire. Yours looks yummy

[WishboneBrewery]

Nice A stout is on my to-do list for later on this year. I'll probably do the Hop Back Entire. Yours looks yummy

The Entire Stout turned out nice, but its about 6.2% which is about 2% stronger than planned, I should have diluted it down in the FV which I suppose would let the flavours come out more as I think the strength of it masks them slightly.... *note to self - always remember to account for boil-off and losses in wet hops*

[OldSpeckledBadger]

The Entire Stout turned out nice, but its about 6.2% which is about 2% stronger than planned, I should have diluted it down in the FV which I suppose would let the flavours come out more as I think the strength of it masks them slightly.... *note to self - always remember to account for boil-off and losses in wet hops*

That's the big problem I found with stockpots:- it's hard to gauge how much is in there. I've actually made myself a 25L boiler mostly because my stockpot is really too big for my basic electric cooker (I now use the stockpot purely for cooling the wort) and I've calibrated the boiler in litres.

[WishboneBrewery]

I used my long wooden spoon with a line drawn on it to roughly gauge how much I've lost in evaporation... This brew has so far been my most volume-correct but I've got some learning to do still
I bought the big stock pot as I am going to have the room for it when we move house, just planning ahead a little

[tomU]

So did you boil the grains? Recieved wisdom is that thats bad news, but if thats what you did with the Hopback clone and it worked out then thats cool. If you're getting any astringency you might want to try using a grain bag and pulling it out once it gets up to 77C.

Looks a good day, nice one

[WishboneBrewery]

According to the Graham Wheeler book, boiling the grains isn't a problem... though he does say if you want to you can boil-in-the-bag and fish them out before the wort comes to the boil...
I've been taking these words as gospel so far in my Extract brewing, when i get a suitable grain bag I may boil in the bag more as it will keep a bit more sediment out of my FV.

cheers

[OldSpeckledBadger]

With the mild I brewed a a couple of weeks ago I had the grains in the boil. The tester I had before putting it in the shed to condition didn't suggest any astringency. With the bitter I've just brewed to test my new boiler I did things differently. I heated the water to about 40C, added the grains, bought the temperature up to about 65C and left them with the heat switched off for about 25 minutes then took them out before proceeding with the boil. This was mainly so that I didn't have to worry about allowing for the losses to the grain - I just topped up the boiler enough to allow for evaporation losses which I'd measured at 1L per 20 minutes in a previous water-only boil test..

[WishboneBrewery]

**Sneaky Sample**

Just slurped the test jar... The Pale Chocolate malt is coming through nicely, fingers crossed for a good one

[OldSpeckledBadger]

**Sneaky Sample**

Just slurped the test jar... The Pale Chocolate malt is coming through nicely, fingers crossed for a good one

[WishboneBrewery]

I'm bouncing this thread back up as I've had loads of excellent feedback about this brew.
And not to mention the feedback from mates and colleagues its pretty annoying that I've nearly run out of the stuff, and this is definitely on the to-do-list as an All Grain recipe which should make it even better.
Then a future brew I'm going to swap around the hops for, 30g Aurora @ 60mins and 20g Cascade @ 15mins which should make for another dimension to go with the dark malts that are working together.

If anyone fancies making this, don't worry about the Bulldog blend maris otter Extract, just go for a Pale malt Extract or do an AG I'd love to know what others think of this