Home Brew Forum

On Hallowe'en, with my mates dressed up as the boys from Clockwork Orange, I was drinking a pint of Guinness in an Irish-themed pub. I normally go for Guinness as a last choice, but I'm always surprised at how pleasant it is. I decided that I would make a Guinness clone. I mentioned this to my friend (Georgie, I think), who is rabid Guinness fan. He was very excited. So much so that he said he'd make me a t-shirt if I made Guinness. What more encouragement does one need?

So after a bit of wandering around the net and talking on Jim's about whether or not Guinness mega-extra-cold-proper-real-nitro keg was bland and whether or not they add stale wort, I got down and made some Guinness according to Floydmeddler's recipe on the aforementioned thread.

I joined Flickr specifically so I could put photos on here. Now it turns out that either I, or Flickr, does not have the facility to do this. But at least I've learnt how to play with the presentation of links.

Here it is on Flickr. Check it out if you want to see some possibly original methods regarding measuring boil volume or a pasta roller converted to a grain mill and the kind of crush it produces:

Guinness brewday on Flickr

All in all it was a pretty relaxed brew day. If you can see the pictures (I hope so) you'll notice that I've got quite a labour intensive set up. Despite this, there were no major problems to speak of. The cat didn't even try to jump in the cooled wort - But, the OG was way too high. I couldn't work out what was going on. Did my efficiency (still unknown, but normally yields the specified gravity of recipes in BYOBRA and Norm's Almanac) jump? Then I worked it out. I got 20 litres of wort out of a 25 litres recipe. Normally, I'm so careful about scaling down recipes. Completely slipped my mind.

What with all that detective work about the high OG, I completely forgot to set aside some of the wort to stale. If I had, I could have bunged in another litre of cold water to bring the OG down from 1.054 to 1.053. So now I'll be drinking strong, bitter non-stale guinness. How awful.

[quote="Philipek"] The cat didn't even try to jump in the cooled wort -

Looks like the kitty was thwarted by the closed fermenter!
Pasta roller grain mill conversion - now that's using your noodle!
- sorry, couldn't resist ...

Trefoyl wrote:Looks like the kitty was thwarted by the closed fermenter!

Good to know you can see the photos.

Capped said his stout turned out very well despite the being dry hopped with one cat. I've been getting huge doses of phenolics despite great care with sanitation, so I thought about dunking the cat for good luck.

Grain mill: it's either using my noodle or using google - I got the idea from another forum. My engineering prowess is growing steadily due to this hobby. Previously, it covered changing a lightbulb or hanging a picture and that's it. I almost called out a locksmith once to change the locks on my front door. I often joke about my DIY skills saying that I bought a hammer but had to return it because it didn't come with instructions.

I brewed the Guiness Extra recipe from Wheelers book about 6 months ago (AG). I used White WLP004 (Irish) as the yeast. It was very good indeed, and I keep meaning to brew it again. Definitely recommended.

I keep meaning to go to liquid yeasts, but my lhbs doesn't stock them, so I'll have to order them over the 'net. I was always a little intimidated by the process of making a starter, but having met and talked with a few other experienced homebrewers, I believe that my sanitation is more than enough for liquid yeast.

I used Nottingham in the Guinness, and I just bottled yesterday and the yeast was packed down so tightly, it really was a yeast cake. I could have cut a slice out of it and served it on a plate. I was able to pour out the last pint of guinness that didn't make it into the bottling bucket - I really tipped that bucket up - and the yeast cake stuck firmly to the bottom. In fact, I had trouble breaking it up to throw it out. Previously, the yeast has been a fairly viscous sludge that follows the last bit of beer out of the fermenter.

No sneaky tastes yet ??? How's it coming?

Sneaky? No, it's all for the sake of science, and turning out a product of which I can be proud.

Hydrometer samples were duly tested for sugar content and taste, and that half a pint that came off the yeast head went down a treat despite being completely flat. There's was an odd but not unpleasant aroma from that last half pint. It smelt a little like a coffee liqueur, slightly milky. At first I thought it was lactobacillus (That gives a sour taste though, doesn't it. I was hung up on the 'lacto-' part), but now I'm thinking, diacetyl? Perhaps it's just green. It's a little astringent from the roasted barley, too. I'm hoping that settles down in a few weeks in the bottle.

I bottled it after 15 days. So 10 days 'secondary' (in the primary) or dropping bright. Previously, I'd been waiting a full three weeks as per John Palmer's guide, but I get the impression that folks here bottle or keg a lot sooner than that, some soon as primary fermentation's done. So, I've been bottling as soon as it tastes like beer and is fairly clear, though that's not so easy to do with this one. My limited experience tells me that if it doesn't taste good out of the bottle after a month, leave it another couple of weeks. Beer will correct many of the mistakes of the brewer (bar sanitation, obviously). I had a horrible beer that after three 3 months in the bottle suddenly became delicious.

I'm still plodding along getting to grips with the basics of this art.