Home Brew Forum

Got up early this morning and started this at seven o'clock - haven't had a lot of time for brewing recently and I've been champing at the bit to get a brew on. Anyway, I decided on a stout and this is what I came up with:

Brewlength: 20L @ 69% efficiency (69% is due to fairly high OG)
Target OG: 1060

Grain Bill - 90 min mash

Marris Otter: 4000g
Crystal: 500g
Flaked Barley: 300g
Cara Pils: 300g
Roast Barley: 400g
Chocolate Malt: 200g
Black Malt: 200g

Hops:

Fuggles (3.8%) 46g, 60 mins
EKGs (6.8%) 35g, 60 mins

Yeast:

WLP028, 1.5 litre starter

Everything went pretty smoothly. Ended up spot on with 20 litres of wort at OG 1060. The wort tasted absolutely delicious. Pitched the yeast about lunchtime and she's was bubbling away nicely by tea time. WLP028 is one of my favourites. I haven't used it in a stout before but I reckon it'll work well - always leaves a great malt flavour.

Looks tasty to me

I do love a good stout, that looks a cracker

That looks great, definitely one to try, been using ditch's as my stout supply, might use this now instead.

How are you finding the WLP028?

I love WLP028 - probably my favourite yeast. This one took off like mad and ended up overflowing out of the airlock. The yeast leaves a great malt flavour without muting the hops and it attenuates pretty well too. I reckon the malt profile makes it a good candidate for a stout. I've used it to great effect in TTL clones as well.
Had a few sips from the fermenter and this brew tastes delicious.

Thanks for that.... Has it any particular yeast taste?

There's a slight earthy fruitiness to the taste, but it's fairly subtle. I haven't used it on a strong ale before so the ester profile may be a bit more pronounced with this one. It's the full malt flavour that it produces that I really like, and the fact that it attenuates well and doesn't mute the hop flavour.

Turned out lovely. Great depth of flavour for a 5.8% stout. Will be even nicer in a month or two.

Sounds good, recipe looks nicely complex.