Home Brew Forum

Hi All

This is a stout recipe based on the Hop Back 'Entire Stout recipe'

brewed for the first time so let's see how it turns out? Specifics of the recipe and procedure used follow:

Pale Malt 5 EBC 10 lbs. 10.8 oz 4850 grams 87.8%
Crystal Malt 130 EBC 0 lbs. 7.5 oz 210 grams 3.9%
Chocolate Malt 1050 EBC 0 lbs. 7.5 oz 210 grams 3.9%
Roasted Barley 1350 EBC 0 lbs. 7.5 oz 210 grams 3.9%
Black Malt 1300 EBC 0 lbs. 1.2 oz 35 grams 0.6%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Challenger Whole 7.6 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 1.6 oz 45 grams 69.2%
Golding Whole 5.7 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 30.8%


Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.013
Alcohol Content: 4.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 36 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 %
Bitterness: 35.1373236349014 EBU
Colour: 170 EBC

Prepared Liquor using GW's water calculator 'stout'

Mashed in at 65c for 90 minutes and then fly sparge - ended up with 30L and a gravity of around 1054.

boiled for 90 minutes, added 5gm of DLS and 3 gm of Epsom salts with bittering hops. Late addition added for the last 10 minutes of the boil

Pitched hydrated Safale S-04 sachet's worth into aerated wort of 27L

some pictures of this mornings events follow:







fermentation activity this morning:




happy brewing.....

Rgds

Otters

Looks delicious. Nice work! I've wondered about Hop Back's yeast before. Did you used S-04/Whitbread-B simply because it's a good, proven performer for English ales, or do you know it's related the one used by the Hop Back brewery?

Hi Seymour.

I believe that Hop Back use a source of Whitbread-B, some have even gone as far as to suggest that it's S-04, never the less I'd brewed a 'Summer Lightning' clone last year (using S-04) and did a 'Pepsi' challenge with the real thing. 'I'd definitely say that Hop Back use or used a source of Whitbread-B [S-04] - as the beer exhibited the dry, sometimes tart, bread like profile. And I know this is not to everyone's liking.

However, all that said, I regularly use S-04, and rate as a good performer, now I've tuned in my water treatment, mash temp, malt supplier and amount to pitch I'm achieving better results which I'm putting down to yeast performance.

For this particular beer [Stout] I erred on the lower side (for me) for mashing at 65c and wanted a neutral yeast taste so aimed at 1 x sachet to pitch, but I regularly mash bitters at 67c using a S-04 starter as opposed to hydrated 11g fermented at around 19 to 19.5c. This has brewed very flavoursome beers with a proper 'English Bitter' yeast profile and juicy malt. Not; the dull as dishwater neutrality, that some brewers have slated it for.

I think that the Whitbread-B strain, in particular S-04, has been given a bad press as a beginners yeast. It's worth experimenting with.

Rgds

Otters