BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

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monkeyboy
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BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

Post by monkeyboy » Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:33 pm

Just when you think you know what you're doing, a brew day comes along that slaps you in the chops and you reminds you that you know nothing.

Recipe for an Imperial(ish) Stout

5kg Pale Malt
200g Carafa 3
500g Dark Crystal
500g Caramunich
500g Wheat malt
500g Flaked oats
250g Chocolate malt

Hops... Well I'll get to that bit...

First up, the mash. Finally getting used to my not-so-new-anymore shiny mash tun and manage to just about hit my target mash temp of 66.7. Close enough anyway. It's an overnight mash, which I find simplifies my brew day and I actually seem to get slightly better efficiency out of it. The chocolate malt goes in at sparge time to get the colour but not so much of the bitter flavour.
Mash goes well, sparge goes well - I get all the wort I need plus a bit more in case the boil off is severe. All into the boiler and off we go.

While that comes to the boil I go off the garage to recover the hops from storage. I know I've got a couple of unopened bags out there. One is Warrior, the other Northern Brewer. Ah, but the labels have fallen off both of them, so I have no idea which is which. And the warrior are double the AA% of the NB. Balls. In the end I realised if I added equal amounts of both, and averaged the AA% I'd be okay.

My hops are going in after 40 minutes -it's not a particularly bitter beer, and I prefer the results from later hopping. It's literally seconds before I'm due to add them and the boiler cuts out completely. The plug terminals are actually hot, so I'm assuming that it's shorted out. I considered decanting it all, trying to fix the boiler and then starting again. But instead I thought 'oh bugger it' and chucked all the hops in - all the hops from both bags.

Now my problem is that my cooling coil hadn't gone in yet, so that's not sterile. It's a cold day so I decide the best thing is to get it into the FV and dump that outside to cool down. If you've ever wondered just how incredibly effective those copper coils are, this is one way to find out. The temperate of the wort creeps down. After 6h outside it's still at 35 degrees! So I shove it into the fridge and leave it to stabilise at 19 degrees.

Following morning I pitched the yeast and it's finally bubbling away.
I have no idea what this is going to turn out like. No cold break, short boil, no bittering hops (other than the effect of steeping a large quantity of hops for a fairly long time)... It'll either be terrible or superb but entirely unrepeatable.

So in the end:
100g Warrior
100g Northern Brewer
steeped at flameout/breakdown for about an hour.

WLP004 yeast.
23L at 1072. Chucked at least a litre away that I was saving to top up the boil as it progressed.

BFS Stout. You can probably work out what the B, F and S stand for :)
Fermenting: AG#22 San Diego IPA
Drinking: Probably.

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Meatymc
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Re: BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

Post by Meatymc » Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:15 pm

monkeyboy wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:33 pm
BFS Stout. You can probably work out what the B, F and S stand for :)
Beautiful First-class Supp? :wink:

WalesAles
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Re: BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

Post by WalesAles » Mon Nov 26, 2018 7:33 pm

mb,
Bloody Fantastic Stout! =D>
1072, what do you think this will drop to?
Great post, great fun to be had in this Bloody Brewing Hobby. #-o

WA

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(The Big Corner Unit with two recliners).

monkeyboy
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Re: BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

Post by monkeyboy » Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:38 pm

According to beersmith it should finish up at 1.023, which will make for quite a chewy beer. I'll update the thread on how it goes.

I can laugh about it now, but at the time there wasn't a lot of laughing going on ;)
Fermenting: AG#22 San Diego IPA
Drinking: Probably.

monkeyboy
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Re: BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

Post by monkeyboy » Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:30 pm

A little update. Took a sample of this on sunday. Down to 1023, which is what the recipe reckons it should finish at. Taste great - sweet but balanced. It's amazing how much can go wrong and what you get is still beer :)
Fermenting: AG#22 San Diego IPA
Drinking: Probably.

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orlando
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Re: BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

Post by orlando » Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:14 pm

monkeyboy wrote:
Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:30 pm
It's amazing how much can go wrong and what you get is still beer :)
Particularly annoying if you're a bit nerdy about stuff and believe there is only one way - the right way. :roll: I can think of both results in the past, hope you are lucky, but then again...... :D
I am "The Little Red Brooster"

Fermenting:
Conditioning:
Drinking: Southwold Again,

Up Next: John Barleycorn (Barley Wine)
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monkeyboy
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Re: BFS Stout: A disaster of a brew day.

Post by monkeyboy » Tue Dec 04, 2018 6:15 pm

Yeah, agree. (And I am pretty nerdy). I think I got lucky because my recipe didn't require lots of bittering hops, or any particular clarity. Not a day I'm looking to repeat!
Fermenting: AG#22 San Diego IPA
Drinking: Probably.

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