Stout recipe

[Mther]

1) I have never brewed an AG stout before and I am planning to brew this on Saturday (25L) so please let me know what you think:

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1.00 tsp Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent 1 -
3.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (4.5 EBC) Grain 2 55.0 %
1.20 kg Barley, Flaked (3.3 EBC) Grain 3 22.0 %
0.60 kg Black Barley (Stout) (985.0 EBC) Grain 4 11.0 %
0.65 kg Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) Dry Extract 5 11.9 %
60.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 6 28.8 IBUs
1.00 Items Protofloc (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 7 -

The DME is in the list because I am leaving the UK for 6 months so I thought to finish it before I go.

2) Would you go with more hops and which?
3) Also what about chocolate malt? I don't like sweet stouts, I want to make something relatively dry and sessionable.
4) Any British dry yeast recommendations? I was thinking of Danstar Windsor British Style Beer Brewing Yeast.

Thanks

[Deebee]

1) I have never brewed an AG stout before and I am planning to brew this on Saturday (25L) so please let me know what you think:

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1.00 tsp Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent 1 -
3.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (4.5 EBC) Grain 2 55.0 %
1.20 kg Barley, Flaked (3.3 EBC) Grain 3 22.0 %
0.60 kg Black Barley (Stout) (985.0 EBC) Grain 4 11.0 %
0.65 kg Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) Dry Extract 5 11.9 %
60.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 6 28.8 IBUs
1.00 Items Protofloc (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 7 -

The DME is in the list because I am leaving the UK for 6 months so I thought to finish it before I go.

this is just me, but I personally would add some chocolate or carafe iii.... he he for me.. I would add both to get max roastiness. I really do not like a bland stout.

hop wise you can use anything really. late hops are kind of not needed in the stout, so one bittering charge is good.

To be honest you really don't need the finings either I mean a stout is like black you know so a little haziness is not going to notice.

2) Would you go with more hops and which?
3) Also what about chocolate malt? I don't like sweet stouts, I want to make something relatively dry and sessionable.
4) Any British dry yeast recommendations? I was thinking of Danstar Windsor British Style Beer Brewing Yeast.

Thanks

[micmacmoc]

Yes, I'd give it a bit of roast barley. Doing a stout next week. Its this in percentages

Pale Malt 77.20
roast bly 2.4
munich 4.8
flk brly 5.3
crystal 5.8
choc malt 3.9
black 0.6
I make this to about 1099 OG and hop to 70 IBU or so. It takes about a year to mature into a cherry roast complex flavour and is easily the best of my 100 odd all grain brews. G'luck!

[Mther]

Thanks for your replies guys!

I like carafe III too Dave but it comes only in 500gr from my brewstore and since I am leaving UK I want to finish everything I have. I made a combination of all the dark (un)malts in low percentages... please let me know what you think.

micmacmoc your recipe looks very tempting I will certainly try it once I am back home!

Here's how it look now:

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1.00 tsp Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent 1 -
3.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (4.5 EBC) Grain 2 60.6 %
0.60 kg Barley, Flaked (3.3 EBC) Grain 3 12.1 %
0.30 kg Chocolate Malt (900.0 EBC) Grain 4 6.1 %
0.20 kg Black Malt (1250.0 EBC) Grain 5 4.0 %
0.20 kg Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 6 4.0 %
0.65 kg Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) Dry Extract 7 13.1 %
60.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 8 29.1 IBUs

Anything you would change?

Thanks again!

[Matt12398]

Are you well educated on water treatment? If you are then great you have probably worked out what you are doing but if not be careful what salts you're adding. If you have low alkalinity water those roast grains are going to drop your pH and then the gypsum will lower it further so make sure you know what your water is made up of. Also for a stout you might want to consider using calcium chloride for most of your calcium additions rather than calcium sulfate (unless you already have high chloride levels in your water) to accentuate the maltyness you most likely desire in a stout.

[Mther]

Hi Matt, thanks for your input.

I am no water expert, I just use the calculator from thehomebrewforum, using some data I have for Edinburgh water (I was told that chloride levels are low here). For a stout, it recommends the following:

Gypsum added to mash: 2.78 grams Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate) (Ca SO4 2H2O)
Chalk added to mash: 2.65 grams Chalk (Calcium Carbonate) (Ca CO3)

Gypsum added to boiler: 0 grams Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate) (Ca SO4 2H2O)
Table Salt added to boiler: 7.22 grams Table Salt (Na Cl)
Epsom Salts added to boiler: 3.65 grams Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate) (Mg SO4 7H2O)
Calcium Chloride added to boiler: 18.55 grams Calcium Chloride (Dihydrate) (Ca Cl2 2H2O)

Since this will be my last brew until I come back, I won't buy any water treatment salts... maybe just use some gypsum? Or do you think it is better not to use any?

What do you think about the recipe?

Cheers

[Matt12398]

I think Aleman may have been involved in creating that calculator (I may be wrong) so it's probably sound. I've never used chalk to increase alkalinity because it doesn't dissolve readily and people just say it sits there laughing at you. I don't want to steer you down a path that messes up your water treatment so if you've got something that works for you then stick with it.

I think recipe looks good. Not a million miles away from a very nice one I did recently but mine was roasted barley and chocolate malt. I didn't use black malt. Come back and tell us how it worked out.

[Clibit]

When I make a stout I steep the dark grains separately to avoid the PH issues.

[Mther]

Thank you Matt, I will keep it as simple as possible and will let you know with the results! Cheers!

Clibit, when you say dark grains do you mean the unmalted dark grains? Thanks

[Clibit]

No, things like flaked barley need mashing. I mean black malt, chocolate, crystal. Also roast barley gets steeped