Stout Brewing.

[PeeBee]

I looked up and wrote up quite a lot of useful stuff on stout brewing (particularly Guinness) on another forum. I'll repeat (and edit) some of it here for those that haven't seen it but might be interested. And as any mention of Guinness in home-brew forums seems to spark off "lively" debate. I doubt this will be an exception?

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A touchy subject Guinness. I wouldn't be making a Guinness clone near to the "real" version, but more like something much better than Guinness (easily achievable) near to the REAL version - which Guinness stopped brewing 60-70 years ago.

All the quirky methods to make and serve up the stout are just tricks created by Guinness to keep making and serving a beer that resembles its past glory but at fractions of the cost. Home-brewers don't want to be copying these tricks, but should be attempting to recreate what the tricks are trying to emulate.

Guinness was sold from wooden casks pre-1960s. Beer conditioned at very low pressure will produce a very fine head. With Guinness that meant putting a pulled (yes, hand-pumped) pint on one side to settle before topping up (more than once). But another method of dispensing arose, I don't know how widespread but someone I knew said he used to travel on the ferries from Dublin with the fermenting Guinness. I had visions of sloshing open tanks of fermenting beer, but I now think he meant this: Most of the Guinness was casked flat and was intended to stay flat. But some of this beer was put into smaller immensely strong casks (2" thick staves). Into these small barrels was also put a portion of fresh unfermented wort, hence the thick staves. When serving most of the pint was pulled from the "flat" cask ("low" cask) and this was topped up from the smaller cask ("high" cask) which was obviously a bit lively (!) and produced the thick creamy head.

You can find references to this serving method here: http://www.beeretseq.com/some-thoughts-on-guinness/. And also in this vast informative piece a little way down under "Irish beer styles" (it is one of Ron Patterson's sites): http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/irlbrew.htm. I'm facinated by this technique of generating creamy heads on stout and will have to try it soon. Meanwhile, purely CO2 conditioning (a low pressure) can still produce creamy heads on home-brew stouts. You do not need Nitrogen or mixed gas. I guess the modern serving method ("two part pour") is a throw back to these methods - a typical trick to gain connection with the past when Guinness really was great.

In the 60s Guinness made a move into 20th century keg beer. The high carbonation, acidic (carbonic acid from CO2) concoction was not like Guinness at all. Nitrogen was Guinness's saviour where they could still use the high keg pressures but keep the carbonation down (and therefore acidity too). Plus the nitrogen could be got to dissolve in the beer and come out of solution in very fine foam creating the creamy long lasting heads of the real pre-1960s Guinness (needs cold, but a lot of drinkers were moving that way anyhow). They did it to cans too with the famous "widget". Guinness were messing with nitrogen even before the sixties got under way, but the UK and rest of world would have to wait for a few years to sample this "nitro keg".

Back in the 70-80s I'd heard stories that Guinness was once "vatted" (after all it developed from "Porter") and purposely infected with Brettanomyces. Export Guinness was still treated that way. Humm. You can still get this export when abroad - but it's brewed in Belgium under licence (and is terrific).

But people do declare Guinness has an "edge" to it. A popular HB trick is to add purposely soured wort to the fermenting beer (holding back some unboiled mash for a few days, the grain is teeming with acid creating bacteria - I need to look into this some more). I know some people add acidulated malt to the mash to get the extra acidity, but this seems to be messing with the pH at the wrong point (it would want messing with post boil or post fermentation, not during the mash). I've never heard of anyone purposely adding Brettanomyces, but as Guinness was stored in wooden barrels Brettanomyces infection was a possibility in stronger versions ("export") that were kept long enough.

[sbond10]

Interesting read ive recently done a murpheys clone with low carbonation and thats got a lovely smooth.head on it

[IPA]

I am not a big fan of Guinness but I brew it occasionally for a couple of friends. In the past I have done blind tastings and every single time mine was deemed to be the " real thing " I think it is unique in home brewing because the basic recipe has not changed since Ken Shales version in the sixties through Dave Line and Graham Wheeler to today. There is a local expat here who is so snobby that she uses the surname Guinness because in the far distant past she was related to the Guinness family. So although married she and her husband use different surnames. How sad.
Apparently it is brewed today in about nineteen different countries. A couple of years ago it was available here on draught in a local bar. It arrived in a keg completely flat and was carbonated/nitrogenated at the tap on the bar as it was poured

[PeeBee]

To slightly modify the saying: "I should put my beer where my gob is". What a good idea!

(Is that a hint of a "cascade"?). Once it settles a moment:

Needs one of those top ups? For those that don't know, "Angram" (the pump in the picture) is a handpump. This is stout served at <2psi at room temperature with absolutely no nitrogen (except what is floating about in the air). A few caveats:

It isn't really "stout", it's an attempt at making 18th century porter by emulating the historical "brown malt" (basically just chuck a bit of everything in - this is what Meantime do apparently but they go easy on hops and mine has a calculated IBU of 80). But by 19th century standards when porter was about SG1.060, this at SG1.070 is a "stout porter", or just stout, so it is a stout! In 15 minutes the head pancakes; by the end of the glass (1/2 hour or so) the head is just a ring about the glass (not much "lacing"?), but not bad for the first stout I've made in 25 years, I can work on a longer lasting head.

But, NO nitrogen!

Happy Christmas!

[f00b4r]

But people do declare Guinness has an "edge" to it. A popular HB trick is to add purposely soured wort to the fermenting beer (holding back some unboiled mash for a few days, the grain is teeming with acid creating bacteria - I need to look into this some more). I know some people add acidulated malt to the mash to get the extra acidity, but this seems to be messing with the pH at the wrong point (it would want messing with post boil or post fermentation, not during the mash). I've never heard of anyone purposely adding Brettanomyces, but as Guinness was stored in wooden barrels Brettanomyces infection was a possibility in stronger versions ("export") that were kept long enough.

You can do a separate mash with acidulated malt and then add this back in to the main mash at the end of the main mash, this stops the pH being messed up but gives a nice tang to the beer. I had a great summer golden beer from someone using this trick that they had nicked from a Wylam brewery / Yeastie Boys collaboration.

[PeeBee]

... "Angram" (the pump in the picture) is a handpump. ...

Should have added: There's no nozzle in the pictures because it's out of shot and a stumpy "southern pour" nozzle that you can't attach a "sparkler" to, not a loopy "swan neck". Just in case anyone thinks that foam is due to a sparkler.

[PeeBee]

... You can do a separate mash with acidulated malt and then add this back in to the main mash at the end of the main mash, this stops the pH being messed up but gives a nice tang to the beer. ...

Thanks. That makes more sense.

[PeeBee]

... I think it is unique in home brewing because the basic recipe has not changed since Ken Shales version in the sixties through Dave Line and Graham Wheeler to today. ...

"Ken Shales". Now there's a name I'd allowed to slip into the mists of my memory. I remember that book which had a two colour cover (only two? But it was colour!) mainly a single shade of horrid brown - like everything back then (can't imagine brown being an "in" colour now). Flicking through the pages sitting in my Aran jumper that Mum knitted. Guinness recipes were amongst my first brews (all grain, which made me a weirdo back then too) because you had to have a taste for it as bottled Guinness was often the only "live" beer you could get your hands on in UK pubs where all but a handful had been decimated with 1960s keg "beer"

Bottled Guinness was the most reliable source of brewing yeast too (some used bakers' yeast, and the really desperate reached for the Boots packets).

[itsbedo]

I'm trying my first stout brew this weekend, and serving it using co2 only. Interesting stuff in your posts, cheers

[PeeBee]

I'm trying my first stout brew this weekend, and serving it using co2 only. Interesting stuff in your posts, cheers

I have to admit the head wasn't so good a few days later (pancaking in five minutes, just a ring round the glass by time half way through); Stout seems to be more reluctant giving up the initial higher carbonation (5PSI) than my bitter. But I'm on the second Corny keg now and the remains of the first is being "force carbonated" at 7.5 - 10PSI to try the "high cask, low cask" technique (I need to get the second keg down to 0.75PSI for a while to get it's carbonation well down and stabilised - the "low cask").

Will post results here, but might be a week or two before everything stabilises.

I can muck about with this beer because being a "Porter" it is pretty bomb-proof.


(EDIT: On the first keg I did try a "sparkler" on the hand-pump, but it didn't create the expected head).

[PeeBee]

... I'm on the second Corny keg now and the remains of the first is being "force carbonated" at 7.5 - 10PSI to try the "high cask, low cask" technique (I need to get the second keg down to 0.75PSI for a while to get it's carbonation well down and stabilised - the "low cask").

Will post results here, but might be a week or two before everything stabilises. ...

A "week or two"? Maybe I should have written "week or six".

Starting with the "base" porter from the "low cask" (been at 0.75-1PSI, but still produces a wealth of head so this has sat around for 1/2 hour):

20180325_143218_WEB.jpg (68.62 KiB) Viewed 4755 times

Topped up from the "high cask". It's taken a minute or two to set up this piccie and the head is already collapsing.

20180325_143742_WEB.jpg (63.74 KiB) Viewed 4755 times

Five-six minutes later and the head has collapsed. The ring will hang about for about 1/2 hour or more.

20180325_144533_WEB.jpg (58.16 KiB) Viewed 4755 times

Certainly hasn't restored the fabulous head of a few weeks ago. Can always get the head back with a quick top up. But this "high cask, low cask" malarkey has been a lot of effort for little (no?) gain. So verdict on this trial...

(ahh, there isn't a "thumbs down" smiley) ... THUMBS DOWN.