Black Dog Stout - 060909

[adm]

Today I have mostly been brewing stout. And smoking ribs.

I messed around a bit with my Black Dog recipe a bit to take into account stuff that was left over. Finished up my sack of pale, plus some hops. All went nicely.....and we've just finished eating the ribs. It was also my quickest brewday ever - 4 hours from mash to pitch.

Black Dog Stout

3.854Kg Pearl Pale Malt (last of the sack)
1Kg Flaked Barley
0.5Kg Carafa Special III
0.25Kg Roasted Barley
0.1Kg Chocolate Malt
(This grain bill is somewhere between a Guinness clone and Four Shades)

36g Green Bullet, 13.6 AA%, 90 mins for 50 IBU

Water treatment to the stout setting on Graham's Water Calc, but minus the NaCl addition.

Here's the pr0n0 filth:


Grist.....pale, carafa, roasted and choco. Plus a bag of flaked that's out of shot


Mashing in


Temperature a tad low.....was aiming for 67C, but I didn't preheat my mash tun as I was in a rush.


pH is a bit difficult to see as the black mash stained the strip. It looked to be around 5 at 5 minutes in. I should probably clean the window any day now as well.....


First runnings after 90 minutes


Happy Hops having a paddle around


Getting up to the boil


Ooooh baby....you look so hot!


Running off into the FV


And the money shot.....this ended up as 24L at about 1049. The wort tasted fantastic. Complex, dark and smooooooooooth.... I think this is going to be a good 'un!


Chocolate mousse. Yum.


And finally, here's the ribs. They were good.

[DarloDave]

Sounds (and looks) great adm! and 4 hours is pretty impressive timing!

[kfm]

Great photos as usual adm and I just saw your post on mysterio's brown ale thread about the intrico disconnects - thanks for the tip, got a couple of possibilities to look into now

[adm]

Meandering on the hard shoulder of the information superhighway this morning and I came across an image that I had to steal and turn into the bottle labels for this one. Except i won't be bottling it, so maybe it'll be a pump clip or something instead....

[mysterio]

I love it!

It would make a good halloween beer

[oblivious]

Fantastic

[adm]

I had a few crafty pints of this last night and it's really coming along well.

I've got it connected to 70/30 mixed gas and for some reason, I always find this takes longer to carbonate (nitrogenate?) than normal. It's been about 8 days or so now, but it still doesn't yet have that Guinessy "cascade" effect on the pour yet.....seems to take at least 2 weeks to get there.

On the plus side, it's a beautifully smooth pint! The Carafa does a fantastic job. There's almost the perfect amount of roastiness along with a hint of chocolate. The Green bullet hops have worked well too - a nice firm bitterness without being overly "hoppy"

All in all I think this is going to be a cracking Stout. In a word: "Smoooooooth"

[WishboneBrewery]

Its nice how Stout seems to come good even before its officially ready
re-readiing your recipe it does sound good, I have some Carafa special 3 waiting for a purpose (which might be 4Shades).

[adm]

Its nice how Stout seems to come good even before its officially ready
re-readiing your recipe it does sound good, I have some Carafa special 3 waiting for a purpose (which might be 4Shades).

I've had to put it away now...(or at least take the beer out disconnect off) as I had a couple more pints tonight. If I keep this up, it'll all be gone before it's ready.

Oh well.....I put the Dog Days Pale on instead and that's really come into it's own now - a lovely drop.

Off to get another one...

[WishboneBrewery]

a forum full of people with lack of self control!

[chris_reboot]

adm: where are you getting those ph strips from in your pics please?

[WishboneBrewery]

Yeah, he has funky blue ones whereas i have to put up with boring orange ones!!!

[adm]

adm: where are you getting those ph strips from in your pics please?

Hop & Grape

[chris_reboot]

thanks.
may pop in tomorrow then if I have time.

[Bobba]

Hey adm, just wondering how this stout turned out afterwards? Any recommended adjustments?

I've ordered your grain bill as it looked quite delicious and make it as my first AG. Going to swap out the hops for some challenger and fuggles to use them up, should work well I think.

Got a choice of yeasts for this also, so perhaps you could give us some pointers on this.
Got some dried nottingham, s04, or for something a bit more experimental I could try WLP023 (Fullers yeast from 1845 bottle) but might produce something way too sweet, or WLP023 (Brakspear oxford gold) which might just be wasted here?

Cheers