Fat Lady Stout

[greenxpaddy]

Here's a plan for my first stout. As with all my recipes I like to add a littel variation to the norm, hence a bit of oats and choc malt. Is there a more favoured liquid yeast for stout than the wyeast?

FAT LADY STOUT

Date:

Gyle Number:

Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Pale Malt 5 EBC 11 lbs. 10.9 oz 5300 grams 70.7%
Flaked Barley 0 EBC 2 lbs. 13.8 oz 1300 grams 17.3%
Roasted Barley 1350 EBC 1 lbs. 5.1 oz 600 grams 8%
Chocolate Malt 1050 EBC 0 lbs. 5.3 oz 150 grams 2%
Flaked Oats 0 EBC 0 lbs. 5.3 oz 150 grams 2%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Golding Whole 5.7 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 2.6 oz 74 grams
Golding Whole 5.7 % 30 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams
Protafloc Pellet 0 % 10 mins 0 lbs. 0.0 oz 2/3 tablet
Soured stout
reboiled Whole 0 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 0.0 oz 1 pint into FV


Final Volume: 35 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 4.7% ABV
Total Liquor: 47.3 Litres
Mash Liquor: 18.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 85 %
Bitterness: 34.9552921738003 EBU
Colour: 241 EBC

Yeast: Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

[dave-o]

Can't really see the point in splitting the 90 and 30 min hops in a stout, but it's your brew! Looks good to me.

[WishboneBrewery]

Stout looks good, how did you sour your sour beer?

[greenxpaddy]

I was going to leave to oxidise with a loose cover. Or is the whole purpose to get some bacteria in it?

[greenxpaddy]

With all the will in the world you try to plan but i find the urge to brew at an available moment gives you stress.

Stress because you know you should really have started your starter yeast two days ago to avoid underpitching and ruining all your efforts

Tonight I have brewed my Fat Lady Stout but I had a 10% viable propagator pack which warrants at least a full 24 hrs in 2 L MINIMUM and its only had 7 hrs of rapid aeration. Even if I get the cell count i want from aggressive shaking the esters willl be mad in the starter wort and I would very much like to be able to settle it out. Rush rush rush

I sit here typing, resisting pitching with such a poor yeast starter, worried about the wort that will lie ready for infection for 14 hrs if I sleep on it.

Well - the call ls to go to bed now so I will have to take a minor risk and pitch tomorrow - I think it is the right call overall

[weiht]

Decant the wort in the starter n pitch just the yeast.

[greenxpaddy]

Morning.

I can choose to

A. Leave the boiled wort covered all day at 20C and pitch tonight

B. Pitch tonight when the 2L starter will be fully developed but still not ideally sufficient for an 8 gallon batch

C. Mix the yeast with a slurry from a Wyeast 1028 batch earlier in the week.

I am leaning towards C because I feel the beer would be better from the well pitched mixed yeast rather than an under pitched level, either A or B

Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

[beernsurfing]

If the 1028 is only a week old, use that and split the 1084 for use later on.

[greenxpaddy]

Yep - I think that was the right decision also! I took a streak of the 1084 before starting the starter anyhow. Well here's the actual brew figures as performed

FAT LADY STOUT
Date:
Gyle Number:
Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Pale Malt 5 EBC 11 lbs. 10.9 oz 5300 grams 70.7%
Flaked Barley 0 EBC 2 lbs. 13.8 oz 1300 grams 17.3%
Roasted Barley 1350 EBC 1 lbs. 5.1 oz 600 grams 8%
Chocolate Malt 1050 EBC 0 lbs. 5.3 oz 150 grams 2%
Flaked Oats 0 EBC 0 lbs. 5.3 oz 150 grams 2%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Golding Whole 5.7 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 2.6 oz 74 grams 78.7%
Golding Whole 5.7 % 30 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 21.3%
Protafloc Pellet 0 % 10 mins 0 lbs. 0.0 oz 0 grams 0%
Soured stout 0 % In FV 0 lbs. 0.0 oz 1L 0%

Water treatment of 48L plus 2/3rds Campden tablet.

Salt 8.2g
Gypsum 2.5g
CaCl 27g
Epsom 4g
Chalk 3.5g


Final Volume: 36.5 (+ 1L FV addition) Litres
Original Gravity: 1.049
Final Gravity: 1.015
Alcohol Content: 4.4% ABV
Total Liquor: 47.9 Litres
Mash Liquor: 18.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 83 %
Bitterness: 34.5255497219356 EBU
Colour: 226 EBC


Liquor in MT after warming = 75C
Mash temp 66.5C
Sparge water 81C (for my set up I go higher as lose quite a bit of heat through sparge colander)

42L wort. 1041 @29C = 1044 preboil

OG = 1047 @22.5C = 1049
Pitched with a rushed 2L starter of Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale. 15 hrs well aerated. Probably equivalent to 38 billion cells.

Plus 100ml yeast slurry 6 days old from Wyeast 1028. equivalent to 300 billion cells

So its 9 to 1 London Ale to Irish Ale. I'll never recreate this one exactly

[greenxpaddy]

I had a taste last night. The bottles have only been conditioning for 6 days....I couldn't wait! Well I thought the primary sat for 2 weeks after FG while I went on holiday so its had a bit of conditioning aint it!

Carbonation - very very weak. Flat as a pancake. I am wondering if it sat too long and all the yeast had flocculated. Or maybe its still only part way through the priming sugar. We'll see.

Very very good flavour. Strong coffee notes. A real sour edge - me thinks from the combination of addition of 1L of soured guinness. In the end I left the 1L of guinness without cover in the garage for 3 days. Should be some sourness from that I would have thought !!! Plus the oats give it a bit more bitterness.

If I can get a head on this its going to be a smasher.

The priming was 130g of black treacle and 40g golden caster sugar. Seemed right for 2 vol co2 for the 36L. Maybe black treacle is not that readily fermentable.

PS Just seen that black treacle could be as low as 50% sugars. That means based upon equiv priming of 150g white sugar, I needed probably 220g black treacle. That will explain it. Anyhow I 'd rather have a flat stout than a fizzy one

[greenxpaddy]

This brew seemed to be a hit so I'm going to see if I can recreate it exactly.

I'm stepping up the volume to 26 USgallons or 100L.

All the quantities will be factored up. The main thing to get right in the recreation is the yeast. I am going to recreate the dual yeast pitch. Having reassessed the yeast quantities on the original pitch I am reckoning the 15 hr starter didn't get anywhere near 38bn cells from a start of 2.5bn cells even with almost contuous aeration in the first 7 hrs in 2L. The best I think I could have reached is 25bn perhaps. This means the pitching rates were more like 12 to 1 to the bias of Wy1028 over Wy1084.

It doesn't seem like such a small 1084 element could possibly make much odds. But the brew was really very good so I am going to do exactly the same again. In trying to devise the yeast starter arrangement I have two activator packs which I want to slant off for storage. They are 80% viable so thats 80bn cells in each.

I need total 875bn cells for that batch size according to Mr Malty. I will not start the Wy1084 and pitch directly. Leaving nearly 800 bn cells required of Wy1028. this will be 10-1 ratio near enough. I'll just about get that from a striplate pitch of 80bn. I am going to need quite a large starter though. If I estimate I can reach Gregorach's 200m/ml final density I need a starter of size 4litres. If I am more conservative and think I may reach only 100m/ml I will need 8L. I am happy to go somewhere in between and run one 2Lconical at 1.5L and my large 5L beaker at 4L (in Total 5.5L). The yeast is after all pretty healthy straight from the lab. This will require 500g DME.

It has occurred to me that the large starters I am now doing may need water treatment, as my Calcium level is very low and yeast need Calcium to divide and multiply. I will definitely use yeast vit in the starters.

Priming for 100L will be 360g Black Treacle and 110g golden caster sugar

[dave-o]

Yeah, black treacle is not very fermentable compared to most sugar adjuncts. About 60% IIRC.

[greenxpaddy]

I noticed that I had not specified when to add the soured stout to the FV .... After 48 hours when the yeast have already taken a good hold.

[greenxpaddy]

Have just finished this rebrew, the new 25m immersion chiller worked a dream. Cooled 100 litres to 20 degrees c in only 45 mins. Helped by chilly temps outside.

I checked my mash ph after dough in 5.0 and after 90 mins , 5.6

I'd be interested to know if the rise is due to the chalk gradually dissolving into the mash. It's not very soluble is it...

Still seems an acceptable range.

The new wort pump was also excellent. Shifted the wort up 3metres without a problem.

[greenxpaddy]

Pitched at 16.5C. Raised to 20C.

Held at 20C for 3 days.

Allowed to drop slowly to 18C for rest of fermentation.

At 4.5 days kreusen already dropped, gravity at 1.019. Added 3L of 3 day soured/reboiled/cooled 'Original Guinness'.