My husband asked me to brew him a stout for his birthday. Since I’m not a big stout drinker, we picked up a kit from our local brew shop (Woodland Hills Home Beer Wine and Cheese Making Shop).
I brewed in early December. Fermented in primary for one week and secondary for 10 days. I use a small wine fridge to control the fermentation temp which has a max temp of 60, so it extended the process a little. We bottled her on Christmas Eve and had our first taste on January 9th. Eric loved it. I wasn’t so keen on it, but tried it again last night and the extra week in bottle really evened it out.
For those who are interested:
Big Henry’s Irish Stout (Guinness In The Can) — Woodland Hills HBWC Shop
Dry Stout in a 5 gallon batch
GRAINS
Roast Barley — 12 ounces
Scots Chocolate — 4 ounces
German Cara Wheat — 4 ounces
Gambrinius ESB — 4 ounces
Mash grains for 45 min @ 160 degrees
EXTRACTS
Corn Sugar — 8 ounces
Alex. Dark Syrup — 6 pounds (or 4 lbs DME)
HOPPING SCHEDULE (all pellet hops)
Styrian Goldings — 1 ounce (60 min); 4.0% AA; 17.1 IBUs
Northdown — 0.50 ounces (60 min); 8.0% AA; 17.1 IBUs*
Styrian Goldings — 0.50 ounces (20 min); 4.0% AA; 2.9 IBUs*
*I’m not sure if the IBUs are correct here…I’m just copying their recipe sheet
YEAST: Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale
Primary: 2 – 4 days at 68-72 degrees
Secondary: 4 – 8 days at same temp
OG 1.043-45
FG 1.010-12
Use 3/4 cup brewers sugar for priming before bottling. Bottle condition for 2 weeks at room temp.
As the husband and stout drinker in question, I can testify that this birthday stout turned out terrific. Thanks, Ali and thanks to the brew shop.
Ali, please blog about your cookie beer. You may not want to put the recipe for that one up on the site, as I expect it to one day be a trade secret.
Love the blog, keep the posts coming!
I’m glad this turned out for you!
That fermenting temp of 60 degrees probably slowed things down a little bit. I’d be curious to know how much it aided in creating the flavors.
I’ve never added corn sugar as an adjunct for my brews, not that I’ve done a ton of them. How did that work out for you? Is it any different than using a malt extract?
I would like to hear more about this cookie beer though.
Whatcha going to brew next?
Mike
Mike’s Brew Review
I’m still such a novice brewer that I’m not sure how much the temp variations effect the flavors. The corn sugar was mixed in with the malt extract, so I added it at the same time so I think they must be fairly similar.
I’ll post about the cookie beer soon. Hopefully I’ll figure out how to get pictures onto this blog so I can uploads pictures of my babies 🙂
Tomorrow I’m brewing my first lager. It’s modeled after Plzenske Pivo, but I’m adding roasted organic beets into the mix. I’m hoping it will bump up the ABV and I’m also hoping the color will be a bright red.