A Seasonal Stout - 08Nov08 (photos and links)

[fivetide]

Assuming I can half-inch a few kilos of pale malt ahead of tomorrow, I'm planning a nice relaxed brewday on Saturday with my new mashtun. Because I haven't sorted out the sparge manifold to my satisfaction just yet, I'm going to revert to batch sparging for this one - there's plenty of headroom in the thermobox after all! The plan is to make a dry Irish stout, not a million miles away from Guinness in terms of overall bitterness, but with the added joy of using my own grown WGV hops in the copper. I'm also adding a small amount of wheat malt for head and feel. The only unknown quantity is the yeast. I've ordered liquid yeast especially for this brew, and Patsy at H&G said she'd try and get it to me in time, but I'm reliant on the postal service and hindered by my late order and her huge workload at present.

Anyway, here's the full recipe:


Boxshed Seasonal Stout

Brew Type: All Grain
Date: 08/11/2008
Style: Dry Stout (Irish)
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Volume: 32.00 L
Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %

Ingredients
3.75 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) 68.2%
0.8 kg Flaked Barley (3.3 EBC) 14.5%
0.75Kg Roasted Barley (591 EBC) 13.6%
0.2Kg Wheat Malt (3.9 EBC) 3.6%

65.00 gm Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [5% est.] (60 min) Hops 36.7 IBU

Whirlfloc Tablet (15 min)
1 Pkgs Irish Ale yeast (White Labs WLP004) or substitute Nottingham

Batch Sparge
Mash Grain Weight: 5.25kg Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Grain Temperature: 13.0 C
Mash In Add 13L of water at 69.3C (63C) 90 min
Step Add 11L of water at 67.7 (65C) 10 min
Step Add 17.5L of water at 80C (75C) 10 min

Beer Profile
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.014
Estimated Color: 62.6 EBC
Bitterness: 36.7 IBU
Alpha Acid Units: 1.9 AAU
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 4.8%

Carbonation and Storage
Carbonation Type: Kegged (Forced CO2)
Kegging Temperature: 13.0 C
Age for: 4.0 Weeks
Storage Temperature: 11.0 C


I'll track the brewday on my website then update on here if all goes well! Now where's that yeast? :hmm:

 

[BrewStew]

i've got some bad news mate

liquid yeast needs more than a day to multiply enough to be pitched otherwise you're gunna have a severe lag time

there's a thread here on liquid yeasts clicky

 

[fivetide]

Hmmm, I take your point, but I have pitched directly before and it has fermented out in time.

It's just arrived though this second! So I think I will make an overnight starter and go with that. Should be okay I hope? :pray:


EDIT : Actually it's well within date, so I think I'll just risk it and pitch it as is and ferment at 70 degrees for a couple of days to get it going. Fingers crossed.

 

[BrewStew]

ah okeydoke

have a goodun' tomorrow :thumb:

 

[fivetide]

I know i should grow it over several days really BS, but I have a window of opportunity tomorrow i need to grab and so I'll hope this once the yeast will do what it says on the vial... :|

On the plus side, I'm definitely in business tomorrow!

Nice yeast for a dry stout (shame I don't have time to make that big starter, but hell, it might work)

The posh organic version of crushed pale malt from my local malster, via my friend's excellent brewery stock

 

[fivetide]

Boiled up some spraymalt and went with an overnight starter in any case:

 

[Vossy1]

Have a good'un tomorrow ft :thumb:

 

[Kingfisher]

Hope it all goes to plan, will watch the web site :thumb:

 

[Wez]

Good luck with the brew :thumb:

 

[fivetide]

Cheers all. I've cleaned and prepped most things, but I'm off to the local now, so who knows how I'll feel in the morning.

Have good evenings everyone - brewing or otherwise! :

 

[fivetide]

A good day with little incident. Pictures and details later, but 23L at 1.048 in the fermenter! :

 

[A T]

Looking forward to the piccies :thumb:

 

[fivetide]

The brewday went really well. Of course what with everything going to plan and all, it wasn't particularly exciting.

I also really missed adding aroma hops - it's one of my favourite steps I think. Still, the brew looks great and its airlock is bubbling away very nicely, so I have high hopes for that liquid yeast and may harvest it for a future brew.

On my website you can see plenty of photos and descriptions of the day. I mashed-in at around 11am in the end, and pitched around 4pm, managing to fit the process around various chores...

The new mashtun was superb and made me even more keen to replace my boiler with something equally cool looking and move my current boiler to be the HLT. One day, maybe.

In the end I got 23L exactly in the fermenter with no need to add any further liquor, but I missed the 1.050 OG and got 1.048 instead. I’m putting this down to not compensating for the switch to batch sparging, which seems reasonable.

It looked like a gigantic pint of Guinness. I hope it turns out okay!

 

[BrewStew]

great stuff FT :thumb:

 

[Wez]

That looks great FT

 

[A T]

Nice

 

[Kingfisher]

Looks like a good result I like the website as well :thumb:

 

[fivetide]

Thanks for the replies - it's funny how each brew still feels like a shiny new toy, isn't it?

I'm very pleased with the liquid yeast, which went off like a rocket after just a couple of hours in a nice warm room. This morning, about 20hrs into fermentation the airlock is bubbling continuously. Smells very much like stout too, which is comforting. Rah!

 

[BrewStew]

glad to see the yeasties doin' it for themselves :thumb:

 

[fivetide]

Measured today at 1.016 from 1.048 after 48hrs and still burping like a good 'un. Nice.