Extract Brewing, Stout brew walk through.

[Vossy1]

For the first 36hrs the FV was going mental and the stout kept blowing out of the bubble valve but this morning all activity seems to have stopped....I have just put one of those belt heaters onto the FV to see if that perks things up but should it not still be bubbling along?

That sounds perfectly normal and unless your room temp is lower than 18 deg c I wouldn't bother with the heat mat. The most vigorous part of fermentation is probably over, now the yeast will slowly convert what simple sugars are left and will mop up any nasties they formed during the busiest period. Wait a couple of more days and take a gravity reading, 2 readings the same in 24 hours means the yeast have done their job, for now :thumb:

 

[mak]

Great walkthrough, thanks tubby!

After reading it, and consuming a bottle of wine last night, my credit card got me a boiler and some ingredients.

Then today I read the bit about sparging and thought oops, what is that all about!

Any chance of a little guide about how to do it? Is it just empty 2 kettles of water into the boiler and run the contents straight into the FV on top of everything else? (I've read the AG how to thread and the sparging bit sounds the most complicated, is it a basic version of this or the full thing? Risk of hot side airation, etc?)

One last thing, how long do you recommend leaving this in bottle / keg before tucking in?

 

[tubby_shaw]

Hi mak :)
I didn't really do a sparge iirc, you can give the bag of grains a rinse with some de chlorinated water at 70C if you feel the need but it's not really necessary :thumb:
After bottling it was left for a week in the warm to condition then 2 to 3 weeks to mature :thumb:
I hope this helps :)

 

[mak]

Thanks mate :)

Someone replied to your post asking how the quantity increased and I think you said you did a sparge of the hops?

It's all arrived now, so thanks, just need some time to get it done! :drink:

 

[buffoon]

hi tubby,i am going to make this recipe this wknd but me local brew shop only had 1.5kg of light spray malt(which i bought)so i also bought 1kg of dark spray malt will this make much difference to the brew?

 

[tubby_shaw]

hi tubby,i am going to make this recipe this wknd but me local brew shop only had 1.5kg of light spray malt(which i bought)so i also bought 1kg of dark spray malt will this make much difference to the brew?

It'll be fine :thumb:
It will be slightly different to the original but should still be a fantastic beer :thumb:

 

[buffoon]

cheers tubby,your pic of the full pint persuaded me to give this a go!

 

[pittsy]

yeah go for it , it was this post that started me off , i thought before hand that it would be well over my head but reading this made it seem like i could and once you have a go it is easy :thumb:

 

[buffoon]

hi tubby i was going to batch prime this at weekend how much sugar do you reccomend? mabye about 110g or more what do you think?

 

[cwiseman77]

hi tubby i was going to batch prime this at weekend how much sugar do you reccomend? mabye about 110g or more what do you think?

Depends how fizzy you like you're stout really. If you've done a 23l batch I would suggest 90g, but 110g would also be fine, quite lively for a stout but each to his own :thumb:

 

[buffoon]

i dont like it too fizzy so il use 90g thanks for the advice

 

[cwiseman77]

i dont like it too fizzy so il use 90g thanks for the advice

No problem :

 

[andyakameatloaf]

I know this is an old thread, but i found it really useful, and a nice bump can't hurt a great tutorial like this.

You used specialty grains, but is it possible to substitute this for dark DME? What's would be the difference?
Also, why use Light DME for a stout recipe? Was this simply because the specialty grains would colour it to the desired SRM anyway?

Apologies if these are obvious questions,
Cheers

 

[gl0ckage]

Im trying to buy some ingredients to try this, but im having trouble with something.

You use dried malt extract, and some choc malts? Well, whats the difference if i buy spray Dried malt extract and malt extract?

Ive just bought booze for free, and he says in the recipes section use Malt extract and then use spray dried malt or sugar.

Whats the difference? I was wanting to try this and one of his recipes with the same stuff to save money.

Ive been browsing the malt miller and i have no idea what im supposed to be buying.

Any help?

 

[pittsy]

Im trying to buy some ingredients to try this, but im having trouble with something.

You use dried malt extract, and some choc malts? Well, whats the difference if i buy spray Dried malt extract and malt extract?

Ive just bought booze for free, and he says in the recipes section use Malt extract and then use spray dried malt or sugar.

Whats the difference? I was wanting to try this and one of his recipes with the same stuff to save money.

Ive been browsing the malt miller and i have no idea what im supposed to be buying.

Any help?

Liquid malt extract (which is what he means when saying malt extract) is just simply the sugar from grains in liquid while dried or spray dried (same thing) is in powder , they are both as good , liquid if fresh is best but soon becomes no so fresh while dried is good and remains good . If in doubt just use dried malt extract (sprayed) :thumb:

 

[gl0ckage]

so if he says 500g malt extract i just use dried malt extract.

but when he says use 55g dried malt extract i should just add 555g total?

 

[alanywiseman.]

Liquid malt extract comes in 1.5kg tins or 25kg so most people use the tins as it does not hold its freshness that long like Pittsy said. He uses both so that he can get to the desired OG without having to open a fresh tin of extract that will oxidise over time and turn bad.

You will need to use less spray malt than liquid malt extract as the spray malt does not contain the water. I can not remeber the exact ratio but just use your hydrometer to hit your OG

 

[gl0ckage]

Is your boiler just a fermentation bucket with heating elements in? And a tap for drainage?

 

[jkp]

I know it's an old post, but it was so well written and the picture of the finished product just made me want to reply!

I was just wondering if it would be possible to add any of either Roast Barley, Flaked Barley or Flaked Oats to this, or do they need to be mashed?

Thanks

 

[tubby_shaw]

I know it's an old post, but it was so well written and the picture of the finished product just made me want to reply!

I was just wondering if it would be possible to add any of either Roast Barley, Flaked Barley or Flaked Oats to this, or do they need to be mashed?

Thanks

Use roast barley by all means instead of/as well as black malt :-) you can add some flaked grains if you like for flavour but as they won't be "mashed" they won't add much in the way of fermentables and could cause clarity issues, which isn't much of a problem in a stout :-)