Your favourite stout recipe?

[marshbrewer]

There is an experiment on last week's basic brewing podcast, where they did a malt sampler - 3 beers that were just base malt plus either black patent, black prince or midnight wheat. What was interesting was how complex they found the flavour, and commented that they had always put lots of different malts in their stouts / porters and perhaps they didn't need too. Certainly, some of the historic recipes back this up, sometimes they are just base + black + invert sugar. What I'm trying to say is don't necessarily ignore the simple recipes.

 

[foxy]

This stout is my favourite, and I have made a few of Gordon Strong's stout recipes. The chocolate and coffee flavours really do come through, but the recipe mash steps must be followed.
https://byo.com/article/irish-extra-stout/

 

[Oneflewover]

I made this the other week. It's a simple recipe, but I'm really happy with it - it's roasty, chocolate and lovely.

23l
OG 1.052, FG 1.012 = 5,.2%ABV
40IBU
3500g pale
500g brown
500g dark crystal
500g flaked barley
280g roasted barley
200 chocolate
Mashed at 67*C for 1hr
60min boil, 47g challenger start of boil
Fermented at 20*C with liberty bell

 

[Clint]

This Josh Weikert recipe isn't actually a stout @Clint but rather a Porter. Nevertheless it's a tasty alternative to the GH Brown Porter and in the same neck of the woods as what you're looking for.

I've made both and/or hybrids of the two a couple of times and both are very good. As a general point for dark beers I can thoroughly recommend dabbling with Chocolate Rye Malt.

I also recommend checking out JW's "Make Your Best..." series for more inspiration for different kinds of stout - I haven't tried it yet, and I know it breaks your 5% ABV rule but his Tropical Stout recipe has really caught my eye!

The JW link is very interesting! Thanks!