Toucan Wheat Stout (post Apocalyptic brew)

[Impaler]

Before I start, I know this won't be my finest beer and yes, I am cheap, but also adventurous and feel like experimenting.

The one roams post Apocalyptic wastelands, finds vault of abundance of expired goods..

Expired kit of Wheat (Black Rock Whispering Wheat)
Expired kit of Stout (Young's Harvest Stout)
Expired wheat DME 2kg
Expired Brew enhancer 2kg

Also some expired specialty grain (roasted barley, Viking chocolate)
Bag of perle hops.

Just happen to be there's FV with Nottingham yeast cake...


All thoughts are appreciated

[LordEoin]

Post apocalypse I'll be making cider, mead and hedgerow wines. not sure how plentiful brewkits will be! 

Pity you don't have some cascade or other aroma hops.
otherwise I'd probably do two separate brews.

what are your concerns?

[Impaler]

Well main concern is for this to be drinkable.

I don't see much info on Internet about wheat stout toucan, but theres good few commercial wheat stout ales, never tasted one. So I wonder what would be like to mix it.  I know stouts are pretty good for masking offlavours of old ingredients too.
One would probably need to ferment this with wheat yeast.

Theres some  Cascade, Centennial, Bravo, Galena, Fuggle, EKG hops in a vault too

[Dracusse]

Following   i think i scavenged same vault have few outdated kits as well been thinking to mix them up and make whatever it will make

Mixed up 3 ipa kits last week. fermented it on previous batch of ag. Ipa yeast cake which was dry hopped with citra ... Fermented out in 48h ... In a keg already and surprisingly it is a nice beer

[LordEoin]

wheat beer kits are pretty bland creatures unless they come with sometrhing like wb06 or similar.
I think the wheat + stout would be good with a small bit of roast barley steepedand boiled for a few minutes. i like a cascade dryhop in stout kits. Totally out of style but tasty.

if your notty trub is clean and still under beer you could wash it or even pitch your wort directly on top if you coordinate emptying and filling to happen at the same time.
but if you have a sachet of US05 I'd go with that.

i wouldn't bother with the DME as it'll be strong enough.
Donate the enhancer to a good cause (like the bin)

[Impaler]

Thanks LordEoin for suggestions.

I wonder how much roast barley would one use for Toucan, normally 5/10 % of grist but in this case 50g?
How much Cascade for dry hopping, 2g per liter or thats rule of thumb for IPA's?

Last Friday I brewed Nut Brown Ale from Coopers Old Ale with US-05 (apparently post apocalyptic vaults had no Notty),
so Toucan White/Stout will go on top of that yeast cake, maybe next week sometime, after NBA is bottled. Usually I batch prime in primary,
is it better to wash yeast cake or that will make no difference?

I was wondering if fermenting Toucan  + Wheat DME with Saison or some Belgian Strong Ale or WB06 yeast would be bad idea? Why?

Also if one would accidentally leaves say half of FV outside to freeze... how to carbonate bottles after concentrated ale is collected (I understand yeast is probably dead)

[Impaler]

Had no time to brew this. As brown still needs to be bottled and yeast rinsed.
After listening to "Brew strong" podcast on washing yeast decided to rinse my US-5 from previous batch.

Still have this idea to experiment.
So it seems I'll be doing Toucan Stout/Wheat + steeped roast barley.
Then will split the batch in two:
 FV1 will be fermenting with US-5 (dry hopped)
FV2 add more (1kg or 1.5kg) wheat malt and ferment with Danstar Munich yeast.

I only have one temperature controller so need to figure how to use it on two fermenters.

[Jonnycheech]

The expired specialty grain - how old is this and is it whole or crushed? Has it been stored dry and air tight? If it's very old, crushed and exposed i would leave it out. The off flavours from grain like that would outweigh any benefits in the flavour IMHO.

Two fermentations at the same time and only one heat source? Sounds like you need another belt or fashion some sort of fermentation chamber out of an old closet, fridge or wood lying about. Maybe a bit of skip diving for materials to go with the post apocalyptic theme.

[Impaler]

Good point. I think it finally clicked.

I suppose loose analogy of home brewing beer to making soup would be handy here:
All grain brewing - soup from scratch whole chicken/beef, fresh veggies etc.,
Extract brewing - stock cubes with fresh veggies,
Kit brewing - instant noodles.
Would I eat expired instant noodles - sure. Would I cook soup from rotten chicken/veggies - I guess not, unless it's famine or post apocalypse hehehe no maybe not.

So yeah I will buy fresh specialty malt.

And even though I like the idea of skip diving I was thinking to use one STC for both fermenters, at the moment I use old heating blanket instead of heating belt. I wrap both FV in one blanket, connect sensor to one of them and if the volume of fermenters is the same and ambient temperature the same, fermentation temperature should be roughly the same - maybe. Now if one is higher gravity beer maybe this whole plan not going to work all together.

[LordEoin]

even instant noodles can be awesome if you treat them right  :laugh:

[Impaler]

Exactly my point LordEoin.

Just as I though I was out of this vault...

[Impaler]

I will be brewing this over the weekend:

1 x Expired kit of Wheat (Black Rock Whispering Wheat)
1 x Expired kit of Stout (Young's Harvest Stout)
350g Roast Barley (steeped for 30min)

fermented with rinsed US-5 at 19C

have no Cascade Hops left so probably dry hop with Centennial

[Impaler]

Unfortunately batch got infected (strong rotten egg smell) left it sit in a fermenter for another few weeks thinking it might improve, it didnt -  had to throw it out.
Ended up not using rinsed US-5 too as it looked dodgy, I probably didn't collect enough and most of it was brown greyish trub and not much of a while yeast slurry. Its a learning process..
I suppose I have to review my sanitation routine too.

[Jonnycheech]

Was there any visual signs of infection? Pellicle formation?

If it was just a sulphur smell it might have been that the yeast was over stressed. Could of cleared up with time, bit could take months

[Impaler]

No there was no visual sign of infection only strong smell.
I tasted after initial fermentation stopped it wasn't that bad apart from smell. Then tasted few weeks later it was little bit better but still barely drinkable.
Also on top of that had stuck fermentation probably due to expired LME.