Hi Everyone
Last year I went to the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia (Going for 2 day this year :D) and I drank some really good stouts. When drinking 1 or 2 of them you kind of went. Oh Biscuit and Toffee, No its liquorice, Now I'm getting chocolate, no wait a minute Its coffee, is that raisins. They were Fantastic. I was inspired to make my own Stout. So I have made a good Oatmeal Stout (Or so I've been told) but it doesn't have the amazing complexity that some of the stouts had in London. So my question is, What is the secret to multiple layer complexity in a stout.
My stout is made up from
Maris Otter Pale Malt (72.7%)
Medium Crystal (7.1%)
Bavarian Rosewood Crystal (1.8%)
Chocolate Malt (5.5%)
Roasted Barley (4%)
Flaked Oats (Aldi Organic) (8.9%)
Hops East Kent Golding and Yeast Mangrove Jack Liberty Bell M36
Sounds good, not sure what the rosewood is though. Try using wlp002 yeast. It can bring out the chocolate flavour.
If you like Fullers London porter then swap out the hops for fuggles only.
Also stouts and porters come alive on cask - you would think that it would be easy to get cask stout/porter but no. Even in London, with lots of fullers houses, good luck getting london porter on cask.
Secondly consider your complex malts carefully - you use mostly crystal and chocolate malt, consider the impact of brown malt in particular, but also black and amber malt.
Thanks guys
To be honest the Rosewood was a substitute for Crystal 100, I will try swapping the EKG's to Fuggles but changing to a liquid yeast I'm not sure of. I have used it a couple of times and had poor results, I think having it sent through the post might be the reason, it takes so long the cool pack isn't cool anymore and I end up with poor fermentation. I was thinking of adding a touch of Crisp Black malt (EBC 1100-1300) but I don't know how much yet, I was also thinking of lengthening the boil time (It's 60 mins at the moment) What do you think.
Brown and Amber are great malts to use for this style.
If I were to use Brown or Amber malts in Stout Mk2 at what percentage would you advise using them in, could you use both together. and do you think I should drop anything from the recipe in order to put the new malts in.
A good simple rule of thumb for a stout is 70:20:10
70% base 20% flaked and 10% roasted.
You can play with these amounts depending on the stout style you are looking for. I like to split my roast with pale chocolate and brown. Wouldn't use much crystal in my stouts as i like them nice and dry.
I am finding better character without the crystal too, but I wouldn't rule it out.
I made a great export porter (English) with 12:4:1:1 pale:brown:amber:black
Yes 1/3 of the malt actually roasted. That recipe is quite far from an Irish stout, but you can see what these malts actually do
https://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/all-grain-brewing/oatmeal-stout-18572/
If you recall this discussion I had brewed a lovely stout that turned out to be a porter. It was delicious.
Yes I do recall the discussion about your Lovely Stout and I am delighted it was delicious, but that doesn't mean I want to make your stout. One of the main reasons for me all grain brewing is to perfect my own recipes otherwise I might as well buy All Grain kits or just buy beer from Tesco. And the reason for me being part of this forum is to be able to acquire knowledge from those more experienced and hopefully not condescending.
? ???
(https://i.imgur.com/kdE8vR5.jpg)
Quote from: Tiger Ed on July 14, 2019, 05:57:01 PM
And the reason for me being part of this forum is to be able to acquire knowledge from those more experienced and hopefully not condescending.
You didn't receive any condescending advice here. Just a link to another post that contains further perspectives. Malt selection for dark beer recipes is by no means a finished area of research.
If you wish to perfect a home recipe for anything in the stout/porter/dark ale family of beers you have a lot more research ahead of you.
Quote from: Tiger Ed on July 14, 2019, 05:57:01 PM
Yes I do recall the discussion about your Lovely Stout and I am delighted it was delicious, but that doesn't mean I want to make your stout. One of the main reasons for me all grain brewing is to perfect my own recipes otherwise I might as well buy All Grain kits or just buy beer from Tesco. And the reason for me being part of this forum is to be able to acquire knowledge from those more experienced and hopefully not condescending.
What the? :o
Quote from: Tiger Ed on July 14, 2019, 05:57:01 PM
Yes I do recall the discussion about your Lovely Stout and I am delighted it was delicious, but that doesn't mean I want to make your stout. One of the main reasons for me all grain brewing is to perfect my own recipes otherwise I might as well buy All Grain kits or just buy beer from Tesco. And the reason for me being part of this forum is to be able to acquire knowledge from those more experienced and hopefully not condescending.
You can still look at other peoples recipes and see what they're doing. See what they say about it and then apply them to your own. Most people don't just brew a recipe off the top of their heads. I certainly don't, I love making my own recipes but I look at others for inspiration. I want to see over all how much roast they've used, was it chocolate or roast barley, how dark was it, what maltster, how much oats do most people use, any crystal, etc