National Homebrew Club Ireland

Hey folks,

Need some help with a recipe. I've got some grain and hop that need to be used up so I decided to try to make a hoppy Stout, some where between and dry Irish stout and an American Stout. I want it to have hints of chocolate and coffee, so I've come up with this concoction. Does it look right? Is there anything I should take out/add in?

This is for a 5 gallon batch (I only get about 58% efficiency with the 2 row I've got and had 25kgs of it use)

12lbs  2 row
0.75lbs Roasted barley
0.5lbs Chocolate Malt
0.5lbs Coffee Malt
1.5lbs caramel 150L
1lbs Oats

Mash with 4.5 gallon at 65 (batch sparge with another 4.5 @ 70)

Hops
0.5oz warrior - 60 mins
0.25oz Amarillo - 15 mins
0.25oz Simcoe - 15 mins
0.25oz Amarillo - 5 mins
0.25oz Simcoe - 5 mins
1 oz Amarillo - 0 mins
0.5oz Simcoe - 0 mins

I'm gonna use S-04 as the yeast


Like I said, trying to get rid of some crap before I do my next homebrew shop!

Other grain I've got knocking about that may be used is Vienna, Munich, caramel 30L/80L and some wheat. Other hops I've got include Centinnial, Cascade, Challenger, EKG, Chinnock and an oz or 2 of Nelson sauvin.

I'm open to suggestion!





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Coffee malt ? Where did you pick that up?

58%, something going wrong there, if these are older ingredients you may have to seriously up your hops to get the flavour you want.
Would you consider a partigyle approach by upping your grain bill and soaking your dark grains separately good way to use some of those other hops, double brew mind!

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/10/07/parti-gyle-brewing-two-beers-from-one-mash/

Quote from: nigel_c on July 03, 2016, 11:54:48 PM
Coffee malt ? Where did you pick that up?

It's chateau café, Belgian coffee malt, got it from get er brewed. Haven't even opened it to smell it yet. Bought it on a whim and haven't had a chance to experiment with it.

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Quote from: CH on July 04, 2016, 05:22:14 AM
58%, something going wrong there, if these are older ingredients you may have to seriously up your hops to get the flavour you want.
Would you consider a partigyle approach by upping your grain bill and soaking your dark grains separately good way to use some of those other hops, double brew mind!

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/10/07/parti-gyle-brewing-two-beers-from-one-mash/

That looks like and interesting option. Yeah the grain is old, and I didn't know you had to increase the hops to get flavour on old grain (that might just have solved the mystery of my last brew). Is that only the flavour hops, or does that include the bittering?

However, having said that there's no way in hell the other half would consent to a double brew day she already curses the day she bought me a mash tun and kettle!

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Just start early or it brew late, Shanna is the expert on that latter one.
2 Years out of grain otherwise in the bin ditto with frozen sealed hops, you just end out making shite beer otherwise

I get a nice coffee and dark chocolate flavour from about 500g of roasted barley, ground to dust in a coffee grinder.

The rest looks nice and tasty, though I don't know how intense roast and sweet malt flavours are going to work coupled with the fruity hops you picked out. It could get a bit muddy in flavour.

Quote from: CH on July 04, 2016, 07:10:42 AM
Just start early or it brew late, Shanna is the expert on that latter one.
2 Years out of grain otherwise in the bin ditto with frozen sealed hops, you just end out making shite beer otherwise

Cheer bud, I think this grain is reaching the two year mark now. The hops are still fresh enough though. I'll just pack more in!

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Quote from: molc on July 04, 2016, 08:20:56 AM
I get a nice coffee and dark chocolate flavour from about 500g of roasted barley, ground to dust in a coffee grinder.

The rest looks nice and tasty, though I don't know how intense roast and sweet malt flavours are going to work coupled with the fruity hops you picked out. It could get a bit muddy in flavour.

That sounds promising! Do you think I should just scale back the caramel malts, or leave them out entirely?

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Quote from: mr_pinball on July 04, 2016, 11:12:54 AM

Quote from: molc on July 04, 2016, 08:20:56 AM
I get a nice coffee and dark chocolate flavour from about 500g of roasted barley, ground to dust in a coffee grinder.

The rest looks nice and tasty, though I don't know how intense roast and sweet malt flavours are going to work coupled with the fruity hops you picked out. It could get a bit muddy in flavour.

That sounds promising! Do you think I should just scale back the caramel malts, or leave them out entirely?

The crystal is quite dark, so you should get more of a raisin type flavour going on. Maybe some CTZ or another type of resiny/piney hop to push the bitterness a bit? That said, you'll get a lot of bitterness from from chocolate and dark malts.

The recipe as it stands could be amazing when it's all brewed :) Also I've only ever brewed english style stouts, so take my points with a large grain of salt!

Cheers man, I might switch the 120L to an 80L just to give some sweet to balance out the bitter without it tasting like Christmas cake!

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So I eventually got round to brewing this at the weekend there (my partner gave birth 2 weeks after the original post, so all hobbies were on hold for a while). I changed it up slightly, removed the coffee malt and dialled down the caramel to 30l and only added 750g. I also half and halved the 2 row with Maris Otter and added 1kg of Munich. Also I used some Centinnial in the hop schedule.

Funny story, during the boil both sockets blew in my shed, had to borrow an extension lead from my da's house and run the power from the house.  All in all it took 30mins to get the wort back to a rolling boil and I still hand 30 mins left of the boil
God knows how this will turn out. But hey at least I've got a name, 'Short-circuit Stout'

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Congrats on the new arrival.
Sockets blew or just tripped rcd?
Great name for a beer

Cheers bud! To be honest I'm not too sure, haven't had a chance to look at it yet. The socket on the extension lead had the plastic bit on one of the pins melted, but the MCB hadn't been tripped, so I might just change the fuses and see what happens.

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If the pins are melting it's a sign you're overloading the circuit, either that or the connection is loose/worn between the plug and socket, when you plug it in (unplugging the circuit while under full load can cause this, switch off the circuit by using the switch on the socket will prevent this happening). You may need to replace the socket into which the plug with the melted pin was plugged in, as well as the plug top.  Also check how much load was plugged in at the time. You may have been overloading it for a while and it eventually gave up. Either way she won't be happy with your brewing hobby if you burn the shed down, but it might make a good video for the next Smithwicks ad ☻

I remember the plug being warm and the washing machine and tumble dryer were all running at the same time, plus I distinctly remember getting a slight shock from the same socket last year. Either way I'll have to get someone to have a look, I'm useless with electronics!

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There is your answer I can't run tumble drier in shed with 2 elements and a Herms pot at the same time

At least not if you want the street lights to dim while your doing it :D

Ah well, you live and learn.  However, so far so good with the beer. It started to ferment within a few hours and went from 1.060 on Sunday to 1.010 on Tuesday afternoon and I expect it to go a little further (not much hopefully)!  Lovely roastiness coming through with a nice fruity hoppy-ness. So, fingers crossed ready for Christmas!

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Here was the final recipe:

5 gallon: American Stout

3kg - Maris Otter
2kg - 2-row
1kg - Munich
0.75kg - Crystal 30L
0.5kg - Flaked barley
0.3kg - Roasted Barley
0.3kg - Chocolate

Mashed for 60 mins @ 63C (5 gallons)
Batched Sparged at 72C (4 gallon)

Boiled for: bugger if I know!

Estimate hop schedule

11g - Warrior - 60mins
20g - Centinnial - 20mins
10g - Amarillo - 20mins
18g - Simcoe - 20mins
15g - Centinnial - flame out
10g - Amarillo - flame out

Chilled to about 26C and then used US04

OG - 1.061 (adjusted)
Estimate FG - 1.015 (but mine is lower)


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Opened a few of these on Saturday, went down a treat! Lovely roasted flavours, but not too bitter.  Definite coffee/chocolate after taste and a subtle hop aroma and flavour that blends quite well. Only down side is that it doesn't have much of a head on it, but sure, win some lose some. Not bad for a beer brewed with a power cut half way through the boil!

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Are you getting any orange citrus notes in this. I find if I use enough simcoe at 20 minutes I get a nice level of orange. I am interested because I have a chocolate orange stout in the planning stage and am planning a big simcoe addition at 20 minutes boil

I didn't notice, but then I was a few bottles to the good before tasting it. I'll be sure to look out for it the next time and let you know. However, my hops were quite old, so I may be missing that maximum flavour impact.

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Having sampled a fair few bottles, I can't notice any definite orange flavours. The overriding flavours are coffee and chocolate. A little bit of citrus and pine from the hops but no real orange notes to speak off. Then again, the hops were old and I was expecting a bigger hop flavour overall, so it may just be that.

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Cheers, thanks for the update