My first stout

[ianmatth]

I had a big brew day on Thursday and decided to do a stout after brewing the Heady Topper clone for the fourth time. I started with 13 pounds of malt in my mash tun for the HT clone, mashed with 7 gallons of water at 148* for 60 minutes and drained into my kettle. I added 1.5 gallons of boiling water to bring the temperature up to 160* for a step mash and then did a BIAB in my 5 gallon kettle of 4 pounds 2-row, 4 pounds Golden Promise, 2 pounds Crystal 75, 1 pound Pale Chocolate Malt, and 1 pound Roasted Malt at 150 for a half hour before raising the temperature to 160 and adding it to the 13 pounds of grain in my mash tun, stirring everything up really well, and letting it sit for another 30 minutes before draining into my boil kettle.

4 gallons Heady Topper clone using 6 lbs Golden Promise, 6 lbs 2-row, 3/4 lbs Caramalt, 4 oz acidulated malt, 4 tsp gypsum, 10 ml Hop Shot for boil, standard 5 min and 0 minute hop additions subbing Citra and El Dorado for Amarillo, cooling quickly and adding the whirlpool addition at 170* for 60 minutes before cooling quickly to 80*. Pitched 250 billion cells of Conan.

5 gallons of stout:
3/4 oz Polaris @ 60
1/3 oz combination of Simcoe, CTZ, and Jarrylo @ 10
1/3 oz combination of Simcoe, CTZ, and Jarrylo @ 1
1.064 OG, 66 IBU

I split my Stout in half into my 3 gallon Better Bottle carboys. I pitched one with 11g of S-04 and the other with 11g US-05.

I also poured 2.5 gallons of boiling water into the 25 pounds of malt and was able to sparge out 4 gallons of 1.050 OG wort. I didn't have another carboy nor room in my Cool Brewing Fermentation Cooler so I put it in my fridge and will brew it at a later date more to style as I got some Williamette Hops and Irish yeast. I will probably also go with Apollo as a bittering hop instead of Polaris.

 

[ianmatth]

After 48 hours the activity on the S-04 batch has seemed to stop while the US-05 and my Heady Topper (Conan yeast) are still going. I pitched everything at 66*, but even with four 1.75 L frozen bottles in the CBFC, the temperature was up to 73* after 24 hours. The temperature right now is 64* and the S-04 batch is at 1.018, but I'm used to getting 80+% attenuation, so I want to let it get under 1.013 before bottling. I may add some oak to the US-05 batch as well. The S-04 is on the left. You can clearly see the US-05 and HT clone are still going strong.

 

[ianmatth]

After a little less than a week, the S-04 batch was down to 1.016 and the US-05 batch was down to 1.018. I bottled the S-04 batch and added 1/2 oz dark toast oak chips to the US-05 batch. Also added first dry hop for the Heady clone, subbing Citra, El Dorado, and Galaxy for Amarillo

 

[ianmatth]

The carbonation has been a little low on my S-04 batch, not even close to Guinness, so I took the last of it in my 6 L Tap-A-Draft bottle out of the fridge and put it back in the closet to see if the CO2 on top of the bottle conditioning will get it there in another week.

I bottled the US-05 batch. The oak was a definite enhancement, I'm hoping it will carbonate well.

I've decided to do a 4th dry hop with my latest Heady clone since I'm only dry hopping for 4-5 day periods now.

 

[ianmatth]

The carbonation on my S-04 didn't improve much, the carbonation on my US-05 is also pretty unimpressive after 11 days. I carbonated at a slightly higher level than I do with my IPAs, and they usually carbonate fine in a week. I have a feeling I'm going to have to carbonate at an even higher level if I want to get Guinness-like carbonation.