Recent content by Alchemist42

Glad to hear you are giving it a try. I am trying a variation. Brewing it on the grain. We will see how close it comes to it's inspiration name sake (after a bit of that pesky water is removed, if you follow :) )

I believe I am talking brew house efficiency. Which encompasses mash efficiency, no? With what I gave, what can you calculate? Both what do you get and is it mash or brew house? I'm assuming later as it's my entire procedure, from grain, to carboy, not just grain to kettle or sparger.

Well, this was a nice thread to find. It's really nice to see others getting 'oddly' high efficiencies. I average 82-85%. It's frankly been annoying me for some years now as all I get is the 'you're just bragging' instead of any understanding of why my numbers are as high as they are. I...

Nothing like responding to an old, possibly dead thread, but what the heck. Yes, I have a 100% pure acer aging right now. 3lbs/gallon. And I've split off a single gallon to age on a couple inches of medium and dark charred oak spirals.

It seems to depend on how high the ppm's are for the initial malt and how big you make the ale. One made at 6% with 20 ppm malt was surprisingly stronger in peat aroma than the 10% @ 50 ppm. What I think happens is the malt takes over in the larger ale and masks/blunts some of the peat impact...

No, not a Guinness clone. I would add flaked barely :) But yes, a Dry Stout. And was going by the basic BJCP guidelines in regard to that. So Brown stout does not apply. Maybe I should have said to hit the goal of minimum 25 SRM I found you need over 5 lbs brown malt. And if keeping to...

I ran some numbers with brown malt and had to get make it over 50% brown to have the color to technically be a stout. Otherwise it was a porter or brown ale. What percentage did you use? I don't quite understand what you mean by 'plenty more body and flavor'. Compared to what?

@giraffe, that is the theory at least....except I recall reading some various head to head comparisons and very little correlation was found between mouthfeel, head retention and flaked barely. That is sounds good but doesn't hold up. And why I asked for people who had brewed it as just pale...

The short of this is I'm wondering if anyone has any first hand knowledge of a 2 ingredient stout. Namely pale malt and roast barley (and hops). The shortest grain bill I can seem to find also has flaked barely or oatmeal in it. Please, no 'try it and report back'. I'm going to. :) But...

Unfortunately, in my experience even the residual really plays havoc with head retention. YMMV

It is indeed an urban legend. I've never seen chocolate listed with wax as an ingredient. Over refining can give chocolate a waxy texture, but it's not wax. As for the sour milk. Another urban myth. The 'distinct' flavor is often from very poor grade beans, over roasted and over refined...

I think you will be surprised that there will not be a huge difference with 10% of the 40 ppm. Once you hit these levels, different things happen to the taste profile that is not exactly linear. I'll agree my 40 ppm is hard core, but it's not 8x as peaty if you catch my meaning. Maybe 2-3.

When I originally did this I could not find any data on peated malt, as to whether it was unmodified or not, so I figured better safe than sorry. And I really like decoction mashes. And something about this peated malt, whether it the malt or the mash technique, I'm with Kiwirevo, this stuff...

I have my own update on this year's batch(es). I brewed two after my first one, believe it or not, it was not peaty enough for me. I used Simpson peated malt. After determining something was up (too mild) I found via research that Simpson's is a low phenol (5-10 ppm phenol) peated malt. Why it...

OMG, that totally rocks DangMan!!! I have my own update on this year's batch(es). I brewed two after my first one, believe it or not, was not peaty enough for me. I used Simpson peated malt. After determining something was up (too mild) I found via research that Simpson's is a low phenol...