Tips and tricks for building a stout grainbill

[beervoid]

Hello brewmasters,

I was hoping for some info on a good approach to start dialing in a stout recipe.

I would like to start simple and get to know what certain types of dark grains give.

How many dark grains varieties to start with?
Possible to just pick one at a time? Base + roasted malt?
Any limits on the colour in terms of darkness?

There are many roasted malts, each with their own names but is there really that much difference between a chocolate malt from maltster A vs maltster B?

Are roasted malts with the same colour grade basically the same in terms of flavor?

Any do's and don'ts are welcome.

Cheers.

 

[Miraculix]

Hello brewmasters,

I was hoping for some info on a good approach to start dialing in a stout recipe.

I would like to start simple and get to know what certain types of dark grains give.

How many dark grains varieties to start with?
Possible to just pick one at a time? Base + roasted malt?
Any limits on the colour in terms of darkness?

There are many roasted malts, each with their own names but is there really that much difference between a chocolate malt from maltster A vs maltster B?

Are roasted malts with the same colour grade basically the same in terms of flavor?

Any do's and don'ts are welcome.

Cheers.

One of my favourite styles and one I experimented a lot with.

As a general rule of thumb, use 10% of the grain bill as roasted malt for normal strength stouts between 4 and 6%abv. When brewing higher abv beers, lower the percentage of roasted malt/grain accordingly.

One of the best stouts I brewed was simply 90% base malt and ten percent roast barley. Mashed for high attenuation at 62c for one hour and then with either Nottingham if you want it clean or safale 04 (my favourite stout yeast) if you want it a bit fruity.

This could be your first stout. Next one exactly the same, but swap the roast barley for chocolate malt, compare!

After this, I found out that I do not like chocolate malt that much, I prefer roast barley. Chocolate spelt or chocolate wheat however, is another story and worth an experiment on its own.

Next would be, take your favourite recipe from the above and add 10% medium crystal malt or dark crystal malt.

What does it do to the beer?

And little bonus, just add ten percent flaked wheat, or wheat/spelt flour/malt to your recipe, for a nice thick and creamy head.

Don't overcarbonate you're stouts! 2.5g of sugar per half a litre is my favourite carbonation level for this dark goodness of a beer. This is already on the high side imo. I wouldn't go higher, lower wouldn't be a problem though.

Edit: don't go overboard with hops. I personally prefer bittering addition only stouts with clean hops like magnum or very little noble hop late additions like saaz or Golding's. Everything around 30ibus max for me.

 

[beervoid]

One of my favourite styles and one I experimented a lot with.

As a general rule of thumb, use 10% of the grain bill as roasted malt for normal strength stouts between 4 and 6%abv. When brewing higher abv beers, lower the percentage of roasted malt/grain accordingly.

One of the best stouts I brewed was simply 90% base malt and ten percent roast barley. Mashed for high attenuation at 62c for one hour and then with either Nottingham if you want it clean or safale 04 (my favourite stout yeast) if you want it a bit fruity.

This could be your first stout. Next one exactly the same, but swap the roast barley for chocolate malt, compare!

After this, I found out that I do not like chocolate malt that much, I prefer roast barley. Chocolate spelt or chocolate wheat however, is another story and worth an experiment on its own.

Next would be, take your favourite recipe from the above and add 10% medium crystal malt or dark crystal malt.

What does it do to the beer?

And little bonus, just add ten percent flaked wheat, or wheat/spelt flour/malt to your recipe, for a nice thick and creamy head.

Don't overcarbonate you're stouts! 2.5g of sugar per half a litre is my favourite carbonation level for this dark goodness of a beer. This is already on the high side imo. I wouldn't go higher, lower wouldn't be a problem though.

Edit: don't go overboard with hops. I personally prefer bittering addition only stouts with clean hops like magnum or very little noble hop late additions like saaz or Golding's. Everything around 30ibus max for me.

Great stuff. Will be adding some oats for sure, I love breakfast stouts.
Good to know I can start basic.

Could you elaborate on what you mean with lowering the roasted part accordingly with higher abv?

 

[McKnuckle]

This is a nice talk from an American brewer on the history and composition of 5 classic stout styles. History begins around 2:15, and malt discussion at 6:40 (if you're impatient).

 

[Miraculix]

Great stuff. Will be adding some oats for sure, I love breakfast stouts.
Good to know I can start basic.

Could you elaborate on what you mean with lowering the roasted part accordingly with higher abv?

You can certainly add oats, but they do not contribute anything to the flavour or mouth feel, that's all mind games. I ran blind tests on this one and got it later confirmed by an article by Scott janish on this subject. But oats are very good for yeast health (did experiments on this one as well)!

Roasted malts bring also a bit of astringency. If you would stay with the same percentage of a grain bill while increasing the overall amount of grain, the total amount of roasted grains would be too high at one point. So I would stay with the total amount (not percentage) that the same beer would have if you would bring down the same grain bill to reach a 5% or 6% abv beer.

 

[McKnuckle]

Here is another example of an oatmeal stout bill, where I've followed a roughly 70/10/10/10 breakdown. That is, 70% base, and 10% each roasted, crystal, and adjunct. I find that this is a good framework for experimentation.

In this case I aimed for a 1.050 OG and 30 IBU (0.6 BU/GU ratio), with the hop weight split between 60 and 5 minutes. I mashed high around 158-60 to preserve dextrins and still get a low ABV beer (~4%).

72% Maris Otter
10% malted or flaked oats
9% UK crystal 75
4.5% roasted barley
4.5% UK pale chocolate

Water is always important, and I like to keep the mineral content low in a stout. Here I got the Ca up to about 50 ppm using CaCl and gypsum, Cl = 68 and SO4 = 31. Baking soda was then added to hit a mash pH of 5.4. This adds a small amount of Na, 12 ppm, to the mix as well.

 

[beervoid]

Ch

This is a nice talk from an American brewer on the history and composition of 5 classic stout styles. History begins around 2:15, and malt discussion at 6:40 (if you're impatient).

Thanks will give this a watch

 

[beervoid]

You can certainly add oats, but they do not contribute anything to the flavour or mouth feel, that's all mind games. I ran blind tests on this one and got it later confirmed by an article by Scott janish on this subject. But oats are very good for yeast health (did experiments on this one as well)!

Roasted malts bring also a bit of astringency. If you would stay with the same percentage of a grain bill while increasing the overall amount of grain, the total amount of roasted grains would be too high at one point. So I would stay with the total amount (not percentage) that the same beer would have if you would bring down the same grain bill to reach a 5% or 6% abv beer.

I use oats in my ipa they def contribute to moutheel I feel. At around 20 to 30% so pretty high.

 

[Miraculix]

I use oats in my ipa they def contribute to moutheel I feel. At around 20 to 30% so pretty high.

Yes, that's the level where they actually start doing something to the mouthfeel, unfortunately they also start ruining head retention at that level.

 

[Miraculix]

Here is another example of an oatmeal stout bill, where I've followed a roughly 70/10/10/10 breakdown. That is, 70% base, and 10% each roasted, crystal, and adjunct. I find that this is a good framework for experimentation.

In this case I aimed for a 1.050 OG and 30 IBU (0.6 BU/GU ratio), with the hop weight split between 60 and 5 minutes. I mashed high around 158-60 to preserve dextrins and still get a low ABV beer (~4%).

72% Maris Otter
10% malted or flaked oats
9% UK crystal 75
4.5% roasted barley
4.5% UK pale chocolate

Water is always important, and I like to keep the mineral content low in a stout. Here I got the Ca up to about 50 ppm using CaCl and gypsum, Cl = 68 and SO4 = 31. Baking soda was then added to hit a mash pH of 5.4. This adds a small amount of Na, 12 ppm, to the mix as well.

Sounds good to me! However, I would either replace the oats with wheat, or replace ten percent of the base with wheat to aid head, but that's only my personal preference.

 

[beervoid]

Yes, that's the level where they actually start doing something to the mouthfeel, unfortunately they also start ruining head retention at that level.

Havent had any issues with that

 

[Immocles]

@Miraculix

When you mention wheat, are you talking flaked wheat or wheat malt? I've used flaked barley, but I'm curious if I'd get a better result from the wheat.

Ever use chocolate or midnight wheat in a stout? I think I'll have some leftover with no clue what to use them for.

 

[McKnuckle]

One form of wheat that's popular in British brewing is torrefied. I have used it often, although its specific contribution vs. malted wheat is not something I can explain (I blindly follow tradition at times ).

In my experience with the various adjunct grains popular in British brewing, it's not so much that they create a bigger head; I get the perception that the head is finer and denser, even when it shrinks in height over time.

BTW, in the video I posted, the speaker talks about midnight wheat. She says it's a nice option to use for deep color while maintaining mellowness, because wheat lacks a husk, and it's the husk of dark roasted grain that produces the sharp astringency we want to limit. Same thing is true for the German Carafa Special malts. They are de-husked.

 

[Immocles]

Ah! Thanks, I'll have scope out the video. I don't mean to hijack another's thread, but I had luck with a couple simple stouts, and find myself wanting to brew more of them!

 

[Miraculix]

@Miraculix

When you mention wheat, are you talking flaked wheat or wheat malt? I've used flaked barley, but I'm curious if I'd get a better result from the wheat.

Ever use chocolate or midnight wheat in a stout? I think I'll have some leftover with no clue what to use them for.

You can use whatever what you want, I use spelt flour, normal wheat flour works as well, so does wheat malt. Wheat flour and torrified wheat are essentially the same, however the latter is more friendly to people who don't biab and who have to take care not to get a stuck sparge.

I really like chocolate spelt, as it does not bring this licorice type of flavour that I get from chocolate barley. I guess that chocolate wheat will be almost the same as chocolate spelt. But it is not as dark as chocolate barley, so you probably would need to use more like 15% of the grain bill, or add something like 5% roast barley in addition, if you really want it dark and not only dark brown.

Never tried midnight wheat, but I guess I would like it. I'm a big fan of carafa special 2! Makes a great stout at ten percent of the grist.

 

[Immocles]

Excellent. Thanks for the responses. This is making me want to move up a stout brew day.

 

[Miraculix]

One important, maybe the most important, tip is missing.

Keep it as simple as possible!

This goes actually for every beer, but especially for stouts. One base, one roast, one speciality plus a bit of wheat is already plenty

 

[camonick]

The traditional GUINNESS Draught recipe is generally accepted to be 70% base malt, 20% flaked barley and 10% roasted barley (500 °L for dark ruby color) with only bittering hops like EKG to get you to 30-35 IBU... pretty simple. The Draught version is around 4.2% ABV.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

You asked if the different types of grains provide different results-- the answer is yes! I normally use Crisp or Fawcett roasted barley (UK maltsters) because when I have had to sub with North American roasted barley, the color is about 1/2 on the srm scale, and I don't care for the flavor profile either.

 

[madscientist451]

HBT Guiness Draught thread w/40 posts:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/guinness-draught-clone.100740/

Here's some samples from the thread:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Done this recipe now numerous times and have come up with small tweaks that might interest some people.
We use the Wyeast Irish Ale yeast, which a few others have mentioned as well, and also we have started replacing some of the marris otter with Irish Stout Malt (ending at about 3.5 lbs stout malt and 3.5 lbs marris otter for 5 gallons). Definitely scale back the grain bill if you do this as the Stout malt shoots the brewhouse efficiency way up. The stout malt definitely provides a little bit different flavor that everyone seems to love.
Just some ideas for anyone looking to change it up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basically mash the light grains and separately mash the dark grains which are actually steeping I think instead being mashed before beginning the rest of the brew. They acquire a slight tang during this time and get added back to main mash at mash out I think or during lautering or vorlauf.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have brewed this style using a different approach: brew as a light beer and steep the roasted barley separately 1 qt/lb beginning at dough in. Could do in a grain bag in a small drink cooler for instance. Add steeping liquor to the boil kettle after you have completed the mash and sparge steps. This makes getting the mash chemistry easier, and was a featured article describing this method in a zymurgy article from last year. I think experimenting with different brands of roasted barley may also be a key to getting right flavor.

 

[lowtones84]

Good stuff here. I play with amber and/or brown malt as well sometimes, but I tend to agree that simplicity is best. When you start getting multiple types of roasted malt and a complex grain bill, it can take quite a while to really mature and blend. That said, when it does it's quite nice in my opinion.

 

[beervoid]

Hi everyone, nice to see the thread is lively and some nice responses. Thank you for that.

Has anyone played with swapping out standard pale base malts with something a bit darker?
Vienna perhaps, and I have seen some 30 EBC base malts like mecca grade opal 44 or best redx.

Cheers!

 

[Miraculix]

Hi everyone, nice to see the thread is lively and some nice responses. Thank you for that.

Has anyone played with swapping out standard pale base malts with something a bit darker?
Vienna perhaps, and I have seen some 30 EBC base malts like mecca grade opal 44 or best redx.

Cheers!

That won't make much of a difference. The 10% roasted overshadows easily the additional malty notes form munich or vienna malt. I like to go with traditional british marris otter or pilsener or any other pale malt, does not make much of a difference to me in this particular case.