HOMEBREW Digest #101 Wed 15 March 1989

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:
  Stout Update (rogerl)
  Mailing list (alberta!tim)

Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Mar 89 15:52:59 EST From: rogerl at Think.COM Subject: Stout Update I've been remiss in my report on the Stout that was built in January. To start with, the base recipe came from the 1988 Winter Issue of Zymurgy. Below is the recipe as given in the magazine. Variations used on this batch are noted in the second recipe. Since my set up does not allow me to sparge 15 pounds of grain, I usually only do partial grain brews. The biggest difference between the two recipes is the addition of Pale, Crystal and Dexitrin Malts in place of some of the dry extract. My goal in the short term is to mash enough grain to take the dry extract out of the recipe. I am providing the original recipe and my variant only for reference sake. If you like stout, try this one. It's easy and just about a guaranteed success. Disclaimer: This posting is for the enjoyment of the newsletter subscribers. This individual in no way receives any benefit from vendors of products mentioned herein. Enjoy! Their Recipe: "Mega Stout" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This recipe was developed by Doug Hinderks, president of the Northern Ale Stars Homebrewers Guild. from: Zymurgy Winter 1988 page: 38 Qty. Description ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ 2 cans Munton & Fison Stout Kit 3 lbs. Munton & Fison extra dark dry malt extract 2 cups Chocolate Malt 2 cups Black Patent Malt 2 cups Roast Barley 3 ozs. Fuggles Hops (boiling) 1/2 oz. Cascade Hops (aromatic) Ale Yeast 1/4 tsp. Irish Moss 3/4 cup Priming Sugar =========== O.G.: 1.071 T.G.: 1.020 =========== Steep the 6 cups of whole grain in two gallons of water as you bring to a boil. Remove grains at the boil. Add all the extract and Fuggles Hops for one hour boil. Add Irish Moss the last 15 minutes of boil. At end of boils steep Cascade Hops for 15 minutes. Cool. Pitch. My variation: "Ursa Major Stout" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2 cans Munton & Fison Stout Kit 2 lbs. Munton & Fison Light Dry Malt Extract 1 lb. Crushed Pale Malt 1 lb. Crushed Crystal Malt 0.5 lb. Dexitrin Malt 2 cups Chocolate Malt 2 cups Black Patent Malt 2 cups Roast Barley 2 ozs. Fuggles Hops Pellets (boiling) 1/2 oz. Willamette Leaf Hops (aromatic) 2 pkgs. Munton & Fison Stout Yeast (from Kit) 1/4 tsp. Irish Moss 3/4 cup Priming Sugar =========== O.G.: 1.058 T.G.: 1.016 =========== Mash the grains in 1-2 gallon of water. Sparge with enough water to end with 2-3 gallons in wort pot. Bring grain wort to the boil. Stir in the Dry malt and bring back to the boil. Add Wet extract and boiling hops, boil for 40 minutes. Add Irish Moss the last 15 minutes of the boil. At end of boil add aromatic hops and let steep for 15 minutes. Sparge aromatic hops into primary fermenter with enough water to make 6 gallons. When cool, pitch. Rack to secondary fermenter after initial blow off starts to subside. Prime and bottle about 1 month later. Notes: ~~~~~~ 1. This was my first attempt with this much grain at one time. The mashing process used was to bring the grains and water to 118'F for 30 min., then raise the temperature to 147'F for 10 min., the 158'F for another 10 min., then that was sparged with about 1.5 gallons of 168'F water. Since I didn't have a right and proper lauter-tun the sparging was done with a large colander and a linen towel directly into the wort boiler. 2. The first batch was made using the yeast provided with the M&F Stout Kit. Next time I'll be using "Standard Stout" Pure Liquid Culture from Brewlogic. This should make a noticeable difference in the end product. The kit yeast is OK, but...... 3. Obviously, if you want a higher O.G. then start with less water in the primary fermentation step or add more sugar via the mash or extracts. 4. This brew is so dark I think the Irish Moss is a bit superfluous. 5. This brew was the most active I've built in a while. Expect to use some sort of blow off method for the primary and the start of the secondary ferments. Comments: ~~~~~~~~~ Very Black! Thick, but not as thick as Guiness. Well rounded flavor and smooth with almost not bite. Kind of like a Cream Stout, but not quite that smooth. It was tasted only one week after bottling with supriseingly wonderful flavor. Each week it gets a bit more mellow. I've saved a couple of 6 packs for tasting when it becomes 6-8 weeks old. It should be about at its peek then, from my humble experience. The head is very dark. Maybe using less Roast Barly and a bit more Black Patent would lighten the head and keep the body of brew from suffering. All of the people who have tasted it really like it. I will be honing the recipe down a bit more as time goes by, but I do believe I've found my house Stout. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 89 12:36:20 MST From: ncc!alberta!tim at hplabs.HP.COM Subject: Mailing list Please remove me from the mailing list--I will no longer be on line after the end of March. Thanks. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 89 14:28:29 -0800 From: topramen at ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Oliver Grillmeyer) Hello all fellow brewers, meaders, etc. I have been on the distribution list reading the various articles for quite some time now and have decided to end my silence. The information has been great especially the high degree of technical information lately. Let's keep it up. The only disturbing thing of late has been the flames and flames to flamers. If someone gets a bit carried away, wouldn't it be better to send mail to him/her directly instead of publicly? Do two wrongs make a right? Anyway on to the good stuff. Yesterday I made two 5 gallon batches of honey ginger beer. I wanted to experiment with boiled and non-boiled honey to see if aromatics would indeed be lost in the boil, and if complex sugars would be broken down to fermentable sugars or not at 180 degrees F versus a full rolling boil. Unfortunately I drank one too many of my home brews including two barley wines (recipe of the barley wine will follow in future letter) beforehand and added too much honey to the second batch, so the experiment changed to non-boiled honey being a constant and the amount of honey and hops being variables. If anyone has any info on boiled versus non-boiled honey, I would greatly appreciate it. Here are the ingredients that I used along with the brew process. Batch 1: 1. One brew kettle had ~4 gallons water and 4 lbs. of clover honey and 6 oz of grated ginger. This was maintained at 180 degrees for 45 minutes. 2. The second brew kettle had ~3 gallons water and 3 lbs light malt extract (Wander). That was kept at a full rolling boil during the entire brewing. The remaining steps were applied to the second brew kettle. 3. Added 1 oz. Brewers Gold hops (leaf) and boiled for 45 minutes. 4. Added 1/2 oz. Northern Brewers (pellets) and boiled an additional 30 minutes. 5. Turned off heat and added 1/2 oz. Saaz (pellets). Batch 2: Identical to Batch 1 except for the following: -> 8 lbs of honey was used instead of 4. -> 1/2 oz. Norther Brewers was used in addition at step 3. -> 1/2 oz of Galena (leaf) was used in addition at step 4. Results: Batch 1 had an SG of 1.051, was of amber color and all flavors were readily apparent - hops, malt, ginger, and light honey flavor too. If the final product tasted like this with a bit less sweetness it would be perfect. The color was a medium amber shade. Batch 2 had an SG of 1.061 - the SG would have been higher but I had about 3/4 gallon extra wort at the end since I started with more water at first and added 4 extra lbs. of honey. It was the same color with a more pronounced honey sweetness and more intense hop bitterness - I was worried about the hop extraction that I would get since I was adding the hops to 2-3 gallons of wort and not the full 5+ gallons I normally use. The extra hops might be too dominating against the ginger. It seems that 6 oz. is an adequate amount of ginger to get a nice balanced flavor - I'll give an update in a couple months when its ready to taste. I grated the ginger using my food processor's grating blade. It worked fairly well but had to struggle as the ginger tends to break up into strands and get stuck in the grater blades. I did not peel the ginger either. Also the effect of 4 vs. 8 lbs of honey will have to wait to be known for sure. Two final comments. I've heard that there is a book by Dave Miller ?? called Complete something or another, not to be confused with Papazian's CJOHB. It supposedly is of the same technical degree as Noonan's book, but not as narrowly focused. I have not been able to find it yet - any one out there know of this book and have any feedback. Also the Bison brewery in Berkeley (Telegraph and Parker) will open this Thursday (2/16). I'll give a report on this also for the benefit of those in the Bay Area or those planning to visit. Oliver Grillmeyer topramen at ernie.Berkeley.EDU (415) 642-1637 Share a homebrew with a friend - they won't forget it. Return to table of contents
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