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

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

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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.   

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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.

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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.

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