Monthly Meeting – Competition: Stout & Strong Stout

Ahhh…… Stout, the dark prince of beer, they can be sweet, they can be dry, they can mild and they can be strong but they are always black and always dominated by the roasty flavour of charred barley. Roastiness can vary from slightly roasty coffee and cream of a sweet stout through to the intense roasty burned malt of a Russian Imperial and everything in between. When brewing a stout you need to consider your water chemistry, dark grains have a higher acidity than pale and an addition of calcium chloride to your mash water can help maintain an optimum mash ph. Personally, I’ve never been one to play around with water additions and it’s never stopped me brewing a good stout.

Grain bills can be simple with 80% base malt, 6% roast barley, 6% chocolate malt, 8% crystal malt, or to add some depth of flavour you can make small additions of specialty malts such as roast wheat and rye, brown malt, flaked barley, toffee malt, special b etc, just be sure to add a little rather than a lot, you are just trying build a bit of complexity to the overall flavour.

Recipe

Jamil Zainascheff’s Triple-X Sweet Stout (20l batch)

OG = 1.060
FG = 1.023
IBU = 29
colour 39 srm
Alc/Vol = 4.9%
Boil 60min
Pre-boil volume 26.5l
Pre-boil gravity 1.051
4.55kg Maris Otter or Golden Promise
0.45kg black malt
0,45kg dark crystal
0.25kg pale choc malt
0.50kg lactose
Mash at 66c
Ferment with Safale s04 or any English ale yeast