Aidan's Irish Stout

[AidanMatthews]

Hey guys,

Just want your opinion on my recipe design, was reading a clone for "beams stout" and then changed the hell out of it
to come up with something i think i could claim as my own.

I liked the look of the extract/partial grain recipe. I took that couldnt get challenger hops but opted for perle.
I might loose style points for using perle but i though what the hell this is my recipe after all

Im going to steep or partial mash i guess in a grain bag for 1 hour @ 70*C (that or mini mash in esky in the grain bag)

19 ltrs
Bitterness: 30.7 IBU
Est Color: 36.4 SRM
Alchohol: 4.8%

1.50 kg Coopers Light Extract (unhopped) (8.0 SRM) Extract 47.62 %
0.25 kg Light Dry Malt Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 7.94 %
0.25 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7.94 %
0.25 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 7.94 %
0.25 kg Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 7.94 %
0.20 kg Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 6.35 %
0.15 kg Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 4.76 %
0.15 kg Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 4.76 %
0.15 kg Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 4.76 %


12.00 gm Pearle [7.40 %] (60 min) Hops 12.0 IBU
25.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 16.8 IBU
7.00 gm Hallertauer Hersbrucker [4.00 %] (15 min) Hops 1.9 IBU

1 Pkgs Irish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1084) Yeast-Ale

[AidanMatthews]

Is it normal to lose 5*c every 20 minutes in a small 10 ltr esky...

I mashed in at 66c and after 20m it was 61c so i brought it back up to 65c with some boiling water.

I then covered with alfoil which created a light seal since the sides of esky were wet so i stuffed the rest of the headspace with a hand towell.

20 minutes later it had dropped 3c to 62c.


In a bigger esky because the volumes of hot water are bigger i would assume holding the temp will be easier?????


Good news is first shot at mini mash i got efficiency of 69% with no change to water profile so im happy with that.

[squirt in the turns]

Being a smaller volume of liquid, it will lose heat faster. What have the temps in Adelaide been like? Ambient temperature will have some effect too. The foil and towel are a good idea. You can wrap the whole thing in a blanket or sleeping bag to increase the insulation too.

Well done on your efficiency. I've only done one stout, and that was a kit and bits ages ago, so I can't really comment on the recipe. Can I ask why you used both dry and liquid extract (perhaps just what was in the cupboard)?

[AidanMatthews]

Well i adapted a recipe in a book, i noticed alot of them are lke it with extract/partial mash recipes.

I have a feeling its because 2 tins of goo would be to much and to make up for no addition of ldme would mean the grain bill is a little to large for a small partial mash/steep......... Or...... The ldme added with the pre boiled wort makes up around 9 ltrs, the OG should be around 1040 - 1050, which for hop utilisation is optimum.(apparently correct me if im wrong)

Another question,

Setting up beer smith, if im only using a 10ltr pot and can only fit 9.5ltrs in for a boil should i add this to beer smith along with correct top up amounts?

- adding correct boil volume and extra top up water then lowers the bitterness by almost half.....i guess cuz im watering it down...

However im scared to increase the hops so the calcs are correct, i dont want a super bitter beer.

[squirt in the turns]

I've only ever used Beersmith for full volume boils, so someone else will likely be able to answer better than I can. I'll have a go anway:

You're right about the boil gravity for effective hop utilisation - 1.040 to 1.050 sounds about right. I take it you're adjusting the boil volume and top up water under the "details" window for the equipment? I would say that is that correct way to get Beersmith to calculate the boil gravity and utilisation.

Did you boil the 250g LDME with the runnings from your mash, adding the goop at the end of the boil? If so, make sure to tick the box for "add after boil" for the liquid, which adjusts the expected OG into boiler. There is a box you can tick for "late extract boil for [x] minutes", but it seems that Beersmith just treats the extract as being boiled for the entire boil duration regardless of how many minutes you enter. It doesn't update utilisation of OG into boiler, although it changes the instructions on the brewsheet. I'm guessing this is a bug - anyone else know?

If Beersmith is correctly predicting your OG into boiler, and knows that you'll be diluting post-boil, then the predicted IBUs should be correct too. Your recipe should be fine to give you 30 or more IBUs if your boil gravity is in the optimum range.

[AidanMatthews]

Thanks mate ticking some of those boxes correctly made the outcome seem more accurate,

In the end my ibu was around 33 which sounds correct.

Beersmith colour guide is a little out or could that be my malt????

It says it should be black but my stout came out rich brown like choc brown, however my brew i did on the day was sligtly diff to the above. Anyone else find discrepencys in colour from wha beersmith advises....

Do you enter in min values or max when given a guide on the packet of malt?

[warra48]

I never worry about what BeerSmith says about colour. It gives you a rough idea, but isn't really totally accurate. Even with brewing AG, where I input all the specs for my stocks of grains, it still doesn't get it quite accurately.

I'm somewhat surprised your beer came out a rich choc brown, what with all the choc, black, and roasted barley. However, even the darkest of stouts will look that way if you hold them up to a bright light.

Question, do we brew for mouthfeel, aroma, and flavour, or do we brew for colour?

BeerSmith does enable you to enter a colour for your ingredients. If you know a range, then I'd enter the avarage of the range. If you know exactly, of course you can enter that figure. I tend to use EBC in my settings, rather than SRM. The grains I buy all seem to be expressed in that fashion. I note CraftBrewers site also uses EBC.

[AidanMatthews]

Hey warra,

Sorry forgot to add, i decided to change up my recipe after reading "too much black patent can cause harsh tastes" acrid i think the term was used.

I didnt want to create something undrinkable so i dialed it back a bit (however i think my initial recipe was probably on the money now)
I will keep that recipe above and brew it next time i think and do a comparisson.

here is what i ended up brewing,

Are the EBC values listed correct??

19 Ltr Batch
Original Gravity: 1.041
Est Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol by Vol: 4.03 %
Bitterness: 32.1 IBU Calories: 380 cal/l
Est Color: 74.9 EBC


0.25 kg Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) Dry Extract 9.06 %
1.50 kg Pale Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Extract 54.34 %
0.25 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 9.07 %
0.25 kg Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC) Grain 9.07 %
0.20 kg Chocolate Malt (1000.0 EBC) Grain 7.24 %
0.15 kg Roasted Barley (1300.0 EBC) Grain 5.43 %
0.11 kg Dark Crystal Malt - 60L (120.0 EBC) Grain 3.98 %
0.05 kg Black (Patent) Malt (1300.0 EBC) Grain 1.81 %
12.00 gm Pearle [7.40 %] (60 min) Hops 12.5 IBU
25.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 17.6 IBU
7.00 gm Hallertauer Hersbrucker [4.00 %] (15 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Irish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1084) Yeast-Ale