Beer puns are pretty awful, but I’m working on my terrible dad jokes so I am going with it. On Labor Day I brewed the newest rendition of my Russian imperial stout. This brew day I was joined by my brother-in-law and I was just hoping that things would go more smoothly than my last brew. An easy brew day would be just the thing to cap off the holiday weekend.
The day started out with only a minor hiccup. I left the valve of the mash tun open and poured some water on my shoes. Thankfully that is an easy remedy and doesn’t effect the end product. The mash lagged a little low on temperature getting started. It could make the stout dry out a little so I will have to keep an eye on that. The sparge of the mash went well until I checked the pre-boil gravity and it was again low by 0.010. The good news is that I still had some extract left over from correcting the Belgian dark strong ale. The bad news is I can no longer blame this on Denny. I need to figure out what is going wrong.
The boil went well until I started trying to chill. Once again the system stopped draining after transferring about 3 gallons of wort. I have a couple ideas on dealing with this issue. First I am going to try increasing the height differential between the kettles and the pumps. I can lower the pumps another notch on the stand and I think I can raise the kettles a notch and still do everything comfortably. If that doesn’t work then I will need to investigate replacing the hop stopper I use with something that won’t clog as easily.
To finish the day I decided to just dump the remaining wort into the fermenter and let it chill to the proper temperature in the fermentation fridge. I was frustrated and did not feel like fussing with the pumps and hoses for an hour to get the last couple gallons out of the kettle. The starting gravity was correct after the addition of extract.
Recipe Specifications -------------------------- Boil Size: 6.72 gal Post Boil Volume: 5.72 gal Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal Estimated OG: 1.091 SG Estimated Color: 63.1 SRM Estimated IBU: 104.5 IBUs Brewhouse Efficiency: 85.00 % Est Mash Efficiency: 85.0 % Boil Time: 60 Minutes Ingredients: ------------ Amt Name %/IBU 12 lbs 12.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 73.9 % 1 lbs 12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) 10.1 % 1 lbs 12.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) 10.1 % 1 lbs Extra Special (Briess) (130.0 SRM) 5.8 % 1.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [16.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min 100.5 IBUs 0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min 4.0 IBUs 0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs 1.0 pkg British Ale Yeast (Wyeast Labs #1098) [2 liter starter] ---------------------------- Name Description Step Temperat Step Time Mash In Add 7.19 gal of water at 160.7 F 152.0 F 60 min Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 2 min 168.0 F 10 min Sparge: Fly sparge with 2.32 gal water at 168.0 F
Recently, I mentioned I was going to be changing this stout recipe despite winning the stout category in my club’s competition. I want to give the malt profile more depth. To do this I added a pound of extra special malt. I also wanted to maintain the malt-bitterness balance so I increased the bittering hop slightly.
I’m glad you came to your senses and cleared my name from the Luce Cannon brew day screw up 😉 (BTW…I tried to post this comment on the wrong article…too many winter warmers tonight)