Time to deconstruct another of my beers. This time its one of my favorites, one of my most made, and the one with the most tweaks made to it.
The Fogger. Its just your basic base stout recipe. Remember the old Maris, flaked barley, roast barley one? Yea that one. I've changed the hops, changed the temps, added various other grains. But for me,, Ive settled on EKG hops and a small bit of chocolate rye.
I loves this stout. But it just never seemed like the dry stout I was looking for. Not only me,, but the judges have always mentioned this as well. “Too much on the sweet side for a dry stout”
But that's the thing,, its a bit sweet for a dry stout, but not quite sweet enough for a sweet stout. But I have options.
Option A- Leave it as is. It gets good scores. Its a damn good beer right now, who cares. I like it and that's all that matters.
Option B- Tweak it once again. Make it more like a dry stout should be. Upon further looking at this option, it would probably change this beer so much that it wouldn't seem like I'm drinking The Fogger
Option C- Tweak it,, but just enough to nudge it fully into Sweet stout territory.
Option A would be totally fine for me, but I know I'll be putting it into competition, and just knowing that it miiight do better with a slight change would suck. Option B just doesnt seem right changing it that much when its so good now. I think option C is the best.
So lets take a look.
8 lbs 2 row
2 lbs flaked barley
1 lb roast barley
.5 lb chocolate rye
1.75 oz EKG @ 60
05 yeast
mashed at 154
This is what its been the last 3-4 brews. But I think there are a few things we can do that will sweeten it up,, but not change the whole beer into something else.
First off, up the mash temp. I used to mash a different stout at 158 and it was very sweet. This should help it out. Those 4 little degrees will make a huge difference. Especially contrasting against the roasty. This will also help with the fuller mouth feel needed in the Sweet stout category. This maybe all that is needed to push this over the line.
I was thinking some carapills for residual sweet,, but I think 20L would be better here. Raising the temp and adding carapills may be a little too much body,, especially with 2 lbs of flaked barley already.
A different yeast could help,, but I'm not gonna go that route just yet.
Then there is the Lactose. Just get that out of your head because it aint happening.
Yea, I'm gonna sneak a 1/4 lb of 20L in and raise that temp. Am now gonna file this under sweet stout. But that means There is a Dry Stout opening in the lineup…
(Well actually no there isn't. Because I have been planning this since last year and have already brewed its replacement. You may remember the Betazoid last year. That took home the blue, but I think that one is gonna be tweaked just a bit.)
Lots of brewing to be done next week. 3 in all if everything goes right.
9stripe Brewing 