Building my stout.

Since talking out my process of what I want in the last porter worked so well, I will try this one more time with a stout. If you read last weeks post, you'll know I'm looking into a new everyday stout. Dry Stout.

There seems to be varied opinions on what makes a good stout now days. Things are getting lumped together as if there is only one stout variety.

Most peoples today would describe what they think a stout is, as a thick, black, strong, burnt/roasty, high hopped beer.  And I would say, that yep,, this is one type of stout. One that I love drinking my self. But, that of course is only one type of stout.

What I want out of this stout, is that stout that seems like only a memory now. The lower/mid strength, lighter bodied, burnt/roasted, low hopped dry stout. Seems now days they only stouts like this around are the old stand bys. Murphy's, Beamish when you can find it, and a bit further away but pretty close, Guinness.

With all that in mind, A stout is, or should be, a pretty basic recipe. I think any base malt will work, even German types like Vienna I think would make a good stout.  But I think I'll stick with good old US 2 row. Something that I will pretty much have on hand. Gotta keep it easy though, as this is going to be an “everyday” beer

Even though this is a “dry” stout, it should have some sweetness to it in order to give both perception of depth, and to square off with the roast. Roast is good, but it needs to buffered. I for one don't think much of the taste of 60L. 40L crystal is what I want here. It will give more sweetness with less grain, and will not lend as much taste.

And of course roast. There are a couple of trains of thought on which roast to go with. But I personally tend to think a stout is a stout, because of the roast barley. Save the black patent for porters. And while I have in the past stouts included Chocolate malt.. I think I have only done so out of habit. For this first draft I will leave it out. I am pretty sure it will not be missed.

And then there is one more thing I taste in the stouts. It seems that in the ones that I have learned to like more than others, there is a grainy taste to them. I'm not entirely sure its a grain taste. Could be astringency or just residual roasty,, I dunno. But something in my head always says is something to do with Munich.

Sounds like we have a direction with the grain now. So lets get to hopping.

High hopping a stout in fine in some styles, but that's not what we I am looking for here. I want the hops to do their job of muting the sweet, I want just enough to know they are there. But I don't want to taste them or smell them. I think pearle fits this nicely. Had good results with that exact effect in a cream ale.

And I'm not lookin for any yeast profile either. No Irish, or Brit yeasts in this one. Just a good clean yeast that can chew it down enough and not leave it on the sweet side. Of course, US-05 fits.

Ok we have our ingredients. How do we assemble this sucker. Well taking everything into account.. Lower grav, dry, roasty, non hoppy,, I think we will start with..

Nebula- dry stout, 13A

6lbs 2 row

8oz 40L crystal

12oz Munich malt

1lb roast barley

1 oz perle hops @60

us 05 yeast

Mashed low at 150

While I am behind my normal schedule for brewing my TTO beers, I am by no means in a rush. I do have a Porter, a spiced beer, a barleywine and an Imperial stout that are ready. And have just brewed the American brown yesterday. (expect a post on this soon)

Except for maybe the Porter, I feel I don't yet have anything that will go anywhere, but I haven't yet gave any thought to my “main” beer yet. The stout. I have always put in at least two stouts. The Fogger dry stout and the Black Feather American stout.

And after last years fiasco with the Fogger being split into two beers, and being able to taste them side by side, I decided that there needs to be a change.

I can taste in my head the beer that I want. And Fogger split-off, Betazoid was very close. Very close. But It was a accident beer really. I was brewing off-world and forgot some ingredients, and had super efficiency for some reason that night. (or the scales there were off) But we came out with a beer that was soooo good.

It was so much more a dry stout than what I had been brewing. But at almost 8% it was far too big for a dry stout. I put it in as a foreign extra. As mentioned, I already have this years “big” stout in play. We now need our everyday stout.

I think I will do a walk thru in my designing my stout as I did in the http://9stripe.blogspot.com/2014/09/building-my-porter.html post a few months back. (oh, and by the way, that porter is flippin great!) 

Next up,, building my stout.