Although I still have a few more brews to sneak in, I guess this will be the end of the year wrap up edition. I think it will be a two parter.

Not happy at all with the brewing this year. A lot of bad beers. And various reasons why. Right from the start of this years and the end of last years brew have bad. No way around it. Bad.

That damn plastic taste that plagued me before. Its like all of a sudden all my beers were made in a beach ball.

But like a sneaky virus, this problem eluded me for a long time. A very long time. Others were having kind of similar issues, so at first I chalked it up to a bad lot of yeast being sold. But after a while it became clear that that wasn't it.

Then I went back to the cause of the last time I had issues. The lines. I changed out all of my beverage lines. A few new batches thru them and nope. Not it.

After some more thought and tastings, it was pretty obvious that it was a chlorine or chloramine problem. But I have always used my campden tablets. After a bit of research and asking around, I came to find out that these tablets have a fairly short live span.

Things started making sense. I bought new tablets. And things were better. Much better. And after careful thought, I think this is how I solved the problem the first time as well, but I just didn't know it. 

Back when I had the first phenol attack, I finally solved the problem (or thought I did) by changing my lines. But now that I have been thinking about it,, I had bought new campden in that order as well because I had used all of what I had when I was making the rhubarb wines.

Ok. But I must admit that while this sure as hell solved a ton of problems,, there is still something going funny with my beer. Something again that I just cannot put my finger on. But I started doing something that made me take notice.

Bottling. I have been bottling a lot lately. And those beers DO NOT have the issue that my kegged beer does. Its not really a fault so to say,, but just…. something.

I have cleaned my kegs, changed rings, changed lines. I just don't know what it is. So what does my kegged beer have that my bottled beer don't, and something that I haven't changed. Bingo! The gas lines.

I took a look last night and it looks like I poured root beer in them and let it harden. I ordered more this morning. But how or when I got beer back up in there I do not know. But this has to be the problem.

Like I said, it took me a while to figure this out when it shouldn't have. But somethings go right past you. I'm glad I found out whats wrong, but it came a bit late, and have wasted a good chunk of time, money and beer. Most notably 2 batches of 1.100 beers. The Barleywine and the Imperial stout are just terrible. Almost undrinkable. Almost. I don't think I would survive the act of dumping them. I'm gonna drink these suckers no matter how long it takes.

Like I said I got it fixed and I'm ready to get to work on the 2015 TTO open beers. It should be interesting as I have a new outlook on both the contest itself and the beers I put in.

But that's another post.

end of part one. Part two next time: All the stuff I wanted to do this year, and what I actually did.

 

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.