Wedding Small Stout

So, Abby and I are getting married, and I thought that a batch of homebrew would be great for the reception.    I wanted to do something more on the malty end, because I know several of the attendees are not big fans of hops.   So I arrived at a dry stout, because it's a fairly accessible style, and I could put in some extra stuff that would complement those flavors nicely.   I got the base recipe from Brewing Classic Styles, and then slightly modified the grain bill, because too much of the black barley will make a beer taste like an ashtray, and I added a little Victory malt to my recipe, to add some toasty, biscuity flavors that the extract wouldn't have.

Originally, I was thinking that I could do an extract  batch and save myself a couple of hours.  This seemed like a good idea, because we've got so much going on with moving and combining households and such.   I looked into cold steeping the roasted grain the night before brewing, which seemed like it would work nicely.  Then I realized that the flaked barley really needed to be mashed to extract all the good stuff from it, so I would have to at least do a partial mash.   At that point, I decided that I may as well do a full-on all-grain batch.

I found a bucket of Maris Otter pale malt in the basement, which I hadn't realised that I had, so that was settled.   I removed the Victory malt from the recipe, because this base malt has some nice flavors to it (aside from it probably getting lost in the other flavors).    I spotted the cherry syrup that was left over from a couple of other brews, and decided to add that, to make mine a little more unique, and get rid of the bottle.

Friday rolled around and I skipped out of work a little early and got going.   There were a few problems along the way.   I overheated both the strike water and the sparge water.  I also forgot which direction I needed to hook things up with the pump, so I spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out why the sweet liquor wouldn't flow when the pump was on, but would when it was off.   Other than those relatively small things, and a swarm of mosquitoes, things went pretty smoothly, though.

My current plan is to rack this into a keg in a couple of weeks, and add the oak cubes from Old Funkulator (an old ale with a bunch of Brett. Lambicus added, which has been warm aging for 7 months).   I'll let it sit warm after that, and hopefully the brett will have just enough time to add some interestingness to the stout before it's time to drink it.


Wedding Small Stout

Batch Size (Gal): 5.5
Total Grain (Lbs): 9.00
Adjunct Sugar (Lbs): 1.00
Anticipated OG: 1.047
Anticipated SRM: 36.9
Anticipated IBU: 29.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time (min): 70

Grain
60.0% -- 6.00 lbs. Maris Otter
20.0% -- 2.00 lbs. Flaked Barley
5.0% -- 0.50 lbs. Roasted Barley
5.0% -- 0.50 lbs. Black Barley

Sugar
10.0% -- 1.00 lbs. Fruit Fast Montmorency Tart Cherry Concentrate

Hops
1.25 oz Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 5.20% AA) 60 min.

Yeast
Lallemand (Danstar) Nottingham (rehydrated in 90F distilled water)

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight
1/8 teaspoon Calcium Carbonate
1/4 teaspoon Calcium Chloride 

Mash Schedule
Sacch. Rest: 60 min. @ 156F
Batch Sparge:  15 min. @ 166F

Notes

• Brewed on Friday, September 2, 2011
• Added Roasted Barley and Black Barley before adding the sparge water, to hopefully prevent getting too much astringency from the dark malts.
• Actual OG: 1.048:  volume was a little low.
• Pitched yeast slurry at ~11AM Saturday, September 3, 2011, wort was at 56F.   Capped with foil.
• Monday, September 5, 2011 @8AM, still no activity.   Wort is now at 58F.  I'm guessing that the cold shocked the yeast, at this point.   I'll probably stir the wort up a little bit if I don't see any activity by this afternoon.
• Monday, September 5, 2011 @11AM, finally some kraeusen starting to form.  59F.
• Tuesday, September 6, 2011 @8AM, 54F:   should have backed off on the ice additions to the cooler.
• Wednesday, September 7, 2011 @7AM, 60F: perfect.   Added less ice back, to counter the temperature rise that the yeast are trying to make happen.
• Wednesday, September 7, 2011 @4:30PM, 62F.   Replaced ice.
• Thursday, September 8, 2011 @8AM, 61F.   Replaced ice.
• Thursday, September 8, 2011 @7PM, 62F.  Measured 1.020, so I decided to stop switching out the ice packs and just let it slowly rise.
• Saturday, September 10, 2011 @2PM, 64F, most activity appears to have stopped.