Quickstart Guide to Brewing Stout
Deep Shaft Stout
- Actual Og
- 1.079
- Actual Fg
- 1.022
- Actual ABV
- 7.48%
Stout Style Profile
One of the worlds most famous and favourite beer styles.
The body is black and threatening and the head just looks desirable.
There are four sub-categories of stout, though you can cross the boundaries here as stout is a very forgiving style to homebrew:
Classic or Dry Stout - Think Guiness, Murphys or Beamish
Sweet Stout - Sweeter than other stouts and sometimes made with lactose and/or oatmeal
Foreign / Imperial Stout - Similar balance to a Dry stout but stronger - upward of 6%
Russian Imperial / Export Stout - Strong, rich and luxuriant. Aged and wine like alcohol make this is a special treat.
Ingredients you will use
Fermentables
3.00 Kilograms of Lager/Pale Dry Malt (DME)10.00 Grams of Irish Moss
226.00 Grams of Flaked Oats
226.00 Grams of Wheat DME
500.00 Grams of Roast Barley
Hops
85 Grams of Fuggles (5.10%) for 60 minutes16 Grams of East Kent Golding (6.00%) for 15 minutes
Yeast
Safale S-04 English AleTweaks
With all stouts the options are endless.With this recipe you could omit the Wheat DME which will should you a fuller bodied beer. Or add another dark grain e.g. Chocolate malt. You could even add extras into the fermenter after fermentation is finished like Coffee, Chocolate extract or a Vanilla Bean.
Understanding Brewing Numbers
The numbers on left tell us a lot about the beer recipe we are about to brew:
Actual OGThis is the measured Original Gravity of the finished beer. This number indicates how much of the fermentable ingredients were disolved in the wort before fermentation.
Actual FGThis is the measured Final Gravity of the finished beer. This number indicates how much non-fermentable material remains disolved in the wort after fermentation. In taste terms you can think of this as the body i.e. whether a beer tastes thick or thin.
ABV%Alchol By Volume (ABV) is derived from the difference in the OG and FG i.e. this indicates how much sugar was consumed by the yeast and turned into alcohol.
Brewing Process
Heat some water into your brew pot (use a kettle to speed it up) to about 71C. I usually half fill my brew pot so approximately 7L.Put the speciality grains into a grain bag and place it in the brew pot – give it a dunk and a swirl like a tea back then cover pot and, optionally, insulate it with some towels (I don't bother).
After 20 minutes remove the bag and hold it over the pot in a sieve or a colander, and pour over more 71C water to get as much flavour and colour from the grains as you can. I use 2 kettles of 1.7L.
Now bring it to the boil and start adding your hop additions. Note that recipes quote hop additions in how many minutes they will boil for, so a 60 minute addition will usually be the first addition for a 60 minute boil recipe, and a 15 minute addition will be made 15 minutes before the end. Some folks find that confusing and get it wrong by making the 60 minute addition at the end.
You can add the malt extract at any time in the boil, but be sure to boil it for sanitisation (e.g. dust on the can/package). Adding it late will reduce browning and increase hop utilisation (by lowering boil gravity), but reduces the wort temperature and stops your boil.
Cool the wort in an ice bath. It's usually easier and faster to cool the wort in the pot you boiled it in, in a sink of ice just because you have a sink close your stove and you can replace the ice easily. Otherwise you can top up the fermenter with cold water now, and wait for the whole wort to cool down, in an ice bath if possible.
Pour wort into the fermenter, and add water to hit 20L
I use a garden hose to top up my wort! Just be sure to run off the stale water that's been sitting in the hose first. So far Sydney water hasn't let me down!
Record your OG using a hydrometer and update your brewday here on HopWort.
(sample pic)Pitch yeast and ferment in a cool place, ideally at a constant 18C for this yeast in this recipe. This will reduce the amount flavours the yeast produces highlighting the hop flavours more.