Guinness clone brew & color extraction
Dave Adams
A few days ago I brewed what I hoped to be a nice, dry, Irish stout.
In a nutshell:
65% pale malt
25% flaked barley
10% Roasted Barley
2 oz. E.K.G whole hops (6% A.A)
I missed my strike temp by quite a bit (too low) so I added more hot
water to the mash to heat it up to around 152 f. resulting in a quite
thin mash, but I didn't think it would matter that much.
Today I took a small sample from the fermenter, and it doesn't appear
to be near black enough.... More like brown mud. I'm hoping that it
will look darker when all the yeast settles out, but I rather doubt
it. The beer tasted ok, but a bit thin in mouthfeel, (probably due
to the low mash temp at first?)
I've seen this same basic recipie posted all over the place, and in
several books. Are there any tricks to getting that nice, ruby-black
Guinness color out of this grain bill? Or do I need to add more
roasted barley or add some black malt. (I read that Guinness only
uses roasted barley, raw barley, and pale malt)
TIA
Dave
Chris Mikkelson
Dave Adams <Dave...@NoSPAMsonic.net> wrote:
>
>A few days ago I brewed what I hoped to be a nice, dry, Irish stout.
>
>In a nutshell:
>
>65% pale malt
>25% flaked barley
>10% Roasted Barley
>2 oz. E.K.G whole hops (6% A.A)
>
>I missed my strike temp by quite a bit (too low) so I added more hot
>water to the mash to heat it up to around 152 f. resulting in a quite
>thin mash, but I didn't think it would matter that much.
>
>Today I took a small sample from the fermenter, and it doesn't appear
>to be near black enough.... More like brown mud.
If it was dark brown yeasty mud, you're probably OK.
I've noticed that even stouts look somewhat translucent
in a hydrometer flask, unless they're overloaded on
the dark malts.
Also, I think the overall amount of roasted barley
determines the color more so than percentage or mash
thickness. For a five gallon batch, 12 oz is a good
amount of roasted barley, and a full pound will make
a jet-black but somewhat one-dimensional stout.
Note that this applies to British maltsters' roasted
barlies. Briess's roasted barley is a different
product, and much lighter in color. Their "black
barley" is more like regular roasted barley. I don't
know if any other maltsters do this.
--
Chris Mikkelson | Slashdot: because a million lemmings can't
ch...@mikk.net | be wrong.
Dave Adams
wrote:
>Note that this applies to British maltsters' roasted
>barlies. Briess's roasted barley is a different
>product, and much lighter in color. Their "black
>barley" is more like regular roasted barley. I don't
>know if any other maltsters do this.
Hmmm, that might be the problem. I'm sure that what I'm using is an
American roasted barley, not sure of the brand, though. It's what my
LHBS sells. (Oak Barrel Berkeley, CA) Next time I'm in there I'll ask
them what brand it is. The malt did look quite black, though.
Thanks
bregent
>
>
>A few days ago I brewed what I hoped to be a nice, dry, Irish stout.
>
>In a nutshell:
>
>65% pale malt
>25% flaked barley
>10% Roasted Barley
>2 oz. E.K.G whole hops (6% A.A)
>
>I missed my strike temp by quite a bit (too low) so I added more hot
>water to the mash to heat it up to around 152 f. resulting in a quite
>thin mash, but I didn't think it would matter that much.
Shouldn't make much difference.
>Today I took a small sample from the fermenter, and it doesn't appear
>to be near black enough.... More like brown mud. I'm hoping that it
>will look darker when all the yeast settles out, but I rather doubt
>it. The beer tasted ok, but a bit thin in mouthfeel, (probably due
>to the low mash temp at first?)
If it's supposed to be a Guiness Draft clone, then it should taste thin. Draft
Guinness has a very low OG - What was yours?
This looks like a decent dry stout recipe, but not a Guinness clone.
>I've seen this same basic recipie posted all over the place, and in
>several books. Are there any tricks to getting that nice, ruby-black
>Guinness color out of this grain bill? Or do I need to add more
>roasted barley or add some black malt. (I read that Guinness only
>uses roasted barley, raw barley, and pale malt)
Did you use a British roasted barley or domestic? That could make a big
difference. British roasts like Crisp are about 700L, while domestic like Briess
is only 350-400.
Dave Adams
wrote:
>If it's supposed to be a Guiness Draft clone, then it should taste thin. Draft
>Guinness has a very low OG - What was yours?
OG was 1.039
>
>This looks like a decent dry stout recipe, but not a Guinness clone.
I know, I left out the souring.... either adding soured beer, sour
mashing, or adding lactic acid to sour. I thought I'd experiment.
Any suggestions for a Guinness clone ??
danno
barley. I did use English Roasted Barley and agree that the color isn't
quite black. I find at 10%, it's not quite roasty enough either. I'm going
to try 15% next time. I'll probably up the flaked barley to 15% also. As
Bregent noted, it should be a thin beer at an OG of 1.040. Look for flavor
more than body.
Burp,
-Dan
"Dave Adams" <Dave...@NoSPAMsonic.net> wrote in message
news:hctgt0dsf5ul9ule0...@4ax.com...
Chris Mikkelson
Draft Guinness doesn't have much of the sour twang
to my taste buds. I taste that more in the "extra
stout", but if it's in draft, it's below my taste
threshold.
I have also gotten flavors close to a Guinness twang
with a generous dose of Goldings, 4 oz. in 5 gallons.
Not all of the character boiled out, and the mildly
orangey/spicy character worked with a bit of yeast
tartness (I used Danstar Nottingham) to approximate
the fabled twang surprisingly well.
I keep meaning to get more into the sour beers (I
have a batch of lambic in the basement that needs
some company), and I'll probably devote a bucket to
a Brett-infected/inoculated strong stout for blending
if I do. It would be cool to do something like Jeff
Renner's Solera ale with this. The "lots-o-goldings"
approach is far simpler, though :-)
--
Chris Mikkelson | It has been said that man is a rational animal.
ch...@mikk.net | All my life I have been searching for evidence
| which could support this. -- Bertrand Russell
Rodd Snook
As Chris points out, there is more than one Guinness. To really confuse
matters, the same beers are given different names in different markets,
and a lot of them are brewed under license by local breweries.
In general, however, draught Gunness is not a sour beer. It is quite a
fresh beer and has a smooth grainy taste with not too much roastiness and
a deep ruby red colour. Your O.G. of 1.039 is about right, and will give a
light-bodied beer (not the meal-in-a-glass that some people thing Guinness
is). Remember, it's drunk by the (Imperial) pint by men, women, and (most
likely) children all over Ireland as an everyday session beer.
The sour stuff is the "Foreign Export" variety, which comes in bottles.
This beer (or at least a portion of it) is aged in big old wooden tanks at
St James Gate which have a unique and diverse bacterial culture living in
them. This beer is also a lot higher in O.G. and, from memory (I haven't
had one in a while) a slight brown tint. This is also the version that
varies most in its brewed-under-license incarnation. The stuff made by
Carlton (Fosters Group) here in .au is 6% ABV, but they make one in
Africa (Zimbabwe?) that's even stronger -- somewhere around 8-9% IIRC.
> Any suggestions for a Guinness clone ??
Personally, I haven't had a lot of success in this pursuit. I think my
main problem is a lack of temperature control. The Irish yeasts like it
cold, or they throw far too many esters. Guinness is not a fruity beer.
I'd go with the driest, most neutral yeast you can find. If you want to
use an "Irish Ale" variety, I think the White Labs is closer than the
Wyeast.
Then, find the blackest roast barley you can find. As you've
noted, you really want the colour to be the deepest red, but you don't
want to have to put in so much roast that the beer tastes like coffee. I
think the 10% roast you used is a good amount.
Your 25% flaked barley seems like a lot, but its effect on the finished
beer will be a lot more subtle than any of the other factors, so feel free
to twiddle it generously in either direction to get the right balance of
maltiness, mouthfeel and head retention.
If you want to be authentic, hop with Target and Challenger. Your EKG
should be fine, but might leave a little hop character in the finished
beer. Personally, I like this, and often add a small dose (1/4-1/3 oz) of
finishing hops to my stout, but it's not really there in commercial
Guinness.
Lots of stout gets brewed, and it is often labeled as an "easy" style
because the colour and strong roast flavour mask a lot of flaws. This
might be true of the "sledge hammer" stouts that are brewed using every
type of roasted grain available, with some liquorice and coffee beans
thrown in for good measure, but I think brewing an excellent light-bodied
session stout is quite a challenge. It's certainly something that I
haven't achieved to my satisfaction yet.
Good luck, and happy brewing.
Rodd
Blonde Bear
"Dave Adams" <Dave...@NoSPAMsonic.net> wrote in message
I do 70/20/10 stout and bitter it with Northern Brewer and ferment it with
WPL004. Most recently I put in the roast during the last ten minutes of the
mash. I was concerned it wouldn't get dark enough but it did. Low Temp
shouldn't hurt a stout if you want a dry stout. Also a brew with that much
flaked barley in it should not taste thin or at least won't when it has CO2
in it. I am thinking that your beer will be dark enough and thick enough
when you get it into a glass. I tend to loudly announce that every beer is
ruined when it's in the fermenter. Wait and see. I bet your ok.
JPullum127
that damned canadian stuff is all thats available in nebr now. very inferior to
the irish. i've never had a chance to try the true foreign extra stout.
Dave Adams
Well, the results are in.... and it's like I figured, only not as
bad.
The beer actually came out quite good. Darker than I originally
thought, but not quite Guinness black. Rather a dark brown which is
just a bit transparent when held up to the light.
The flavor is pretty good, a bit lighter than Guinness both in
mouthfeel and flavor. It has a nice roasty flavor and smooth
bitterness. Everybody likes it, even some people who don't like
Guinness Draught. I like it too, but I want to tweak it a bit to get
it closer. It's just a bit light on flavor for me.
I'm brewing another batch of it today, with Munton's roasted barley
instead of the generic stuff from my LHBS. (Much darker looking roast)
A little more pale malt for a slightly higher OG this time (1.42 vs.
1.039). Maybe adding a little cara-pils for more body.
I'll let y'all know how it turns out.
Dave