Guinness Foreign Extra Stout

[welly2]

Was just looking on Wikipedia about Guinness FES as I'm partial to a bottle or two. They have a description of the recipe that looks like:

"The Irish version of FES is brewed with pale malt, 25 per cent flaked barley (for head retention and body) and 10 per cent roasted barley, the latter being what gives the beer its dark hue. It uses the bitter Galena, Nugget and Target hop varieties. There are about a third more hops than in Guinness Draught and the beer has 47 Bitterness Units. The beer is force carbonated."

Seems pretty simple, although there's no reason why it shouldn't be. However, sticking those figures into Beersmith shows it's colour perhaps isn't quite dark enough and it comes in at 60 EBC rather than the minimum 100 EBC going by the Foreign Stout style guide. Not that that should determine the recipe exactly.

So, have put this recipe together:


5.2 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) 65.0 %
2 kg Barley, Flaked (3.3 EBC) 25.0 %
0.8 kg Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) 10.0 %
24.00 g Galena [12.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 23.2 IBUs
24.00 g Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 5 14.6 IBUs
30.00 g Target [11.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 6 9.3 IBUs

1.0 pkg Irish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1084)


Comes in at 7.5% for a 23L batch.



Any thoughts? The wikipedia entry isn't necessarily accurate, despite it using external links (which could easily be wrong). But if nothing else, it could be pretty tasty even if it tastes nothing like Guinness FES. I might just make it.

 

[butisitart]

i know roast barley is supposed to max at 10%, but i usually throw the whole kilo in and it comes out at 11 or 12%. gives that irish bite without overpowering.
it takes a little longer conditioning, but for mine, it's worth it.
can't comment on your hop selection cos i've never even used galena or nugget.
my take is usually galaxy or similar for the big ibu, then goldings to smooth it out, with galaxy and goldings @60, then some goldings @ 10-15 mins.
you're on the money with the grains though - irish stout is fantastic with the simple 3 grain mash.
a variation is 1kg flaked barley and 500g carapils, but haven't tried the 2kg flaked. (giving me ideas here)

the other thing is to reduce your carbonating dextrose to about 100g for 23L. otherwise it gets pretty gassy at the 3-4 month conditioning.

 

[Blind Dog]

Guiness add soured beer to both Dublin and UK brewed standard Guiness and FES. You'll get close without it, but it won't be the same. AFAIK, outside those markets both are made either witha liquid gloop or extract added to a pale beer (and taste like shit). All the bottled FES I've seen here is brewed in Dublin, but it's a very occassional drink for me, so maybe that's irrelevant

 

[welly2]

i know roast barley is supposed to max at 10%, but i usually throw the whole kilo in and it comes out at 11 or 12%. gives that irish bite without overpowering.
it takes a little longer conditioning, but for mine, it's worth it.
can't comment on your hop selection cos i've never even used galena or nugget.
my take is usually galaxy or similar for the big ibu, then goldings to smooth it out, with galaxy and goldings @60, then some goldings @ 10-15 mins.
you're on the money with the grains though - irish stout is fantastic with the simple 3 grain mash.
a variation is 1kg flaked barley and 500g carapils, but haven't tried the 2kg flaked. (giving me ideas here)

the other thing is to reduce your carbonating dextrose to about 100g for 23L. otherwise it gets pretty gassy at the 3-4 month conditioning.

Never used any of those hops either! I'm just going from what wikipedia says Which could well be wrong! I might do a bit more research before committing to those hops although the seem to be appropriate for the style at least, but just a bit too recent a hop - Galena is from 1972, Nugget from 1982 and Target from 1992 as well. Guinness FES is years and years old. That's not to say they haven't changed their hops.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

BYO has a recipe for Guinness Foreign Extra stout, I would say it is one of the more complicated recipes to make if you are going to make it properly, I will look it up and post it, meanwhile here is another recipe from BYO
https://byo.com/stout/item/2184-guinness-foreign-extra-stout-clone

BD is correct about adding the sour beer, I don't know about getting it over here though I have never seen it and have asked about it often enough.

 

[Bribie G]

An interesting book for Guinness aficionados is "Guinness, the 250 year quest for the Perfect Pint" by Bill Yenne, who lived in one of the residential apartments that are actually built into the St James' Gate brewery in Dublin.

A couple of points: Guinness have long sourced their hops mainly from the USA - I don't think they were Anti Pom as such, they did have brewing interests in the USA so maybe they had a better supply chain. Nowadays they use an extract. The Nugget and Galena sound appropriate. They did have a brewery in London that closed down in 2005 so perhaps they used some Target (a UK bittering hop) in that era.

The "Guinness Flavour Extract" is produced separately and I'd suggest doing yours separately: try doing a separate very hot steep of the roast barley then maybe even leave overnight, and use the whole kilo, then add that whole lot of gloop to the main mash right at the end.

I've found that with separate steeps of darker grains the extraction can be woeful, so by diluting it in with the main mash you should get most of the goodness out.

Also I'd give acidulated malt a go in the main mash with maybe 3% for a hint of a lactic bite. Anything more you are getting into Berlinerweiss territory where Wey recommend 7%.

 

[welly2]

Awesome, thanks Bribie! I'm going to give that a go next brew day. It'll be beer whatever the outcome!

 

[butisitart]

Never used any of those hops either! I'm just going from what wikipedia says Which could well be wrong! I might do a bit more research before committing to those hops although the seem to be appropriate for the style at least, but just a bit too recent a hop - Galena is from 1972, Nugget from 1982 and Target from 1992 as well. Guinness FES is years and years old. That's not to say they haven't changed their hops.

i was actually thinking to try your hops list - you never know until you taste one :beer:

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Guinness Foreign Extra Stout clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.078 FG = 1.019
IBU = 40 SRM = 43 ABV = 7.5%

This recipe has a fairly complex set of instructions, meant to mimic how the commercial beer is made. You can simplify them by just mashing all the grains together, fermenting this wort and omitting the souring step. However, following the full instructions will lead to a better clone -- and you will have an interesting story to tell when you serve it.

Ingredients

13 lbs. (5.9 kg) 2-row pale ale malt
2 lbs. 2 oz. (0.96 kg) flaked barley
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) roasted barley
11.33 AAU Challenger hops (60 mins)
(1.6 oz./46 g of 7% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1084 (Irish Ale) or White Labs WLP004 (Irish Ale) yeast
(2 qt./2 L starter)
2/3 cup corn sugar (for priming)

Step by Step

Brew pale base beer: Mash flaked barley and 11 lbs. (5.0 kg) of pale malt for 60 minutes at 152 °F (67 °C) in 4.1 gallons (15 L) of mash water. Collect about 6 gallons (23 L) of wort and boil for 90 minutes, aiming to end up with 4 gallons (15 L) of wort. Ferment at 68 ºF (20 ºC).

Make stout coloring extract: Mash 2.0 lbs. (0.91 kg) of pale malt and roasted barley at 150 °F (66 °C). Stir in CaCO3 until pH value is between 5.2 and 5.4. Collect 1.5 gallons (5.7 L) of wort. Boil to reduce volume to 1.0 gallon (3.8 L). Cool, aerate and pitch yeast. Ferment at 70 °F (21 °C).

Make "Guinness tang": After pitching the yeast to your pale base beer, siphon 19 oz. (560 mL) of pitched wort to a sanitized 22 oz. (650 mL) bottle. Pitch bottle with a small amount of Brettanomyces. Affix fermentation lock and let ferment. When done, pour sour beer in a saucepan and heat to 160 ºF (71 ºC). Hold at this temperature for 15 minutes. Cool the beer and pour it back in the bottle. Cap bottle and refrigerate. (For best results, ferment bottle at 70-80 ºF (21-27 ºC) for 2-3 months.)

Make stout: Combine pale beer, color extract and sour "tang" beer in keg or bottling bucket.

Without the souring it will taste more like a Guinness Extra Stout.

 

[TheWiggman]

So ferment two separate beers then combine at the end? What's the purpose of that, why not just put the 'colouring extract' in with the main pale base? Not challenging you I understand it's a copypasta, I'm just curious about the purpose.
I think the souring is necessary for both beers personally, they both have a hint of the tang that makes it distinctly Guinness.

 

[Howlingdog]

"meant to mimic how the commercial beer is made"

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Both beers are substantially different in taste, the extra seems to have the bitter roast grain taste than the foreign extra, and the foreign extra a smoother finish, not my recipe but apparently the combination of the 2 gives the foreign extra its taste.