Style Of The Week 8/6/10 - American Stout

[O'Henry]

IMO James' could have done with a tad more hop aroma and flavour.

I really feel we should be studying more...

 

[Fourstar]

i wouldnt say its extreme hopping more-so bigger than their traditional counterparts. e.g. a traditional dry stout has no late additions so anything late is going to 'americanise it' if that makes sense?

 

[browndog]

At a brew day some time back I had a selection of American beers courtesy of a workmate. One of them was Obsidian Stout from Deschuetes Brewery. Everyone commented that it was an awesome stout. The hoppiness blended pertectly with the roastyness to produce a very smooth, flavoursome stout. I enjoyed it so much I got the recipe from Jamil's Can you brew it podcast. Turns out that black malt is used for the colour and flavour with only 50g of roast barley used. A good whack of crystal and some carapils round out the malt profile and 3 30g additions of hops prvide bitterness and flavour. The brew is just about ready to CC and is tasting great.

cheers

Browndog

 

[mxd]

I just put this in to a comp as an Foreign Extra Stout, does that look roughly in the right area ?


Recipe: Matts Stout
Brewer: Matt
Asst Brewer:
Style: Foreign Extra Stout
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (10.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Size: 30.49 L
Estimated OG: 1.068 SG
Estimated Color: 37.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 60.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 55.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.00 kg Maris Otter (Crisp) (4.0 SRM) Grain 44.44 %
4.00 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) (3.Grain 44.44 %
0.50 kg Pilsner, Malt Craft Export (Joe White) (1.Grain 5.56 %
0.25 kg Chocolate Malt (Joe White) (381.0 SRM) Grain 2.78 %
0.25 kg Roasted Barley (Joe White) (710.0 SRM) Grain 2.78 %
35.00 gm Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 41.8 IBU
30.00 gm Styrian Goldings [5.40 %] (30 min) Hops 11.4 IBU
15.00 gm Fuggles [4.50 %] (10 min) Hops 2.2 IBU
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
15.00 gm Fuggles [4.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.2 IBU
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU

 

[Fourstar]

I just put this in to a comp as an Foreign Extra Stout, does that look roughly in the right area ?

As a dry version of a foreign, pretty close! Although i would have x2 the dark malt %'s!
If its a tropical version, it would require 7-10% of medium to dark crystals to get the sweet plum/dark fruit notes.

 

[Dazza_devil]

Here's an Extract American Stout that I bottled 19th Dec '09. I still have a dozen stubbies and a tally tucked away conditioning in my beer fridge and it's turning out OK. It was a result of what I had left over of grains and American Hops.

Boagsy's Americano Stout

OG around 1.068
26 litres (27 with the vanilla bean and dex. solution)
3kg Coopers LME
2kg LDME

44g Chocolate Malt
36g Carafa II
212g Roast Barley
80g Caramunich II
70g Carapils
200g Black Malt

25g Simcoe @ 60mins
25g Simcoe @ 30mins
15g Simcoe @ 15 mins
9g Cascade @ 10mins
7g Simcoe @ 10 mins
10g Willamette pellets thrown straight into wort to stay @ flameout

rehyrdated 23g US05 pitched @ 20 degrees C and fermented @ 19 degrees C.

I placed a split and scraped vanilla bean + pulp in a 1 litre/170g dextrose solution boiled it and let it sit over night. Then I boiled it up again, cooled and threw the lot in at around day 3 of fermentation. This is where I thought I had stuffed up with too much vanilla bean and tannins from the pod but it's mellowed out OK. In retrospect I would probably just use the pulp next time but all is well that ends well and it's really quite drinkable, very rich and flavoursome.

FG was around 1.020

I reckon it could be something else in another 6 months or so.

 

[brettprevans]

CM2's US Stout & US Amarillo Stout
Beer profile: Volume: 38L OG1.072 FG: 1.017 IBU 70 ABV: 7%

Ingredients:
12.2kg Ale
820g Black Barley
620g Light Crystal
620g Chocolate malt
good handful of Rye
good handful of torrified wheat (or as i keep typing by mistake on AHB via the iphone 'terrified wheat')

35g Amarillo @ First Wort Hop (AA 10% )
28g Amarillo @ 5min,
french press 30g Amarillo post fermentation into half the batch

Water Treatment - 5.2 stabilizer in Mash
Yeast Blend of US05 & Pacman

Mash Profile: 60 min Mash @ 68C. raise to mash and and batch sparge.


Notes
I French pressed 30g of Amarillo and added to keg once carbed. Process was as follows:
- boiled 250ml of water & bought up to almost boil 250ml of fermented Amarillo beer and added hops for 1min steep. drained hop tea and let cool.
- Added another 250ml of boiling water & to almost boil 250ml of fermented Amarillo Stout and let steep for 10min, then drain and let cool.
- Add 1L of hop tea to keg and mix.

Now normally in French pressing you just use water (or so ive read). However hop utilisation is better in wort (yes I know fermented wort is no longer wort its beer), and I didnt want to dilute the beer. So I halved the water and used the finished beer to make up volume. French pressing like this should not only give an extra belt of aroma and flavour but it shouldnt have the grassyness of dry hopping.


Tasting notes
Stock US Stout (no french press)
Black as midnight with hints of mahagony in the daylight. good clarity with light medium tan head.
hints of choc and roast melding well into good strong stout flavours coming through with a very mild citrus bitterness.
Thick and full mouthfeel and body. Pleasant lingering bitterness

Stock US Stout & french press)
as above but with a wonderful citrus twist


Special notes and why I brewed it.
I wanted to brew a double batch of this recipe and play with it. Keeping half the batch within BJCP guidelines with a slightly unusual hop for a stout that was good for competitions and to compare with any experiments I did with the other have a batch. I ummd and arghd about which keg to present at the Melbourne Brewers Club Dinner. The BJCP or Experiment keg. The experiment keg won out. I would recommend brewing a few batches like this (ie double batch, leave one to style and play with one). It provides a great way to compare beers.

The base recipe (without French pressing) is a great stock US Stout in my opinion. There are so many tweaks a brewer could make to this beer to deliver a different tasting beer every time. Im a fan of big dark beers, especially stouts, but wanted to try something slightly different.

will have to see that the attendees of the club dinner think about the experiment keg and report back

 

[Stuster]

That looks really nice, CM. :icon_drool2:

Interesting french press technique there and seems that it worked in not getting any grassiness in there. I've never tried french pressing for some reason but feel inspired now.

 

[brettprevans]

That looks really nice, CM. :icon_drool2:

Interesting french press technique there and seems that it worked in not getting any grassiness in there. I've never tried french pressing for some reason but feel inspired now.

well i guess its an experiment of the french press technique using beer rather than just hot water. I have to sya, that the beer wasnt as hot as i would have liked it to be as i didnt want to destroy any beer flavour that it already had or produce any off flavours. if i had have had some %alc to play with, I might have just used water. i guess we will see what the club thinks

only issue i encoutered was the other night after i tapped the keg to pour off any yeast/trub from the keg. the keg leaked a little and I lost a few litres, so only about 16-7L left i think


Im really happy with the stock beer to be honest. I dont think its needs the extra amarillo if you just wanted a good drinking stout. its thick and lucious and relatively simple without being lackluster or 1 dimentional.

 

[hillbillybreweries]

In days of old most of us used to do a couple of brews per dinner beer to make sure the beer was outstanding quality. If there were faults you would never hear the end of it. Personally I don't mind American stout and have been happy drinking Sierra Nevada and also like the very basic recipe in the classic beer styles stout book. I know some other examples are much more over the top than those. Not many of our club members seem to have brewed them in the past. Be interesting to see how this years beers stack up and look forward to trying your stout in a few hours.

 

[brettprevans]

In days of old most of us used to do a couple of brews per dinner beer to make sure the beer was outstanding quality. If there were faults you would never hear the end of it. Personally I don't mind American stout and have been happy drinking Sierra Nevada and also like the very basic recipe in the classic beer styles stout book. I know some other examples are much more over the top than those. Not many of our club members seem to have brewed them in the past. Be interesting to see how this years beers stack up and look forward to trying your stout in a few hours.

Had I had time to test the beer I woulf have. But as I only volunteered to lut somethi.g in as there werent enough beers, u guys get what u get. Also if time had of permitted I would have french pressed earlyier than tuesday. there was a lot of fresh hop resin in the beer last night. But the kwg was finished so it cabt have been too bad!

So interesting to see how differant the beer was to tbe stock one. It was a completely differant beer.
I got some good feedback last night. hope u enjoyed it.

 

[brettprevans]

another report back on this beer. the keg that i didnt french press still has some left. its drinking beautifully!!! such a great recipe. planning on doing another batch and having another play with diff hops or something else.

 

[kyleg]

Here's one courtesy of JamesL (with his permission). He won the "people's choice award" with this beer (with an overwhelming 24 out of possible 27 points) at the recent West Coast Brewers American Ales competition.

I can vouch for it being a brilliant rich and well balanced beer with a smooth chocolatey roast character and discernable American hopping (think choc orange) and bitterness.

The judges thought it could do with more hops... but they'd just judged AIPA.

American Stout:

Batch Size: 30L
Boil Size: 36L
Brewhouse efficiency: 73%

Recipe:
6.00kg Baudin Pale Malt
0.80kg Munich Malt (joe white)
0.34kg Crystal 40L (joe white)
0.34kg Chocolate malt (jow white)
0.25kg roast barley (joe white)
0.20kg roast malt wheat (jow white)

66gm Horizon hops 11.3%aa 60mins
20gm cascade hops 8.0% aa 5 mins
20gm centennial hops 9.4% aa 5 mins

Alc: 5.8%
OG: 1060
FG: 1016
IBUs: 60.9
colour 86.3 EBCs

Mash temp 68C
30 min Sac rest
Safale US04 yeast used.
fermented at 16C

Thanks James!

By 30 min sac rest, are you saying only a 30 min saccharification rest? I.e a 30 min mash?

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Just when I was thinking of brewing either a true American Stout, or possibly repitching some Belgian Ale yeast (after brewing a Belgian Blond that I'm about 3 weeks overdue on) onto an American Stout wort to make Jean Claude Van Damn-stout.

Glad for these recipes, they'll give me some inspiration.

 

[cremmerson]

I'm still trying to recreate the Southwark Old Stout. First try gave me something approaching an Imperial, so will keep going to get caramel, roast, toffee flavours with low bitterness and long palate.

 

[///]

Alesmith Speedway stout is killer - tough gig having a pint and trying to drive afterwards ....

http://alesmith.com/beers/speedway-stout/

It's a RIS, but like all their beers worth it.

 

[Phoney]

With winter just a week away and all 4 kegs of mine full, I figure now is a good time to put down a big ass stout for the long cold months ahead. So with that in mind, I'm thinking an American stout, slipping into the territory of a RIS & BIPA.
I've read dozens of recipes and all the guidelines and here's what I've come up with so far:


21L batch
OG 1.080
IBU 75
ABV 8.1%

6.26kg Pale Malt 80%
450g medium crystal 5.8%
380g Roast Barley 4.8%
380g Chocolate 4.8%
150g TF Black Malt 1.9%
200g Oats 2.6%

40g Apollo 17% AA @ 60
20g Amarillo 8% @ 10
20g Centennial 10% @ 0

Wyeast 1272 American Ale II


The plan is to keg 9L to enjoy right away, and keg another 9L to age on bourbon barrel chips for 3+ months. More on that later.

 

[Snow]

Gotta love this website! Looking to brew a stout for our upcomming club minicomp and realised I had never brewed an American Stout! "hey" I said to myself, ""have a look at what the crew say on AHB about this curious style". Nekminit... I be brewing a Snow version of American Stout. And here it is:

​

Batch Size: 25.00 L
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
4.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) (3.0 SRM) Grain 51.15 %
2.00 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM) Grain 25.58 % 0.70 kg Oats, Simpsons Naked Golden (1.0 SRM) Grain 8.95 %
0.50 kg Carafa II (Weyermann) (415.0 SRM) Grain 6.39 %
0.50 kg Crystal Malt - 60L (Thomas Fawcett) (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.39 %
0.12 kg Roasted Barley (Joe White) (710.0 SRM) Grain 1.53 %
30.00 gm Magnum [14.70 %] (60 min) Hops 38.4 IBU
30.00 gm Simcoe [11.70 %] (10 min) Hops 11.1 IBU
30.00 gm Cascade [7.40 %] (5 min) Hops 3.9 IBU
30.00 gm Centennial [9.20 %] (5 min) Hops 4.8 IBU
1.00 items Sodium Metabisulphite (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs American Ale (Craftbrewer) Yeast-Ale
Measured Original Gravity: 1.067 SG
Bitterness: 58.2 IBU
Mash: 68C

Farkin smelled awesome this arvo.

Update in a few weeks.......

Cheers -Snow,