I’ve brewed this bad boy many times, and I love it! My wife is also excited to have some of this, as she loves stouts! It’s been 3 years since I’ve last brewed (11/3/2019), so I’m long overdue!
This classic Charlie Papazian recipe calls for 1lb of quick oats, 4 lbs of 6 row, 1/2 lb crystal malt (I used 60l crystal), 1/2 lb chocolate malt, 1/4 lb roasted barley, 3.3 lbs dark malt extract ( I used a 3lb bag of dry malt as they were out of their 3.3lb liquid malt), 2 oz Willamette hops, Irish moss and Irish style ale yeast. They didn’t have my regular Wyeast 1084 irish ale yeast so I ended up going with a different brand.
So, it’s been so long I decided to clean and sterilize all my equipment. A long bleach soak for all my fermenters and lauder tun and a good washing for my brew pots.
Started with my grains. Got my water up to 150 degrees, then put my grains into a grain bag and dropped them in, bringing the temperature down to 133. Well, that’s the goal. It was a bit higher than that so I added a touch of cold water. Kept the temp there for 30 minutes for the protein rest.
Added 6 quarts of boiling water to bring the temp up to 155 degrees. This took some finesse to keep the temp steady at 155, but I was able to do it. Kept it there for 45 minutes to extract all the yummy goodness!
One point I missed was that I added gypsum to the water before the protein rest. I also added some to the sparge water because it helps with the extraction. Plus the harder water gives it a more authentic Irish feel.
After the 45 minutes brought the temp up to 167 (it actually got higher and I melted my grain bag- oops!) Then i sparged the grains with 2 gallons of 170 degree water. Once done there was still stuff in my grains! I want it all! So another gallon of hot water to get the nummy goodness out of those grains!
I used my larger brew pot to do the boil, plus thanks to my gas stove and large brewpot I used two burners to get the wort up to boiling. Once boiling I added my dark malt extract and my hops which were placed in a hops bag.
After an hour boil I transferred it to my fermenter to cool. Oh, yeah! BEER!!! Can’t WAIT!!!!
10/23/2022- The next morning I aerated the beer and pitched the yeast. Initial gravity was 1.056. Close to what it was the last time I brewed this back in 2010. HOLY CRAP, it’s been that long? My blog doesn’t lie, so I guess it was.
I can’t wait for this beer to be done! I do need to go through my beer bottles and clean those out (and dump some old beer that’s probably not good anymore….)
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