02/15/2009: "Brewblogue: Guruguru Stout"

Listening to: The Black Mages II - The Skies Above
Current mood: cheerful

Water: Filtered San Diego tap
Grain:

7.5lb British Pale
0.40lb Black Malt 1
0.33lb Crystal 40
0.33lb Crystal 80
0.25lb Chocolate Malt

Yeast: WLP004 - Yeast cake from Irish Red
Hops: 50g Styrian Golding @ 60min

Mashed at 152 for 60 minutes. Boiled 70 minutes.

OG: 1.071

1 - This was a bit of a mix up... apparently there's such a thing as black roasted barley that's 500srm, which my recipe called for, as well as the standard black patent which is also 500srm, but is malted. Not realizing this, I got black patent (all the while thinking a stout without roasted barley was odd). So this may, in fact, qualify as a porter rather than a stout. Though at that level of roast, I don't know how major the difference in flavor will be.

Two beers in two weeks. Craziness, no? But it's actually in the 60s in our apartment, and I've got to take advantage. My usual fermentation temperature of 75-80 is less than ideal. If the weather keeps cool I might even brew again in early March... we'll see. It'd be nice to have a good stockpile of beer through the warmer months.

So, I said that the last beer I did was perhaps the easiest brew session I've had. This one was easier. In fact I pretty much just spent the day the listening to The Magnetic Fields (since it was Valentine's Day, they seemed apropos) and reading a manga I was in the middle of and just got up here and there to tend to whatever the beer needed and didn't really notice the whole brewing process. And as brewing tradition dictates that one should drink while brewing, once I had a can of Old Chub, I really didn't notice what was going on. And this time I landed absolutely dead on where my gravity was supposed to be. I love it when that happens. Tasty wort too... I have a good feeling about this one.

As far as the Dojibiron Red, I'm not so convinced that it's going to turn out that great. What I didn't consider was that when I diluted from a 3 gallon batch to a 4 gallon batch was that it was hopped for 3 gallons. So when I tasted yesterday when I racked it into the secondary fermentor it was really rather bland. Or rather, it had a nice bit of malty/roasty flavor, but almost no bitterness. I'm hoping that once it drys out a little more (it was still at 1.020 as of yesterday) and then carbonates, what little bitterness there is will come out a bit more. Otherwise, I guess I can always just tell people it's a mild or something.

Replies: 3 Comments

d00d, why are you measuring hops in grams and not oz?

[Zac] on Monday, February 23rd

Hey, you're not dead... that's good. Anyway, it's mainly because my scale only does oz to the nearest 1/4 oz, so grams is way more precise.

[5c11] on Monday, February 23rd

Yeah, not dead. Actually brewing again now that we've moved into a duplex in Davis vs. a apartment in Rocklin. Just learned that I seriously overhopped my Belgian pale ale. At least it'll have a long shelf life...

[Zac] on Sunday, March 1st