The “Layout” Stout

Whew, quite a week.  Sorry it took me so long to update.  So, on Sunday I brewed the Layout Stout.  The recipe which I finalized was:

Malts:

• 7 lbs Breiss Maris Otter
• 2.5 lbs Flaked Barley
• 1.5 lbs Roasted Barley
• .75 lbs Chocolate Malt
• 4 oz Black Patent Malt

Hops:

• Bittering: 1 oz Chinook (AAU = %11)
• Aroma: 1 oz Fuggles (AAU = %4)

Mashing:

1. Dough in 12 lbs malt with 12 quarts (3 gallons) at 133°F.
2. Protein Rest at 132°F for 60 minutes.  Strained in 7.5 quarts at 210°F to reach 153°F .
3. Saccharide Rest at 154°F for 60 minutes.
4. Ran the vorlauf with about 1/2 quart jug about 20 times.
5. Sparged with 11 quarts at 200°F, bringing final temperature to 170°F.
6. Double run off that took about 35 minutes.

• Had a stuck sparge at this point.  I had to manually blow the manifold clean.  Messy process…

Boil:

1. Brought about 6.75 gallons to a rolling boil.
2. Added Chinook hops at minute 1.
3. Added Fuggles hops at minute 50.
4. At 60 minutes, began to bring the wort down in temperature with wort chiller.
5. Original Gravity = 1.062 ~ 15° Plato  (that makes my overall brewhouse efficiency 72%, shooting for 75% )
6. I pitched my Dry Yeast 05 at 74°F
7. Used a blow off tube to avoid another Irish Red incident.
8. Fermenting for 3 weeks at 65°F
9. Added my Airlock at about 40 hours after high krausen.

For this session I decided to go with Star San for the first time.  The no rinse factor made cleaning a whole bunch easier.  Very happy with results.  I also wanted to use WhirlFloc tablets for this project but was busy dealing with a clogged sink during the boil (I had some grist that didn’t want to go down the sink. )  Because the stout is so dark I am not very worried about clearness in this brew.  If I decide to do a pale ale this weekend that will be a major part of my recipe for sure.

My next project will be to make a stir plate for yeast propagation.  Seems like a pretty simple process, should be a fun Sunday DIY project if I do not decide to make a quick extract Pale Ale to play with some specialty malts.

Next update will be about my stir plate project, the pale ale recipe, and a possible “Waka-Weizen” recipe.

Cheers all,

Trev.