Screwy's Recipe #54 - Chocolate Barley Stout (Steep/Extract)

 The last Barley Stout I brewed back in November was made using DME and steeping grains. In this version of my Chocolate Barley Stout recipe I use Carapils, Crystal 10L, Chocolate and Roasted Barley Malt steeping grains added to a Golden Light DME base. The yeast I picked for this latest brew is Danstar Windsor Dry Ale Yeast and after only 4 or 5 hours both fermenters have very active fermentations going on already.

I know that Carapils and Crystal 10L will both add sweetness to this stout which is then offset by the Kent Golding 60 minute hop boil. I brewed a Chocolate Stout which used only Chocolate malt and it gave a nice full mouthfeel while desperately lacking the smoky goodness of Roasted Barley. This recipe uses all the aforementioned grains and smelled unbelievably awesome while brewing.

Carapils, Crystal 10L, Chocolate and Roasted Barley Malt

I used qBrew's default 'Sweet Stout' style guidelines to crunch the recipe's numbers. You can download the latest qBrew database below and use it to upgrade your current ingredient database. This latest ingredient database includes more yeast, fruits, extracts and other helpful entries then ever before.

 Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database   

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew 
Size 2.13 gallons: Estimated IBU=46, SRM=42, OG=1.071, FG=1.018, ABV=6.8%

1/8 pound Carapils

1/8 pound Crystal 10L

1/4 pound Chocolate Malt (British)

1/2 pound Roasted Barley Malt (British)

3 pounds Muntons DME - Light

1.5 ounces Kent Goldings (UK) pellet hops boiled for 60 minutes

11 grams Danstar Windsor British Ale yeast
Pitched at 70F and fermented at 68F

Directions:

Heat 10.5 quarts of filtered water to 160F
Add grains and steep for 30 minutes between 152-157F

Remove grain bag and add hops then boil wort for 60 minutes
Rehydrate yeast in 90F sterile water with 30 minutes left to boil
Add DME to wort with 15 minutes remaining in the boil
Add 1/8 tab of Whirlfloc with 9 minutes remaining in the boil
Remove from heat and remove hop sack

Use Screwy's Cooler until wort temperature cools to 70F
Pour cooled wort into fermenter keg and pitch yeast  
Ferment at constant 70F temperature for 5 to 7 days
Rack to secondary for 2 to 4 weeks
Cold crash at 34F for 3 to 5 days they rack to keg or bottle

Steep The Grains At Constant 152 To 157F For 30 Minutes

I rehydrated the Windsor yeast in boiled water cooled between 86 and 92 degrees and stirred the mixture occasionally. By the time my wort was chilled to 70F the yeast mixture was the same temperature as the wort and ready to pitch.

Danstar Windsor British Ale Yeast New Packaging

The yeast has only been pitched about 7 hours and the fermentation is furious already. I place the lids of plastic storage bins directly under each Mr. Beer fermenter just in case they kegs decide to overflow they won't ruin the carpeting. I had the same fermentation spillover happen last December when I brewed the Barley Stout recipe for the first time so I had a strong feeling it might happen again this time.

The Next 3 Days Will Require A Lot Of Clean Up

I woke up this morning to a potentially huge mess, luckily the fermenters were on top of drip trays and the spill was contained. I sopped up most of the beer with a washcloth and then got the rest with napkins and paper towels. One of the fermenters is still spitting Co2 and beer but the other one has seemed to calm down now, I must have pitched that one before the other.

The Mess 16 Hours After Pitching The Yeast

Yesterday I racked the Stouts to clean secondary fermenters where they'll sit for another few weeks at least before bottling them. The insides of the primaries were pretty gunked up with stuff produced during the primary fermentation so I figured it won't hurt to get the beer out of there.

After 2 weeks in the secondaries I moved the fermenters to the refrigerator to cold crash for 5 days. The idea is to let the cold temperature help drop out any suspended yeast or trub still remaining in the beer to the bottom of the Mr. Beer kegs before bottling and kegging it up. This step is important because it reduces the amount of gunk that eventually would end up in your glass.

If you've ever washed out a corny keg after killing it you'll know what I mean, even after cold crashing there is a slight layer of trub at the bottom of the keg. I've noticed that the beers I've racked to corny kegs without cold crashing first left a thicker layer of trub on the bottom than those I did take the time to cold crash. 

My final gravity hydrometer reading at room temperature showed the beer fermented out to 1.017 or about a point lower than qBrew had estimated. The beer sample I drank was clear and dark and had that nice roasted Barley taste that came through nicely even without the carbonation being present. I plan on kegging one batch and bottling the other in 12 ounce bottles today and adding 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract per gallon of stout to enhance the chocolate flavors.

I kegged 2.5 gallons of the Chocolate Barley Stout directly to a corny keg adding 2.5 tablespoons of pure vanilla extract to the keg before filling it. I purged the keg with some Co2 before transferring the Stout to it by connecting the gas ball lock to the beer out side of the keg. I filled the keg up to the dark line on the inside of the keg, locked on the lid and hooked the gas up to the gas in and purged it a few times. I'll let it sit with 15 psi for 5 days before 'sampling' it.

I had enough Stout left over to fill 17 long necks after topping off my corny keg. I primed them with a shade more than .5 teaspoon of pure cane sugar and I'll let these carbonate for 3 weeks and condition for another 3 weeks before I start drinking them. I didn't add any vanilla extract the the bottles but at almost 7% alcohol they should be very tasty.

This Chocolate Barley Stout was brewed on April 23 and kegged on May 14th and it was gone by May 29th. I still have about 8 twelve ounce bottles left and I'll drink them too soon enough. The addition of 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract per gallon of stout worked well in bringing out the chocolate flavor in this beer.

The next time I brew this recipe I will add another 1/2 pound of Roasted Barley malt to the recipe to increase the roasty flavors that balance out the chocolate flavors. The Kent Goldings hops worked well in the background for adding enough bitterness so the beer was not overly sweet. For my tastes every Stout should have a strong Roasted Barley backbone and any adjuncts added should work with and not overpower that.

Screwy's Recipe #46 - Chocolate Stout

 The Stout I brewed back in September was the first stout recipe I had ever made using DME and steeping grains and it included 6 different types of steeping grains added to a dark DME base. The yeast I picked for that brew was Safale S-04 dry ale yeast and after sampling before bottling it tasted good and now that all the bottles are gone I really miss it. But although I was already satisfied with the way this stout had turned out I still wanted to try some changes.

Heating 10.5 Quarts Of Filtered Water For The Steep

After reading many posts I found on the Internet about brewers who really enjoyed brewing and drinking Stouts. One post in particular stood out because the brewer seemed to understand what went into the makings of a great tasting stout. An excerpt from Designing Great Beers, the majority of commercial stouts and porters don't mix black patent, roasted barley, and chocolate. It's a "one or the other" thing. The "standard" formulation is one dark grain + crystal malt. Porters are more likely to use chocolate and black malt, but most dry stouts usually use roasted. A lot of good stouts are made with just roasted barley and pale malt.

60 Minute Bittering Hop Boil

 The recipe I'm about to describe is a bit different than this first recipe in that it uses only 3 different types of grains added to a light DME base this time. Both recipes use Kent Golden UK hops but the new recipes doubles the boil time to a total of 60 minutes and it calls for Danstar Windsor British Ale yeast in place of Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast.

Rehydrating Windsor Dry Yeast Makes A Huge Difference

The package of Danstar Windsor Dry Ale yeast I pitched was very fresh and by the looks of how furious the fermentation took off after only 6 or so hours, I probably could have pitched half the packet. By the next morning the fermenter was bubbling away and spilling krausen out of the vents. This was the first time I've used Windsor yeast and from what I've seen of it so far it doesn't deserve the bad press it's been getting on some of the brewing forums.

Furious Fermentation Lasted Nearly 3 Days

I used qBrew's default 'Dry Stout' style guidelines to crunch the recipe's numbers. You can download the latest qBrew database below and use it to upgrade your current ingredient database. This latest ingredient database includes more yeast, fruits, extracts and other helpful entries then ever before.

 Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database   

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew 
Size 2.13 gallons: Estimated IBU=37, SRM=26, OG=1.049, FG=1.012, ABV=4.7%

1/8 pound Carapils 
1/8 pound Crystal 10L
3/8 pound Chocolate Malt (British)
2 pounds Muntons DME - Light

1 ounce Kent Goldings (UK) pellet hops boiled for 60 minutes

11 grams Danstar Windsor British Ale yeast
Pitched at 65F and fermented at 65F

Directions:
Heat 10.5 quarts of filtered water to 160F
Add grains and steep for 30 minutes between 152-157F

Remove grain bag and add hops then boil wort for 60 minutes
Rehydrate yeast in 90F sterile water with 30 minutes left to boil
Add DME to wort with 15 minutes remaining in the boil
Add 1/8 tab of Whirlfloc with 10 minutes remaining in the boil
Remove from heat and remove hop sack

Use Screwy's Cooler until wort temperature cools to 65F
Pour cooled wort into fermenter keg and pitch yeast  
Ferment at constant 65F temperature for 21 days

After fermenting in the primary for 14 days I racked the Chocolate Stout to a clean secondary where I'll let the fermentation complete for another 7 days before kegging it.

Racking Setup Uses Bottling Wand And Locking Spigot

The primary fermenter was loaded with trub and hop debris which I want to keep out of my finished beer. After moving the stout to the secondary fermenter the beer was clear and free of trub and debris. The next step will be moving the secondary from it's 65F fermenting temperature in 7 days to the fridge which is set to 34F for the cold crash just before kegging it.


After racking to the secondary I cleaned out the fermenter used for the primary fermentation before the trub and debris dried out and stuck to the insides. A hard stream of warm running water and a wash rag were enough to remove all the gunk from inside the fermenter. 

Trub And Hop Debris Inside Primary Fermenter

Once the keg looked clean I filled it part way with a solution of One-Step and gave it a few really good shakes and then let it soak for about 15 minutes. After draining out the One-Step I screwed the lid back on the fermenter and stored it away. The next time I go to use it the cleanup and sanitization will be a lot easier, I never put away my fermenters without thoroughly cleaning them first.