As you may recall from previous posts, our first attempt at a stout was also the first legitimately good beer we brewed. While there was definitely room for improvement, we didn't want to mess with the original recipe too much, fearing that we might actually make it worse. We really liked the hop profile from before, so decided to stick with an ounce and a half of Northern Brewer hops. We wanted to up the overall roastiness though, and so upped the amount of roasted barley slightly. To add a little more complexity, we put in a little chocolate malt as well. The body was great last time, so we stuck with the same amount and type of oatmeal.
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| Worst scale ever, but the hops are fantastic! |
Tweaking the previous recipe was fairly easy with Beersmith, and in our usual fashion we took the ABV, colour and IBUs to the upper limits set for an oatmeal stout. For anyone who is into making their own recipes, we highly recommend Beersmith. We might not be using the program to its fullest, but it has been fairly straightforward to use for coming up with recipes. It's free to try the software for 21 days, which provides ample time to play with it and decide if it works for you. Another option for recipe creation we've found is Beer Calculus, which is also easy to use.
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| I promise you, it's roasted barley and not mouse turds |
Anyway, mashing has finished and we're now on to the lautering phase. It really is amazing how much colour can come from what seems like such a small amount of roasted barley in comparison to the two row base. In order to make sure the colour was right, we decided we should compare it with a few pints of the first batch of stout. Now that they're poured, I guess we have no choice but to drink them. Oh well, it's almost noon in Newfoundland, and that's good enough for me!
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