I have brewed an incredibly thick stout before, but came up short on volume… Wanting to brew a full 5 gallon batch of approx. 8% stout, but I want it to be thick as motor oil. Trying to figure this out reminds me of Algebra class :-\ If I boil a normal recipe (based on 60 min. boil), for 2 1/2 hours, I will obviously come up short on volume. If I add more water to account for the extra boil off, I’d think it would just be a “wash”. So how do I get a thicker stout, hit my OG, and hit my targeted volume?
Instead of a boil calculation you may want to look into using maltodextrin and oatmeal. I use oatmeal on a regular basis for my stouts to increase body, but have never used maltodextrin. Others with more experience a chime in, but I believe it can give you the thickness you’re looking for.
Not sure if this is what you are after, but it won many awards over the years…
This is a master homebrewer’s approach to a Russian Imperial Stout.
Thank you guys. After sleeping on this, I’m thinking the solution to what I’m trying to achieve is to just increase the batch size to account for the additional boil off, while still achieving the thickness I’m after.
i remember maltodextrin being used a lot about 10+ years ago. i personally never did, but you should definitely consider it if you want to go all out.
flaked grains probably
keep carbonation down as well, aim for a high-FG though i dont think that inherently a high FG means increased viscosity but its a potential factor.
consider yeasts carefully as I simply find some yeasts create a fuller body sensation and i know there is science to support that.
its a good project
I have always used Flaked Barley in my Imperial Stout. I think it helps give a chewy mouthfeel.
Classic Guinness recipe is 70% pale, 20% flaked, 10% roast
ive had an issue with this one for a while tbh.
i have made several dry stout iterations, and the most recent one i made is NOT a perfect clone, but IMHO is much closer than the near-smokey dry-barky simply BURNT taste of all roast barley, at least from the maltster who does the RB i use.
the beer i made was 7% black malt, 5% RB the rest golden promise with 5% sucrose in an attempt to get it drier (this actually failed since i accid. mashed way too high). note 0% flaked barley, which i would actually amend next time i try this
i dont drink guinness super often, and i mean then next is : what IS guinness now, and what was guinness at different times?
but from all the multiple sources of guinness products ive had i feel like that 10% RB, 20% flaked 70% pale is just a lazy “we solved this a long time ago so dont think about it” homebrewing thing. ive made beers with this grist and they never tasted like guinness, way too assertive, just off in a lot of ways.
next time around id probably do a 149 mash, 8% black, 4% RB (guinness’s roast is so smooth and in the background). 3% flaked barley and the rest some pale malt. as well as trying to figure out the water profile
I have always used flaked barley to increase the mouthfeel in my Imperial Stout, and I recently started using maltodextrine to beef up the body a bit more. It seems to work pretty well for me. I only used 4 ounces in a 5 gallon batch although the manufacturer recommends twice that amount. I will try it with 8 ounces the next time I brew the beer to see if it makes the beer even more chewy.
Carapils also adds body to a beer and I use that as well in my stouts and porters.
Adjusting your mash pH to 5.6-5.8 will help to reduce roast astringency
yes, that is true. at the moment i don’t have a solid thing to add to increase pH though other than baking soda. but again, this is how i have it dialed in on my system and i feel like i am definitely in the zone in regards to macro changes to match a guinness and just need to tweak it.
Pickling lime is your friend. I think it has less flavor impact than Baking Soda. Any farm store will have it in canning section.
Something like this:
ive been looking for pickling lime for a while now (in canada) and cant find it. i want to use it for making candi syrup.
ill look again at some point.
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Pickling lime is your friend. I think it has less flavor impact than Baking Soda. Any farm store will have it in canning section.
Something like this:
[/quote]
+1.
I use pickling lime instead of chalk to raise pH and have cut back on bakinng soda. It does the job for me. You just have to do an acid test on pickling lime every once in a while to make sure that it hasn’t degraded. If it has degraded, it will react with the acid and bubble. If it is still good, nothing will happen.
What type of flavor impact does baking soda have? I use it in almost all of my darker beers. At a rate of 2g-4g. In a 4.7 gallon mash, I don’t detect anything negative. Of course, I’m not sure what I’m looking for.
none whatsoever in the amounts I use
I wanted to report back my findings on this experiment. Pretty neat actually. So, BrewFather would not figure in the wort condensing factor of an extra long boil, regarding gravity (only higher SRM). Naturally, the longer you boil the less volume you will end up with. So what I did was scale up the batch size (not just water, entire batch size) to a 7 gal batch. The end result was very interesting, and now makes total sense.
Target OG (per BrewFather)- 1.080
Target FG (per BrewFather)- 1.017
Target ABV (per BrewFather)- 8.3%
Actual OG- 1.095
Actual FG- 1.030
Actual (assumed) ABV- 8.6%
Conclusion- Scaling up the entire batch, and condensing the wort with a longer boil left me at approximately 5.5 gal in the fermenter, of higher gravity, thicker, yet less fermentable wort. Still nearly hit my target ABV, it just elevated the entire spectrum.
Cheers!