GOLD MEDAL @ north coast national 2017 in Stout category
Brewed 11/6/17
Mash unmalted, flaked barley at 50'c for 20mins in 1L water. (I did 1.5L but should have done less)
Mash in 14L at 76'C Maris Otter then roasted malts then finally add premashed barley flakes, check temp and add more hot liquor to get to 67'C. (i ended with 18L mash including liquor from flaked barley
= 3L/kg mash ratio. temp at 62'c at end of hour)
mash for 60min.
Drain through bazooka screen AND mash bag for good filtration.
First runnings gravity 1.076 got 10L
Heat 30L of hot liquor to 82'C
Batch sparge 20L for 10mins (got 73'C)
Drain & measure collected wort, aiming for 30L. Do second batch sparge of a few litres if more wort is required.
Preboil gravity 1.052
Bring to boil & add single addition of hops & cocoa nibs for full 60min
OG 1.058
Not much trub, very clean brew.
First day temp was at 25'c didn't cool in beer fridge, then spent 3days on cement slab dropping to around 16'c slowly over time.
gravity at 3days 1.021
put back in beer fridge at 18'c on day 3
1.018 at 6 days
Bottled on 25/6. Added 2.0vols of priming dextrose BUT it sat there for 6hrs before bottling. Didn't get any obvious yeast activity. Tasted great, very viscous mouthfeel. rich roasted malt and good balance of bitterness. Nibs seems to have added more to the bitterness than chocolatey-ness.
Not much captured co2, compared to saison prior to bottling.. seems like more malty beers (red ale, barley wine, brown ale) don't carbonate as well, or dont have as much captured co2 before priming so end up under carbonated?
1/7/17 tasted beer-amaze! 10th brew and i got a perfect batch. Beer is only 1 week bottle conditioned and 100% drinkable. Luscious mouthfeel, quite hoppy good head... perfect.
Award Winning Recipe