A Stout by any other name…..

Good article in the New York Times about stout.

I’ve always shared the opinion expressed by Mr. Asimov, which is that people overestimate the “stoutness” of most stouts. Hell, Guiness is only like 4 percent alcohol. Ever done a car bomb? You can chug that stuff!

The article really made me just want to hang out with Asimov. To everything he said my response was, “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Go read it, and then drink some stout. If you’re in the mood for something a little stronger. D’Vines has Brooklyn Chocolate Stout for $7 a 4-pack.

Cisco Brewers Captain Swain’s Extra Stout

Picked up a bottle of this diddy at Whole Foods this evening and am enjoying it during The Daily Show and Colbert Report. It’s very robust. Also a nice malt complexity, but a bit too roasty for me, almost burnt in the aftertaste. The malt flavors are numerous and distinct, though, and if you read the description on their Web site it lends to that fact because apparently they use a lot of Munich and wheat malt. I’d never heard of using wheat in a stout. If they cut back a tad on the roasted barley then, for me,  it would be a very, very nice beer.

Homebrew Bread

The title of this post is a little misleading. I didn’t use a homebrew in this bread. It was my first try at baking bread, and I didn’t want to potentially waste one, so I used a bottle of Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat that someone left at my apartment. I wasn’t going to drink it (not a fan personally) and the fruity, esteriness of it seemed like it would be appropriate for bread. It was. 

I got the recipe from the most recent podcast of Basic Brewing Video. It was sent in by a listener and sounded so simple it lured me to try. I would thank the listener if I could remember his name.

Here’s the deal:

3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
12 oz of beer

The recipe actually calls for “sifted” flour, but I don’t have a flour sifter and it worked just fine. You mix the dry ingredients and beer together and then bake it somewhere between 325 and 350 degrees (I think I did it at about 335) for about an hour.

I hear this is referred to as a “quickbread” because you don’t need to let it rise or add yeast. The baking powder pretty much does the work. At about 55 minutes in, I pulled it out and spread some butter over the top and put it back in for about 10 minutes. It got a pretty good color but the consistency on the inside was slighty, and I mean very slightly, doughy. It maybe could have used another five minutes or so in the oven.

 

The end result was tasty, and you can kind of taste the estery, spiciness of the beer. It gave me enough confidence to use a homebrew in the next loaf. Will probably do one with a Hefeweizen and then in a week or so make one with an Irish Stout when it’s ready. Comparing how the two differ in taste might become a post in the near future.

Ice Beer Experiment

Like I posted earlier, I had some extra wort left after I transferred my Irish Stout to secondary, weird that I ended up with more than five gallons, but whatever. I froze it in a two-liter plastic bottle and then let it drip into a sanitized growler. 

That’s the cup of dry yeast rehydrating next to it. I used a package of Safale – 04, and just poured about half of it in the growler when I was done letting the extra wort drip. I left it melting for about  two hours and 45 minutes and decided that it wasn’t gaining anything if I left it longer.

The reason I re-pitched new yeast was because I procured the wort when it was still supposed to be finishing. I figured it probably killed the yeast still in the wort when I froze it so for the sake of science the two bucks or so I spent on some dry yeast was worth it.

The stout started with an OG of about 1.040 on on brewing day before I pitched any yeast. It’s a very rough estimate, but I’m hoping that I separated about half of the volume that was in the two liter and doubled the gravity of the wort that resulted in the growler. So because the final beer will be about four percent abv, I’m hoping the two or three bottles I get from the growler turn out to be about eight percent. Not really sure what will happen, but it’s an experiment so that’s the point. 

Experiment

I picked up some supplies from myLHBS today: some bottle caps, some tubing and some SAFALE 04 yeast. I use liquid yeast for all my major batches but this is going to be used for a small (very small) batch of an experimental ice stout. I had some leftover wort when I racked to secondary, as I guess I had more than five gallons, and I froze it. I plan on removing as much water from the wort as possible and then re-yeasting it in a growler for a week or so before bottling it. I might only get two or three bottles worth, but hopefully what will result it about a 9% stout from a 4% stout’s wort.