Sunday, 18 January 2009

Augustiner Dunkel and my Smoking Gun Stout

A quicky post. The Augustiner Dunkel, from Augustinerbräu München, is a beautiful deep, ruby-tinged amber and shows considerable carbonation during the pour. The aroma is very sweet with chocolate malts, figs and pluminess. In fact, the flavour is just the same; quite fruity with a dark chocolate bitterness. I actually quite like this, but of you don't like dark, fruity beers don't bother :)

I should have been drinking something stronger as the heating system packed in on Saturday morning. After being unable to contact the landlord, we called an emergency service who responded quickly and then told us that there was simply no oil (although the meter said 20% left). So it was a cold night with no hot water. However, doing a mash for my latest beer, a smoked stout, helped warm the kitchen, and the neighbours popped over to observe and take a few homebrews to help their personal central heating.

For those interested, the Smoking Gun Stout recipe looks like this:
  • 3 kg Pilsner Malt
  • 1 kg Rauchmalz
  • 500 g Chocolate Malt
  • 500 g Roasted Barley
  • 70.0 g East Kent Goldings (5.1%) -boiled 60 min
  • Fermentis Safale S-04
After the boil I ended up with 26 litres of wort at 1.053, 23 litres of which is now happily fermenting. I suspect it could have done with more rauchmalz, but we'll see.
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14 comments:

  1. Bionic Laura18 January 2009 at 23:44

    Sounds like the all grain brewing is going very well.

    It's typical the heating always packs during the coldest part of the year. Hope it's back and you're warm again now.

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  2. Barry M18 January 2009 at 23:55

    Much smoother than I had hoped to be honest. I should have made the jump earlier, but am still happy with the years of extract brews :)

    And yes, an emergency oil supply was delivered this afternoon. Just in time too!

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  3. Thomas19 January 2009 at 08:51

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Thomas19 January 2009 at 08:53

    Sorry about that mixed my maths up.

    20% roasted grain will make this pretty rich. Too much roasted grain can thin the beer out though. I added too much to my last porter and there wasn't enough base malt to fill it out. At 20% you're getting near the limit, I reckon.

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  5. Barry M19 January 2009 at 10:20

    I always seem to push the roasted malts a bit, as I quite like chocolate malt ;) I'm not so worried about fitting the style (clearly) and as long as its a tasty drop I'll be happy. Having said that, in hindsight I think they may march all over the rauchmalz, but as you say, it's good to experiment. The predicted FG is in the region of 1.013 (with 75% attenuation), so I'm not sure how thin it will feel. Or did you mean thin in flavour?

    I'll send some bottles over when it's ready ;)

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  6. Thomas19 January 2009 at 13:14

    I found that my last stout resembled a kit and kilo of sugar type brew to a small degree.

    I reckon this was because roasted malts offer little in the way of extract - especially roasted barley which offer essentially nothing. If they make up a large part of the grist, then the amount of base malt body is reduced thinning the beer. It's hard to know what the limit is. My last porter had around 18% roasted and brown malt which might be a little too much.

    I reckon it is more likely to happen with beers that do not use roasted barley because this gives substantial flavour and protein body to the beer.

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  7. Thomas19 January 2009 at 13:15

    Sorry, that should have read 'my last porter'. My last stout was fab.

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  8. Barry M19 January 2009 at 13:45

    So this is a Stout I have attempted. Does your opinion on the roasted malt percentage still hold? Actually, this is the first time I've aimed towards something more Stouty than Portery.

    I thought the wort seemed more viscous than most beers I've made, but the oily blackness may have contributed to that impression :)

    I'm sure it will be drinkable. And it better be considering I have 26 litres in the fermenter! :D

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  9. Chibe19 January 2009 at 19:10

    I too wonder if you'll be able to perceive much of the smoke. I brewed a smoked hefe with 50% Rauchmalz and it was barely noticeable. Of course, I've heard the strength of the Rauchmalz can vary greatly, and with you being closer to the source maybe you'll get more kick out of it. I'll be curious to hear how it turns out.

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  10. Thomas19 January 2009 at 20:18

    I've no doubt your stout will be very tasty. I'm just curious about the limit for roast malt/grain addition. I expected to get much more in my porter, but instead got the thinness I mentioned. My Industrial Stout had heaps of roasted barley and some black malt and it worked out very well.

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  11. Barry M19 January 2009 at 20:39

    I've just had a look over the last three porters I made (Thom, you might at least remember the Larkfield Mulligan #1 and #2) and they all have about 15% roasted malts; chocolate and a touch of black. Each also included 10-15% crystal malts (including Special B in the most recent case). The last one might have been a little lighter in the body stakes. Easy drinking I would have said. But then I would :D

    Russ, a friend (hi Oblivious) mentioned he had good results from 20% Rauchmalz. I have to admit I originally planned on a less roasty beer, but the muse took me, and I only had a kilo of the rauchmalz, so I threw it in anyway :) I have to admit I like rauchbier very much, so the next time I use this malt I'll make sure it's the star of the show.

    Thanks for the comments guys!

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  12. Anonymous20 January 2009 at 20:17

    Oddly enough, I just brewed up (what I hope turns out to be) a Porter yesterday with a couple ounces of roasted barley to give it a subtle roast flavor and to mix things up a bit. I'd love to do something with smoked malt in conjunction with the Porter/Stout style, but I don't think I'm quite there yet!

    Hope it turns out tasty!

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  13. Barry M20 January 2009 at 20:36

    I hope so too! :D And I wish you luck with the Porter. I find the darker beers pretty forgiving in general, but even so, it's fun to mess about and try to push the flavours in different directions.

    Actually, activity has really slowed, which seems a bit quick, so I may have to take a little reading to see what the hell it's doing.

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  14. Iamreddave23 January 2009 at 16:44

    I saw this beer in the B&C last night. I will try it next night im in. Thanks for the review.

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