Sunday, 3 November 2013 ,

Black November & Mikkeller!


Nov-Dec is that time of the year when I get to make my dark, hearty beers. In particular, the keg of vanilla stout kicked so quickly last year, I decided to brew a double batch. It so happened that Mikkel Borg Bjergsø from Mikkeller was in town, and thanks to a fantastic arrangement made by my lovely friends I managed to get this year's vanilla stout tasted and critiqued by him.

Stolen off Nick & Natasha's blog! You can find them on the link on the right.


First off, pictures taken with Mikkel!



OK, back to the beer. It was brewed according to my recipe last year, with a dry stout base.

"Black Pearl" Oaked Vanilla Stout

5 gallons
65% efficiency
Mashed at 67C for 60 mins

4kg Maris Otter
0.5kg Chocolate malt
0.25kg Black patent
0.25kg Crystal 60L
0.1kg Flaked oats

56g styrian goldings (5.2% alpha) at 60 mins
28g kent goldings (5% alpha) at 30 mins

Yeast: WLP 007 (Dry English Ale yeast) 2L starter

After fermentation is complete, the beer was racked into a keg. 2 oz of medium toast french oak chips were soaked in Maker's Mark bourbon for a week, and the oak-infused bourbon was added to taste (I just wanted a hint of woodiness and hopefully vanilla, without it getting astringent). I also added a few drops of vanilla extract to accentuate the vanilla.


This stout is black as night! I could just pick up a hint of vanilla but unfortunately the oakiness was more predominant. It had a lot of nice flavours of chocolate and coffee, but unfortunately as some of the brewers who tried it pointed out, there's also this acrid aftertaste which probably came from the black patent. At next year's attempt I'll sub out the black patent for either just roasted barley or dehusked Carafa. Mikkel's feedback was that it needs more body and mouthfeel, so he suggested that I up the mash temp to 70C instead. He also mentioned a grassy (?vegetably) aroma, which he attributed to incomplete mashing. I'm not too sure if it's the oak he's smelling, or (gasp!) DMS, but I'll just heed his advice and try a 90 min mash the next time.

All in all though, I'm still happy with this beer. It has its flaws, but is pleasant enough to quaff by the pint.

Now, I planned to "dry nib" the other 5 gallons with cocoa nibs, in order to present a chocolate/vanilla stout. So, I bought 6 oz of organic cocoa nibs (they only had organic available, not that I care about that), soaked them in some vodka and planned to put that into secondary for a couple of weeks.



So much for all that planning, when you have a kid at home. I just received a text while at work, that Bryan decided to smash daddy's jar of cocoa nibs.

Oh well. At least he had the decency to pretend to look ashamed of himself.



Posted by Unknown at 18:47

1 comments:

Brewlander said...

I find black patent malt is less harsh than roasted barley. In fact, I find both the roasted barley and Choc malt to be harsher than black malt. The black malt has that burnt character that is very subtle actually, but many think of it's name and colour as the most acrid. I used it 10% before and its ok.

I'd say up the crystals and sweetness will take away some of the peceived harshness (Black coffee with and without sugar), higher mash and body with some more oats (the oak thins out beers) as a thin beer accentuates that bitterness and acrid.

Lastly, mash with more bicarbonates. Hit for RA of 200 and it will round out the acrid ashy taste.

Btw, i see you used more than 10% dark malts lol!!

I found the beer not bad. Just simple tweaks to make it a good beer!

6 November 2013 at 17:47

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
 
;