Sweet Creamy Stout

Creamy has to do with adding Lactose, here, for the first time. Not because of what you're thinking, gutter-minded one.

Okay, so it's winter-going-on-spring, the wife likes the dark ales, and marathon training demands some recovery drink that's both hearty and nutritious. Time to brew up the first Stout ever in time for it to parade in all its green glory for Super Bowl Sunday.

* approx 1 lb. Quaker Oats (steeped)
* 1 lb. Dingemans Debitter Black (steeped)
* 1 lb. Simpson's Chocolate (steeped)
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* 12 lb. Amber malt syrup
*. 2 lb. wildflower honey
* 2 oz. Willamette Pellets (4.4% alpha: Boil - 40 mins.)
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* 1 oz. Fuggle Pellets for aroma (4.6% alpha: Chill steep)
* .75 lb. Lactose (we went light on this, because we're old and lactose intolerant)
* a pair of Danstar dry Nottinghams.

Shooting for an OG of 1040-5ish / FG: 1010.

So, I got everything cooking, and begged the wife to find my floating thermometer for me. I'd been waiting for the ingredients to arrive for over a week. One would think I'd be better prepped. Besides a mostly meaty pig of seasonal Brown Ale from Lengthwise and a good attitude, we weren't at all prepared for this.

From 140 to 160, we steeped up the grains and the oatmeals. Pulling out the muslin left brown-black drainage that one would expect from an old oil filter. Noice! We're getting Stoutish now, baby.

Got a light boil going for 40 mins, don't think we really hammered out a protein break. Everything smelled great with the malt and honey going at the half hour mark. Took a preliminary OG: 1043 at about 65 degrees. We're gonna kick some buttocks. Took a couple of mugs out of the wort and poured them into the corneys, after letting them cool, Walker and I added a pack of Nottingham each. He gets the right-side-up keg; I get the upside-down one. (Actually, I get them both, since I get to walk out to the garage and press my lips to the tap anytime I want. But you understand both what I mean, and the depth of my personal determination, responsibility and inpregnable integrity).

Mostly did some talking and stirring, and dropped in the Fuggles and the lactose after shutting down the heat. Walker got to babysit the chiller while I tucked CC in. All got cool, and poured the wort with the team effort we've developed over the long haul of doing this twice. We spilled a bunch but still got 4.75 gallons into mine, and 4.5 gallons into Walker's.

Out the corneys go to the service porch. We'll get a good, hard fermentation going before we go into the fridge. More soon.

Day 3: After two days of super-aggro fermentation at 68 degrees, I was afraid all was going too quickly. Moved everything into the cooler at 62 degrees for a day. Then, racked off some and gave it a hydro reading. 1030 for mine, and 1033 for Walker's. Hmmm. Moving it back into the warm.

Day 4: Now, everything's slowing down. Tomorrow morning, I jack you punks into the fridge at 40 and teach you a lesson.

Day 6: Racking off some of the flocculated yeast and cold slurry, then back into hibernation.

A few more days of that racking-off-the-bottom and the yeast is owning. Ordered a cartridge filter with a 1 micron mesh. It'll be here midweek to Save the Day.

Day 21: Wednesday = midweek, and 3 weeks from boil. Pushed my (read: not Walker's) corneyfull through the filter first, but Charlie's new/old soda kegs are both leakers (suitable for primaries; the other one is fermenting mead as we do this filtration). So, I ran "mine" through into the leaker, ran Walker's into mine after a rinse, then mine back outta the leaker into Walker's, after a rinse. So we swapped corneys, but most notably, "mine" got filtered twice. Ah, we'll see if there's magic in the mistakes.
On a side note, there's a gorgeous depth to the dark of this stout. Watching it bubble back and forth through the filtration hoses was picturesque.
Shame we're gonna have to turn it all back into piss!

Put 'em both on 30 lbs. pressure and shook 'em 50 times - hey! it's a new Crossfit exercise for time! - and put them back on ice. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will tell.

Day 35: So, it's 3 weeks-ish later, and after a long session for Big Sur, and I'm dreaming about spaghetti and a hearty, nutritious stout. This didn't disappoint. We hit the mark spot on with the gravity, mouth-feel (note to self: 1/3 the lactose of others' recipes is plenty good), chocolate and coffee hints all over. We win.

Cracked open the corney and hit it with some gas on Oct 18th, as we cooked up some Honey Brown - fine nitrogenous bubbles, double-barrelled coffee burst and a smooth finish. Wow, where'd this come from?