Brew Day – 2020-09-21
This is the Dry Irish Stout AG kit from Northern Brewer. I might add coffee to secondary…. Maybe cold brew. Have to research that. According to this, a coffee with rich cocoa notes might work better than a fruitier coffee.
It is being brewed with Munton’s yeast, one I’ve never used before.
Brew Day (9/12/2020)
1. heated 3 gallons strike water to 167
2. added .6 tbsp ph 5.2 to strike water and .6 tbsp to mashout and sparge water
3. Dough-in – looks like I hit around 154F – my target temp was 152F
4. 1 Hour mash
5. Ten minute mashout at 170F. Looks like I hit right around the target temp
6. Fly sparge
7. added about 4 cups of water to get to 6 gallons
8. One hour boil. Irish moss added @15 mins
9. Wort chiller for about 25 mins
10. OG 1.049
11. pitched around 76F
less than 24 hours later very active fermantation, fermometer says 78F; the room is about 67F; carboy is pretty warm to touch
This only appeared to have active fermantation for about a day.
Secondary (9/19/2020)
Racked to secondary on 9/19. I hope it gets lower. Added ~650 ml of cold-brew coffee to the fermentor. The coffee was a blend of about 2/3 8 O’Clock Columbian and 1/3 Seattle’s Best Post Alley Dark Roast, since this is what I had on-hand. I had read online that you should use coffee with rich cocoa notes rather than fruitier. The beer tastes really good, but the gravity is only 1.020! I tried it with and without the coldbrew and liked it about equally both ways.
I’ll keep it in secondary for two weeks.
Update – About a week into secondary, the airlock is bubbling pretty good and theirs a bit of a Krausen layer on the top. It almost looks like what you usually see in the first few days. This has been going for a few days now – bubbling every 10 seconds or so.
Bottling
It finished with a final gravity of ~1.018. So it’s a pretty low ABV at around 4.1%. Tastes great.
Tasting (October 2020 and beyond)
This beer is excellent! Nice and bitter with a subtle coffee note. It has a nice medium-dark full head. It’s one of the best I’ve done. Which is nice after the failure of my last beer.
