This recipe has brewed for the 2009 National Teach-A-Friend-To-Brew Day. I like malt forward beers. This beer is a big malty beers with lots of mouthfeel and a bit a residual sweetness. It comes across as having chocolate and coffee notes with some caramel. The fermentation leaves some fruit notes like plum. Not much head retention at this point, but that may change as the beer conditions. This recipe is from Brewing Classic Styles by Zamil Zainasheff & John Palmer.
My friend, Andy, recently ordered a brewing system from Sabco. He has the Brew Magic system. I don’t brew anywhere near enough to justify such a setup, but that doesn’t mean that I am not jealous.
It has all of the computer-gee-wizardry that a home brewer could dream of, plus plenty of shiny stainless steel. Would it really make better beer than my Igloo coolers and Little Giant Ladder setup? I don’t think so, but it still would be cool.
Saturday, November 7th, was Teach A Friend to Brew day. This year I had a chance to do just that. I invited Craig over to see how I brew. I chose to make a milk stout using all grain mashing. The initial wort (unfermented beer) came out of the mash tun looking as black as midnite and thick like used motor oil. The flavor was a nice chocolate/coffee flavor.
We ended up with about 6-1/2 to 7 gallons. I only have 3 & 5 gallon carboys for fermentors. The bulk of the wort when into a 5 gallon fermentor with the Wyeast 1099 (Whitbread) yeast. The rest went into the 3 gallon carboy with Safale US-05. Both carboys are bubbling away. I think that fermentation might be done this week, but it might be almost Thanksgiving before I can bottle.
One of the nice things about inviting someone over to brew is that you can get them to help you bottle. We bottled the Better Red Than Dead – Irish Red ale that I brewed earlier. It looks wonderful. After bottle conditioning we will see how it turned out. Should be ready for Thanksgiving.