SSBC Monthly Newsletter

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It’s All in the De-t-Ales…

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Steering Committee Meeting Notes

Here's a summary of the steering committee meeting held last Tuesday at Brennan's Pub in Easton, MA (thanks to Jeff for recording these)

There were 10 people in attendance (Steve Gravel, Jeff McNally, Bill Tredo, Brian Kurowski, Francois Espourteille, Mike Keshura, Kevin Farrell, Jim Bowser, Glen O'Connor, and Paul Corbett).

It was proposed that all monthly meeting be held on the second Tuesday of each month (with the exception of February's meeting which would fall on Valentine's Day, that one will be held on Wednesday instead).

An attempt at filling out the calendar for the coming year looks like this (TBD = to be

MAY and JUNE 2006: Francois' and Bob Collins' (Saturday before and after Memorial Day weekend)

JUN 2006: WORT summer party (father's day weekend?) at Fred and MaryAnne's in Freetown

The following are the BJCP guidelines which will be used for judging Irish Stouts in the November club competition:

Aroma: Coffee-like roasted barley and roasted malt aromas are prominent. Esters low to medium. Diacetyl moderate to none. Hop aroma low to none.

Appearance: Deep garnet to black in color. Clarity is irrelevant in such a dark beer. A thick, creamy, long-lasting head is characteristic.

Flavor: Moderate acidity/sourness and sharpness from roasted grains, and medium to high hop bitterness, provide a dry finish. Balancing factors may include some creaminess, moderate to low fruitiness, and medium to no diacetyl.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light to medium body, with a creamy character. Low to moderate carbonation.

History: The style evolved from attempts to capitalize on the success of London porters, but originally reflected a fuller, creamier, more "stout" body. Modern versions are brewed from a lower OG and no longer reflect a fuller body than porters.

Comments: This is the draught version of what is otherwise known as Irish stout. Bottled versions are typically brewed from a significantly higher OG and may be considered foreign extra stouts.

Ingredients: The dryness comes from the use of roasted unmalted barley in addition to pale malt, moderate to high hop bitterness, and good attenuation. Flaked unmalted barley may also be used to add a creaminess. A small percentage of soured beer is sometimes added for complexity. Water should have high carbonate hardness.

Commercial Examples: Guinness Draught Stout (also canned), Murphy's Stout, Beamish Stout.

Russian Imperial Stout

We had a good day for brewing on Saturday, it was a little cloudy and not too hot. Seven brewers showed up for the South Shore Group Brew, not as many as anticipated, but we had a good group anyway. The brewers were: Bob Collins, Kevin Farrell, Bill Tredo, Paul Corbett, Mike Keshura, Chris Biegel and myself. Our target beer to fill the cask this year was a Russian Imperial Stout. The recipe is a combination of recipes that Jeff McNally and I have brewed, plus a few tweaks to make it work for a 55 gallon batch. It seemed like a good idea to fill the cask with another big beer and I'm sure it will be an awesome winter warmer when it's done.

The session started out pretty good, with coffee, muffins and doughnuts to build up our strength and get us into the right frame of mind. While we were starting to get organized, we had a guest stop in. Steve Andberg from The Witches Brew stopped by to say, "Hello", wish us luck, and to drop off my jacket and checkbook that I left at his house on Thursday evening.

I guess I spent a little too much time standing around the brew shop sampling Steve's beer. Steve helped us out quite a bit with the cost of ingredients and materials to get this project off to a good start. Please stop by The Witches Brew and say "Hello" to Steve and help him thin out his inventory. Beware of the beers taps by the door, if you stand too close to them they'll cause you to forget where your house is.

Back to brewing. I started dividing up the ingredients when I realized that I had overestimated the capacity of the all-grain systems that we had available and it was going to be difficult to mash all of the grain we had. I was thinking to myself that we sure could use another all-grain brewer to help out and guess who showed up... Dean Goulding! My prayers were answered! Well... no.

It turns out that Dean was only making a guest appearance. Apparently, his apprentice brewer had a Cub Scout meeting just down the road, so he decided to stop by. Dean had driven by Bob's place, thought he vaguely recognized a few of the people that were doing some strange things with all of these kegs and pots and stuff, so he decided to stop in and see what we were up to. It's great to see a former brewers face light up when he smells the malt and hears the clanging of brew pots. Just kidding, it was great to see you Dean.

I would like to say that the brewing session went off without a hitch... but that I would be lying. Due to the size of the beer and the amount of grain we had, we ended up with a stuck mash, or two, to make the brewing session interesting. We also had a couple of specialty grain bags try to empty their contents into the pot that they were steeping in. Fortunately, we were able to catch them in time and we had little damage. Throughout the brewing, we dined on sweet and hot Italian sausage, Cajun blackened catfish po-boys, Cajun viggies and Italian veggie pie. Needless to say, we didn't starve!

We completed the brewing and cleanup earlier than expected, around 3 o'clock or so, and headed off to Francois house with our precious cargo. Once at Francois, we were ready for an easy transfer and cleanup (yeah, right!), so we could head home to sit back and relax. It started off easy, we drained a couple of the buckets into the cask and then started in on the kegs. Wanting to speed things along we decided to force the wort out of the kegs with CO2. That worked okay for the first keg, but things started to get a little sticky after that. About half of the kegs had problems with either valves that fell apart, or with pickup tubes that got stuck. We ended up dumping the beer into a fermenting bucket and used that to transfer it into the cask. Finally, we added the yeast from Coastal Extreme and oxygenated the wort with Francois oxygen tank. Whew, we were finally done!

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the brewing and transfer of the South Shore Brew Club Russian Imperial Stout and contributed to make this another successful group brew. I can't wait to see how it comes out!

"Homebrew, it's not just a hobby, it's an adventure!"

For pictures, check out the Pitcher Gallery.

Here is the recipe:

SSBC Group Brew Imperial Stout 60 gallon

A ProMash Recipe Report

BJCP Style and Style Guidelines

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12-C Barleywine & Imperial Stout, Russian Imperial Stout

Min OG: 1.075 Max OG: 1.095

Min IBU: 50 Max IBU: 90

Min Clr: 20 Max Clr: 40 Color in SRM, Lovibond

Recipe Specifics

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Batch Size (Gal): 60.00 Wort Size (Gal): 60.00

Total Grain (Lbs): 218.00

Anticipated OG: 1.100 Plato: 23.7

Anticipated SRM: 68.5

Anticipated IBU: 77.7

Brewhouse Efficiency: 66 %

Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM

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29.4 64.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2

41.3 90.00 lbs. Generic LME - Light Generic 1.035 7

8.3 18.00 lbs. Roasted Barley America 1.028 450

6.9 15.00 lbs. Crystal 60L America 1.034 60

6.9 15.00 lbs. Chocolate Malt America 1.029 350

1.8 4.00 lbs. Flaked Barley America 1.032 2

2.8 6.00 lbs. Crystal 150L Great Britain 1.033 150

2.8 6.00 lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt 1.033 2

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time

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18.00 oz. Tomahawk, F-10 Variety Pellet 12.00 53.9 60 min.

16.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 4.50 12.9 30 min.

1.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Pellet 6.00 1.7 30 min.

18.00 oz. Tettnanger Tettnang Whole 4.50 9.1 15 min.

Yeast

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WLP-001 California Ale

Mash Schedule

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Qts Water Per Lbs Grain: 1 - Before Additional Infusions

Saccharification Rest Temp : 154 Time: 90

Sparge Temp : 180 Time: 45

Beer Season

At A Glance…

Club Events

Area Events

Next Meeting

Beer Quote and Trivia

Sip by Sip

Business

All Grain Equipment Presentation by Steve Gravel

La Barberie Presentation by Francois Espourteille

It’s All in the De-t-Ales…

Steering Committee Meeting Notes

Beer Trivia Answer

Contact Information

Last modified: March 24, 2008