Tasting: Parti-gyle stout / porter

LEFT: Smoked Russian Imperial Stout 9.8% ABV, 91 IBU

RIGHT: Peat-smoked session Porter 4.1% ABV, 23 IBU

Time to for a taste evaluation of the "2 Stouts, 1 Mash" parti-gyle beers. I realize that I have been slacking about doing tastings of my brews and it would probably serve readers better if they knew my opinion on the final product. For what it's worth, sorry. I'll try to do better!

Smoked RIS (sampled at 55 degrees):

Aroma: Rich chocolate / sharp roasted malt up front, rich sweetness, light American hop profile, Alcohol warming and spice, and an earthy, subtle smokyness. Smells nice already but time should improve it as alcohol and hops recede a bit.

Appearance: Jet black with a light reddish-brown head, good lacing. Fairly low on carbonation, but good for style and for a slow-sipping beer.

Flavor: Rich sweet caramel malts countered by a healthy dose of chocolate and burnt character, fairly smooth for such a young strong beer. Balance is toward the malt, with a light resiny bitterness after swallowing. Some hop flavor noted. The smoke flavor is low and mainly towards the end. Clean but present alcohol warmth.

Mouthfeel: Creamy, full bodied, nice roast bite and hop resin at the end, warming alcohol. No astringency.

Overall: I'm pretty impressed with this so far. The components blend very well together. There does seem to be a slightly "meaty" aftertaste to the beer which may be from my over-addition of brewing salts in conjunction with the smoke flavor, but it is fairly subtle and I'm still hoping it goes away with time. I was expecting just to sample an ounce or 2 and pour the rest out but it's drinking pretty easily. Can't wait to see where this goes in the next 6-12 months.

Peat-smoked session porter (sampled at 40 degrees):

Aroma: Porter aroma with notes of chocolate, a lightly sharp roasty twang, caramel malts, clean fruity esters, and some peat-smoke towards the end. No hops noted. Very clean but complex aroma for such a low gravity beer.

Appearance: A very clear dark brown with red highlights when held to the light. Tan head with good retention.

Flavor: A light but complex blend of chocolate, dark-fruit caramel malts, and a woody peat-smoke funk at the end. Low bitterness, really lets the malts come through. Clean fermentation, dry finish.

Mouthfeel: Fairly dry, but some body. Enough to not be thin. nice roasty dryness at the end, but nothing I would go so far as to call astringent.

Overall: I think my own positive response to this beer has been greater than that of other people who drink it, but I love this beer! Maybe it is the fact that it is a small beer, a bonus beer if you will, that happened to turn out really great. It's so drinkable and sessionable. I drank about 3 pints of this during the Superbowl when other good commercial beer was available. Other people have liked it well enough but only a few folks have been really impressed with it. Maybe in part it's because its a low alcohol beer?

2 Stouts, 1 Mash! (Safe For Work)

(RIS on the right, second runnings beer on the left)

In the Mild Ale post a while back I suggested that a Mild would be a great beer to try to brew in conjunction with a strong ale, as a Part-Gyle brew. Most people know what that is, but in case you don't, it's a brewing method where the mash is run off in different batches. The first runnings make a strong beer, and as the mash is sparged out with hot water, the progressively weaker runnings make more average or even "small" beers. This technique dates from when mash tuns were made of wood (since they didn't need to exposed to a flame, it was cheaper than metal and could be built bigger than the boil kettle for economy.) The multiple runnings from a large mash tun can be fermented together or separately, or combined in a number of creative ways according to the brewer's creative urges.

I decided to take this approach on a batch of Imperial Stout. It's a longer brew day, but for the modest price of an ounce or two of hops, a second beer can be made. It's kind of a no-lose situation because even if the beer isn't great, you have hardly wasted any additional resources.

Above you can see the base mash, which was about 25 pounds of grain The grain bill is a little atypical of an Imperial Stout, as I added a little German smoked malt and peated malt for a smoky complexity to blend with the roasty and caramel flavors. After doing some research, I expected the first 6 gallon batch to come in at about 1.090, and the second batch to come in at 1.050-1.060 O.G. But as you will see, the extract split was much more dramatic with that, with the beers starting at 1.101 and 1.041 respectively. I was fine and actually very happy with those results!

Here are color samples of the first beer on the left and the second beer on the right. Flavor-wise, the first wort tasted very much like an imperial stout and the second beer tasted like a nutty, toasty and fairly peaty brown beer (so not really a stout after all). The peated malt was surprisingly much more noticable in the second beer. Of course there are less sugars and other flavors to hide behind, but I would have thought that the smoke presence would have been proportionally less in the second beer too.

Here's a better color sample of the second wort, maybe it's coming in at 20+ SRM in color.

Here's the recipe. A note first on the mineral additions for this mash: I have a feeling that the water adjustment was wack on this beer. I have some serious questions about John Palmer's water addition calculator, specifically the Residual Alkalinity it suggests for stout-colored worts. I am looking into it and there is an interesting thread here on the BN forum where I am really trying to get a better understanding on mineral additions for dark beers.

"2 Stouts, 1 Mash" RIS and peated "small beer"

Base Mash:

19 lb. 2-row pale malt

1.5 lb. British Roasted Barley 575L

1.5 lb. German Rauchmalt

1 lb . Chocolate malt 400L

.5 lb. Munton's extra-dark crystal malt 200L

.5 lb. Crystal 120L

.5 lb. Crystal 70

.5 lb. peated malt

Mash in 7 gallons of water to 149 degrees for 40 minutes, then add 1 gallon boiling water to raise to 152 for 30 minutes.

Mineral additions: 10 gr. chalk, 1 gr. calcium chloride, 12 gr. baking soda

Sparge with 9 gallons H2O at 168

First Runnings RIS:

7 gallons pre-boil, 5.9 gallons post-boil

O.G. 1.101 F.G. 1.028 ABV 9.8% IBU's 91

Collect 7 gallons at 1.085 (67% of potential extract)

Boil 60 minutes on outside burner

35 gr. Chinook whole 10% AA 60 min

8 gr. Centennial whole 7% AA 60 min

8 gr. Newport whole 10% AA 60 min

5 gr. Zeus whole 14% AA 60 min

40 gr. Magnum whole 10% 30 min

Wyeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 min.

(This beer might get some French oak chips after fermented, depending on a flavor analysis.)

Second Runnings peaty brown beer:

7 gallons pre-boil, 5.8 gallons post-boil

O.G. 1.041 F.G. 1.010 ABV 4.1% IBU's 23

Collect 7 gallons at 1.034 (27% of potential extract)

Boil on stovetop for 90 minutes

17 gr. Horizon pellets 8.2% AA 55 min

Wyeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 min

14 gr. Glacier pellets 4.5% AA 5 min

Both beers were chilled to about 66 degrees with the plate chiller and fermented with Cali ale yeast. Fermentation started at 60 degrees and worked its way up to 65 in the first few days.

Racked both beers to keg on 1/18/09. Second runnings beer tastes surprisingly excellent, I guess I expected it to be compromised in flavor some way but it tastes like a great brown porter with a mellow background of smokiness. RIS is pretty hardcore, not really even remotely drinkable at this point. Very sharp, almost acrid in the roastiness and noticable alcohol, although not fuselly. It probably just needs some months to age.

Here's a quick little side project that Clarissa and I did: Irish cream. We did this internet recipe straight up, and damn, it's good! We're having some in our coffee right now. The Bushmills is pretty cheap Irish Whiskey, but it's just fine for this kind of sweet, rich cocktail. You'll never drink Bailey's again after making this yourself, and it's very easy.

Cheers, Happy New Year everyone. Be safe. Don't be a cheapskate, get a damn cab!

Sean & Clarissa