We're back with London Stout. Because that's what I've been writing loads of: London Stout recipes. For my upcoming super book on the style. I've finished 135 recipes, do far. Which is maybe half way. I really need to crack on if I'm to publish the book by June. Which is my aim.
On with the recipe.
After a quick glance at this beer, I thought it wasn’t worth a recipe of its own. Then I looked at the grist.
The gravity is exactly the same as straight Treble Stout. But the grist is very different. Over 50% of the grist is amber malt. There’s no pale malt at all. Instead, there’s some white malt. But only about 25% of the grist. There’s almost as much brown malt. Less black malt than the other Stouts, mind.
A very similar mashing scheme was employed, however. Three mashes and a sparge. Not sure why it needed to be quite so complicated.
| Mash number | barrels | strike heat | tap heat |
| 1 | 315 | 168º F | 147º F |
| 2 | 210 | 178º F | 159º F |
| 3 | 525 | 173º F | 153º F |
| sparge | 490 | 160º F |
English hops, harvested in 1865 and 1866. Quite a lot of them, too.
At least 12 months ageing with Brettanomyces is required. Maybe more. It is a bit of a beast with all that dark malt.
| 1867 Reid Export Treble Stout | ||
| white malt | 5.50 lb | 23.91% |
| brown malt | 4.00 lb | 17.39% |
| amber malt | 13.00 lb | 56.52% |
| black malt | 0.50 lb | 2.17% |
| Goldings 150 min | 4.50 oz | |
| Goldings 60 min | 4.50 oz | |
| Goldings 30 min | 4.50 oz | |
| Goldings dry hops | 1.00 oz | |
| OG | 1094 | |
| FG | 1027 | |
| ABV | 8.86 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 71.28% | |
| IBU | 138 | |
| SRM | 39 | |
| Mash at | 153º F | |
| Sparge at | 160º F | |
| Boil time | 150 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 55.5º F | |
| Yeast | Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale | |
I'm still trying to wrap my head around that mashing scheme. Maybe you have a few more details you could provide? So far I understand that each mash resulted in a new filled copper in a process similar to batch sparging. Then the last step, the sparge, was filled into a fourth one, or the same as the third mash?
ReplyDeleteWhen the worts were boiled for several hours, do the logs provide final volumes from which we could calculate the evaporation rate? Just to see how big the effect of concentrating the weaker worts was.
Was this Stout done with a parti-gyle together with other beers, or were all three or four worts just mixed at the end?
Christoph,
ReplyDeleteit all depends. Sometimes the worts were combined, as in this case, where there were only two coppers. The worts from the second mash and sparge were combined. It depends on the specific brew and the brewery.
In this case, the first boil was 2.5 hours and the volume reduced from 140 to 116 barrels. The second boil was 3 hours and the volume reduced from 158 to 130 barrels. Post-boil the worts were 34 lbs per barrel (1094.5º) and 18.9 lbs (1052.5º) per barrel.
All Reid's Stouts were brewed single-gyle at this point.
Would you get used to the bitterness
DeleteThanks for all the details, Ron. Good to know this varied by brewery and that there was no systematic approach. I guess it depends on what the brewery aimed for, either concentrating thin gyles or just boiling long for flavour.
ReplyDeleteHere it seems the evaporation rate is not enormous, just 18%, so if they did boil this long for a technical reason (and not just tradition) it must have been the Maillard reactions.
I really wonder if it would be worth brewing a beer as closely as possible to this method, to see what happens with the flavour...
maillard reactions dont happen at boiling water temps chris
ReplyDeleteChristoph,
ReplyDeletenot sure exactly what they had at Reid, but London brewers preferred closed coppers. Precisely for the reason that they were looking to gain colour.
Just wanted to leave this link for Mr Anonymous: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/29926/what-temperature-does-the-maillard-reaction-occur
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteThat's a huge proportion of amber malt. Would amber malt of this period have been drum roasted, ie, comparable to modern amber malt? Or would this be diastatic amber more akin to Simpson's Imperial?
Planning to brew this weekend. I've always been satisfied using ludicrously high (by modern standards) amount of roasted malt, but this is quite something.
I've always assumed that post-1817 amber and brown malts fairly quickly became alike their modern forms. But perhaps this beer is impossible to even approximate nowadays?
Cheers
I plugged this into brewfather as I was intrigued. Using crisp malt for all, well the lightest pilsner malt for the white, but I couldn't get the colour anywhere near.
ReplyDeleteI changed the amber to mild malt and the colour was almost spot on.
What is white malt?
Stu, according to the durden park book, white malt is the lightest barley malt, used for the posh pale ales. I used lager/pilsner malt.
ReplyDeleteThey describe pale malt as slightly darker, and pale ale malt as darker again. I'm sure Ron gives them in the other order in one of his books, however