Brew Number

20 and 21

Style

Guinness G4 1/4 and G5 1/4

Ingredients

100g chocolate grain from Osborne Park

100 g malted barley from Osb Park

3 kg dark liquid malt from Osb Park

500 g brown sugar from supermarket

650 g dark molasses from health food shop

2 Coopers stout kits from supermarket

80 g Pride of Ringwood hop pellets (9%) from Osb Pk

Brewing notes

Start with 8L water.  Crush grains in a plastic bag with rolling pin, put in stocking bag, add to cold water.  Bring to boil and boil 15 mins, remove grains and squeeze.  Add liquid malt, molasses, brown sugar, kits.  Bring to boil.  Add hops in stocking bag.  Boil 10 mins and remove hops.  Fill two fermenters with 20 L cold water and divide wort into them exactly.  Pitched yeasts on 24 March.  SG 1.046.

Brew 20 – bubbled furiously in first 2 days, pushed krausen out airlock, foam everywhere, had to remove lid and put wet tea towel over.  Almost stopped bubbling after a week.  FG 1.014.  Decanted through coffee filter.  Bulk primed with 4 oz dextrose and bottled 1 April.  Tasted more of molasses and hops than Brew 21 despite identical conditions. (Bottled as G4)

Brew 21 – similar, bigger fermenter so krausen no problem, FG 1.016, bulk primed with 5 oz dextrose and bottled 1 April.  (Bottled as G5)

Calculated ABV 5%.

8 L was too much to start with in our pot, got close to top with all the sugars in.

Finally noticed we are adding to much water to our kits and sacrificing body and ABV, although they have tasted pretty good so far.  Restrict next batch to 22.5 L and see if difference in body.

Tasting notes

Out of fermenter on 1 April, malty, irony, very similar to Guinness but slightly fruity as well.  Can taste the Coopers fruity yeast.  Tasted like more than 5% alcohol.

13 April – G5.  Reasonably well carbonated for age, dark black beer with genuine looking creamy head.  Lovely Guinness type grainy flavour.  Surprisingly quaffable.

13 April – G4.  Lacking in carbonation, more molasses in taste than G5, almost Tooheys Old syrupy character.  Not as quaffable but should develop into a nice beer.

30 May – G5.  Lovely, smooth, slight liquorice flavour, good head nice dark beer.  Definitely a 10.

30 May – G4.  Vast improvement, good carbonation, in fact frothed out of the bottle a little.  Nice roasted burnt flavour.  In another month should be better than the G5.

10 July –G4.  Getting better, good body, excellent flavour, molasses taste still a little strong and would benefit from longer in the bottle.

August – G4  Nice beer but still too much molasses flavour

13 Nov – G4 7 months old.  Good carbonation, head retention disappointing.  Burnt sugar on the nose.  Much improved flavour, not really syrupy, reduced to a burnt sugar/liquorice tang.  Body a little light but overall much improved and a nice beer.

20 Jan – G4.  10 months old. This one not so good, still too much unfermented molasses flavour, not enjoyable.

28 Jan G5, 10 months old.  Still a very nice Guinness, but having tried the later versions (brew 32 and brew 44) this still has a little too much molasses in it.  Good carbonation and gas, head retention not so good.