Stout Dooku (attack of the clones)

So this was pretty much based on MyQuls recipe

I did measure out 220 Chocolate malt and 320 Roasted malt and stuck them in preboiled water about 2.5 liters off cooled to room temp and left that room cold steeping the night before

I milled up my 3.5kg of MO and bunged it in my spare pot with my flaked barley. worrying about my efficiency on my new setup i milled a couple hundred grams of pilsner (thats what I had lying around) but literally 150-200 and bunged that in..

Anyway The stupid mistake I made was agreeing to pick up my grandmother at 12:10 today and go to my mums for lunch forgetting my time schedule so I started today at 910am.. really left myself no time at all I rushed to be honest so was clumsy and making all kinds of mess.

Despite this I mashed okay and I did try a mash out although it was tricky with two bags (one of which had a hole in at the end cheap bag wont be using them again!! I did literally mash a bit sparingly on time..

My other mistake which isn;t really a mistake but something I need to adjust was despite my efforts my water calulations were really wrong I had about 30L pre boil!! I need to adjust the amount of grain absorption I went with 1kg per liter on Brwemate but as I say the numbers just didn't add up since I had way too much wort and not enough time to boil it down!!

I had to leave half way through the boil (leaving it going to drop my nan off) apologise to my mum and said Id be back to go home finish off the boil bang on the hour.. chill with just 15 minutes with wort chiller which did get it down to 40 odd.. then i dumped it in my fermenter and left in the garden..

annoyingly I had a couple of liters still in the pot which went to waste I probably ended up with 26 liters of wort!!

Anyway left to cool in the shade and I was shooting for 1047 but its 1044 no great disaster considering I went overboard on the water in fact its pretty good, I also upped my dark grain by 10% on myquls (thought cold steep may need it) so stroke of luck it probably hasn't done too much damage..

I am a few points down and had to picth the US05 at 25ºc (its coming down and still outside where its cooling down a bit now) I left the lid on all afternoon so I hope its okay only removed it now to stir and pitch.

All in all a bit stressful but that was my own fault.. I miscalculated my time and the water .. the water I will accept is one of those with new equipment I can adjust this for my next brew.. Ill put some pics up in a bit..

Wort tastes good anyway:drink: < that colour too which is a good start

So not an exact clone of my clone then? But then again my clone isn't a clone of the PP Stout I was trying to clone

Yes and no , my attempts to upp things were to cover me for using new equipment setup and a different meothd. It was a good job they did I was probably still a good 10% over on volume despite trying an aggressive boil.. I didn't add enough base to cover that much of an overshoot though.

The whoel thing would have been much easier had I not committed my time..

But in the end i have 23l of what should be pretty much the same sort of stuff at a few points shy of the target.

I made no effort whatsoever to make this clear no irish moss (never had any) and I cooled to 40 odd with the chiller then chucked it in the FV .. I have a fair amount of sediment so will consider trying to crash it somehow

Forgot to put the pictures up (only had a few anyway) will do that tomorrow

took gravity check today as krausen finally made way 1012 will check again when bottled (as it woulnd;t surprise me if it went down to 1010) but i tasted some drops off the hydrometer.. it was dry and beery at first but then whack a huge whack of roastiness almost coffee flavoured.. I am not a coffee drinker really but this does seem promising!! will leave it another week at least and poss bottle next weekend

What sort of carbonation is recommended for these? I know they are generally suited to kegs and nitrogen or what not but thats not what I do..

Carbed mine at 5g/L but then again I carb everything I make at that rate. I've almost drank all mine now. Got about 10 bottles left. Loveley stuff!

Yeah I tend to do everything the same although for some reason my saison seems a touch under carbed so far and I heard they are supposed to be fizzy..

I take it the coffeeish roast flavour is what I should expect?

I didn't start to get the roasty flavours coming through till 4 weeks conditioning. tbh I didn't really notice any coffee flavours but that might be my palette or the fact you cold steeped your roasted grains

Possibly to be fair I literally an going from drops off the hydrometer into the palm of my hand rather than a glug and its literally at the end of fermentation the krausen has literally just made way so really too early to tell but there was definatley roastiness about it although it came late.. the coffee might have just been my interpretation of the roasty.. But yes its promising just need to leave it a week now the cooler temps I might stick it in the conservatory overnight to allow it to chill abit next week..

The cold steep certainly smelt very chocolatly and coffee like..

I left the grain loose in that and strained out afterwards.. don't ask me why I think I got some husks in my pot no great shakes just a few.

Bottled the Stout Dooku, had 39 bottles and enough for a quick small glass scoup out the bottom of the bottling bucket..

Nice dark, you get the grain flavour at first then the roasty flavours hit you straight after, very different from the hops and the saisons I have been enjoying so looking to something different. The flavours seem smooth to me and although it has its bittering backbone no sharp flavour yet Needs time to carb up now and I think it needs it just to get that mouth feel.

I stupidly forgot to put the priming solution at the bottom of the bottling bucket so I put it in the end and stirred it gently a few times.

Anyway whilst it will be a bit different to yours as was yours different to the original thanks @myqul for the recipe suggestion will look forward to how this develops.

I've only got 1 bottle of mine left now, which I'm going to condition for 6 months to see how it devolops. I'm making Greg Hughes dry stout tommorow as the grain bill is very similar to the changes I was planning to my clone to see if I can get it closer to the PP stout.

So 2½ weeks in the bottle and this is coming good now, you said yours took 4 weeks and I found with other AG that is also about right 4 weeks for it to really hit its mark.

It might be because I am new to this type but this is really roasty, I haven't had a stout for a while (probably Guiness) and I am sure it was nothing as roasty as that (they serve it ice cold nowerdays too), this is smooth roasty and not in an offensive way a small bit of choccy and a dry finish.

Nice I really like it, I was making hoppy beers before but this and a Saison make a nice change , it is nice to have beers which use different ingredients to shine

Loving the look of that Cov. What was your carbing rate?

I don't find Guiness very roasty at all my clone is much more so but it mellow and blends with conditioning.

Cannot remember exactly I normally go for around 100grams for a batch but this I think I did a bit more maybe 110 (that's for 23 liters obviously which when racked goes down to about 20)

maybe I when a touch high?, unless I was doing something like a lager or cider I try not to change the carbonating rates too much, if anything my Saison was undercarbed, whilst its okay to me it wasn't until I bottled I discovered they are normally made quite fizzy.

I usually carb at 5g/L which is about what you have done there but my stouts don't have a thick creamy head on them like that :hmm:

The head did go down to more of a cap as I drank which I find is normal for me, especially when young it is hard to get a head like that.. I have a beer fridge which I turn down to try and get cool temps rather than lager servring temp... You drink at room temp? I wonder if that could be it.. do you get heads on your others?

Covrich said:

So this was pretty much based on MyQuls recipe

I did measure out 220 Chocolate malt and 320 Roasted malt and stuck them in preboiled water about 2.5 liters off cooled to room temp and left that room cold steeping the night before

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What's the purpose of steeping these grains overnight - never heard of doing that before?

Covrich said:

The head did go down to more of a cap as I drank which I find is normal for me, especially when young it is hard to get a head like that.. I have a beer fridge which I turn down to try and get cool temps rather than lager servring temp... You drink at room temp? I wonder if that could be it.. do you get heads on your others?

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I think your right, as I don't refridgerate my beer and just open a bottle at room temp then stick some plastic ice cubes in my beer to cool it down a bit, I'm not going to get an nice thick creamy head

Cwrw666 said:

What's the purpose of steeping these grains overnight - never heard of doing that before?

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It's known as cold steeping and said to give a more mellow/smooth flavour to the roasted grians. Haven't tried it myself as I've quite keen on an agressive roasty flavour inmy dry stouts

Looks bloody great that Cov. :thumb:

I coulnd;t possibly say how much affect the cold steep had as I have nothing to compare too..

I also upped the grain bill slightly on the roasted grains, and then I had too much post boil water which probably negated the difference.

To me this is pretty roasty it kind of hits me around the face with it but I don't mind that, like I say compared to Guinness its got a lot more flavour. But I am also new to trying this kind of drink.. I only did the cold steeping as I saw a lot of people recommend it.

However its pretty good stuff, given this is a clone of a clone, I wonder if maybe one day I do the original st peters satout how much different I will find it.


Anyway thanks MyQul for the receipe clone..