I was going to carbonate my Irish stout with dark brown sugar, chickened out at the last minute and did half and half with white sugar. Tasting it tonight with 10 days in the bottle and I could have used the dark brown sugar 100%.
Two things I'd say about this - firstly I think it's important to be honest with yourself if your beer turns out not to be everything you were hoping for. I tend to think of it as what would I do differently next time, what can I learn from it, recipe tweaks etc.
Two things I'd say about this - firstly I think it's important to be honest with yourself if your beer turns out not to be everything you were hoping for. I tend to think of it as what would I do differently next time, what can I learn from it, recipe tweaks etc.
Secondly I remember the brown Porter I made last year being underwhelming at first taste, but after a month or two conditioning it turned out awesome - so fingers crossed!
Yeah, that'll work. Flaked barley can also help. The other thing is to mash at 70degC - you get less fermentable sugars so the FG should be a bit higher (famous last words!) and you can add more grain to bump the ABV back up if you want to - apparently Lagunitas IPA (6.2%) is made like thisOats oats and and more oats next time, possibly some lactose and more black malt....
Yeah, that'll work. Flaked barley can also help. The other thing is to mash at 70degC - you get less fermentable sugars so the FG should be a bit higher (famous last words!) and you can add more grain to bump the ABV back up if you want to - apparently Lagunitas IPA (6.2%) is made like this
Oh and if you're using flaked oats my tip is to do a rest at 50degC, otherwise it goes all gluey and the bag is really difficult to squeeze so your efficiency takes a nosedive
And THAT right there is what it's really all about. Good work fella
And THAT right there is what it's really all about. Good work fella
