Recipe is built off of a 3:1 ratio of Maris Otter to flaked barley, shooting for a gravity of about 1.036. Specialty grains make up the remainder of the grain bill with a target gravity of 1.044. I wanted to keep this close to a traditional dry stout so I stuck with the recommended 1lb of Roasted Barley per 5gl batch.
Acidulated malts are used to adjust the wort pH to 5.2 (optimum for most barley beers). If you don't have access to pH testing equipment or strips, it's probably safer to omit it entirely.
BIAB efficiencies can vary wildly until you nail down your process, so consider double crushing your grains and running a 90 minute mash infusion. I've intentionally designed this recipe with a lower efficiency in mind, but a well established BIAB brewer can hit efficiencies as high as 85%! Adjust accordingly for your own equipment.
You want to maximize attenuation, so make sure that your mash temp is no higher than 152°F (67°C) to avoid extracting un-fermentable dextrin's. This means that you want to try and avoid applying direct heat, adding hot water or anything else that would cause the mash temperature to spike over 152°F.
Brew in a bag procedure:
- Heat 11.7L (3.1gal) of strike water to 167°F (75°C)
- Add grains to brew kettle in nylon bag
- Stabilize the grain bed at 67°C (152°F) and hold for 60 minutes.
- Remove the nylon bag and transfer to another vessel.
- Sparge with 17.8L (4.7gal) boiling water to bring mash bed back up to 67°C (152°F). Add runnings back into the wort.
- Hang or squeeze out the bag to extract any remaining sugars. Add runnings back into the wort. If necessary, top up with clean water to reach the boil volume of 22.7L (6gal).
- Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding the hops and spices as indicated in the ingredients list.
- Cool to 21°C (70°F)
- Oxygenate and pitch the yeast.
- Ferment for 4-6 days in primary fermenter at 65°F (19°C) or until FG is reached. Because there are not a lot of sugars in this beer it tends to be fairly fast fermenting. Often the primary ferment will be complete in 72 hours if you ferment at room temperature.
- (Optional) Transfer to a secondary and let fermentation complete and settle for 7 days.
- (Optional) For best results, "cellar" or age at 10°C (50°F) to help drop yeast out of suspension.
- Bottle or keg, condition for ~2 weeks before drinking.
