Full grain clone for Coopers Irish Stout kit

[StoutMelk]

Yes you read the topic right. I am trying to clone the Coopers kit.

 

Reason is simple. The kit tastes great and the Guinness recipe I used was a complete flop IMHO. Partly because the recipe had too little hops and partly because I had no idea the hops does not bitter very well if you boil it in 7 liters in stead of 21 liters.

 

I have a 20+ liter mash tun and a 36 liter pot for the boil.

 

So any suggestions (that are tried and tested)?

 

Here is my partial mash Giuness clone recipe which came out a mess:

1.65 kg DME

2 lb Carapils

.75 lb Roasted barley

.5 lb Chocolate malt

1 oz East kent Goldings 5% (60min)

S-04 yeast

19 liters

[GrahamB8]

That was a lot of cara and not enough bitterness for an Irish stout mate, but I suppose the end result told you that [biggrin]

 

Rather than copy a recipe how about you have a quick read of

http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/03/14/brewing-an-irish-stout-beer-recipe/

 

It was my inspiration for the following recipe:

 

3.83kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter

0.55kg Oats, Flaked

0.32kg Pale Chocolate Malt

0.32kg Victory Malt

0.23kg Crystal Malt Medium

0.20kg Roasted Barley

60g EKG 60mins

11g Danstar Notto

[StoutMelk]

Thanks for the reply Graham

 

Re the Carapils - I could not get flaked barley so I substituted it with Carapils (1 to 1). Is this wrong too and what should I rather have done as a substitute?

[GrahamB8]

Carapils will do a similar job in that it will provide body to the beer but 2lb is a very high amount for a conventional 19L batch, 1/2lb would probably have sufficed, then I would have added a base malt for conversion.

 

Since Carapils has no diastic power its basically a dextrin malt, you will have ended up with a lot of unfermentable sugars from your mash which would have made your beer very sweet.

Add that to your small bittering addition you would be a country mile away from a dry Irish stout.

[StoutMelk]

I was afraid of the same thing - I received mixed information on whether Carapils needed to be mashed or steeped. Apparently US Carapils can be steeped while Belgian needs to be mashed, but the info I had at the time did not specify the diastatic power of Carapils. Then someone I met (who knows a stack about full grain brewing) said he believes Carapils will convert on its own at mash temp - so I mashed.

 

My initial SG was 1045 and it fermented down to 1012 in a week, so it looks as if the Carapils sugars did ferment out. I am considering boiling the fermented brew with some bittering hops for 30mins, adding sugar and fermenting it again, in an effort to save what is a pretty terrible batch of stout right now...[crying]

 

Maybe I will create the first almost drinkable low alcohol stout[roll]