Brewing Diary: The Kettlehouse Stout
Tuesday 24 February 2009 18:55
An old recipe from The Kettlehouse in Missoula gets the No. 8 Fencing Wire treatment.
Introduction
This was the first Extract/Speciality grain beer I brewed. The recipe below was recommended by Arch Missoulian, PS, and orginates from a craft Brewery in Montana called The Kettlehouse. The recipe calls for some ingredients which might not be readily available. As you can see from the notes below, I left out some of the grains and substituted another. I also had to swap New Zealand Stickbract for the unavailable (at my Home Brew Shop, anyway) Bullion hops. Given all these substitutions the end result will not resemble the beer orginally crafted by the brewers at The Kettlehouse. It was nevertheless a very enjoyable beer and I would recommend any fan of dark beers to try out this recipe.
Ingredients
Grain Bill
- 340 gm 120L Crystal Malt
- 135 gm Roasted Barley
- 340 gm Black Patent
- 90 gm Black Barley
Malt Extract
- 3.2kg Dark Malt
Hops and finings
- 43 gm Bullion
- Irish Moss
- 15 gm Willamette
Yeast
- Safale S-04 Dry Ale yeast
- Beer yeast enzyme
Target Bitterness
- Medium to high
Method
This beer was brewed as per the method described in 'The How to Brew Digest'.
Brewing notes
I was unable to source Black Patent or Black Barley. Chocolate malt grain was used in the place of roasted barley. Also, Bullion hops were unavailable, so New Zealand Sticklebract was used, as this variety had similar bitterness (Alpha 11.9) has Bullion.
I used Munton's dark malt extract.
An immersion chiller was used to rapidly cool wort.
The brew was put down around October/November 2008. As it was approaching the middle of summer the beer brewed towards the mid to top end of yeast's range, i.e.: 18-21 degrees Celsius (probably a little on the warm side. I'll consider cooling the fermenter if brewing in similar temperatures).
The beer was bottled after three weeks in the primary fermenter and racked-off to secondary immediately before bottling to reduce the amount of sediment (of which there was a lot) that made it into the bottle.
Tasting notes
- The beer was drunk fresh. It was bottle-conditioned for a minimum of two weeks.
- Moderate carbonation, excellent clarity (the wort chiller paid off) and good initial head
- Medium-bodied, crisp flavoured stout. Some chocolate notes, likely from the dark malt
- An abundance of fermentables resulted in a moderately high level of alcohol