Ginger...Stout?

I'm going to attempt catching up on my brewing posts, guys...I have been brewing--more than ever--I promise, but just not sharing them.  I brewed the ginger stout on New Year's Day.

When I first proposed the idea of a dry stout with ginger, folks were...skeptical.  But really, it's similar flavours as in gingerbread, so I call that fairly safe.  The idea was brought about as something to let me use the yeast cake from the ginger cider.

In designing the recipe, I wanted something fairly standard for an English stout, but on the low end of the roastiness, allowing the more chocolate and coffeelike flavours from the grains to dominate those flavours.

To do this, I used a variety of lower roast malts, both pale and regular chocolate, but with some roasted barley as well.  These didn't get added until the end of the mash, a technique I commonly use to reduce roastiness.  The brown malt was included with the main grist.

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
0.50 tsp	Lactic Acid (Mash 60.0 mins)	Water Agent	1	-
3 lbs 8.0 oz	Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)	Grain	2	41.2 %
2 lbs	Golden Promise (2.4 SRM)	Grain	3	23.5 %
8.0 oz	Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)	Grain	4	5.9 %
8.0 oz	Brown Malt (65.0 SRM)	Grain	5	5.9 %
8.0 oz	Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)	Grain	6	5.9 %
6.0 oz	Crystal 135/150 (142.0 SRM)	Grain	7	4.4 %
6.0 oz	Crystal 70/80 (75.0 SRM)	Grain	8	4.4 %
4.0 oz	Roasted Barley (Briess) (300.0 SRM)	Grain	9	2.9 %
0.75 oz	East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	10	18.2 IBUs
0.25 oz	East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min	Hop	11	1.2 IBUs
1.00 lb	Ginger Root (Boil 0.0 mins)	Herb	12	-
1.0 pkg	London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) [124.21 ml]	Yeast	13	-
8.0 oz	Chocolate, Pale (225.0 SRM)

I wanted a fairly low charge of hops, going with a low alpha English hop, and only a touch of finish hops.  ESB yeast was what was in my cider, so that was the only option there.

For the mash schedule, I kept it simple, in the English tradition...a single infusion at 156* for one hour.

Ginger is one of those ingredients which loses potency when you heat it, so I minimized that by adding the 1lb of ginger at flame out. 

Fermentation was for 7 days at a warm room temp, then cold crashing for 3 days before bottling with a target 1.8 volumes.  A week later, I found the beer had not carbed at all...London ESB yeast is so flocculent that adding fresh yeast at bottling may be a good idea.

As you would expect with that low of carbonation levels, there is only a thin head...here, I was experimenting with an analogue to the original nitro gidget in Guinness stout...essentially a syringe.  You prime it with about 5ml of the beer and an equal amount of air, then force the contents out a fraction of an inch above the surface of the beer....this was the result--low carb but a lovely long lasting head.

Flavour of the beer is delicious, with just barely enough ginger (for my taste), and a nice balance.  About 6 months later, it is still drinking nicely, and I have a few bottles left right now.



© John Frey, 2017. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.  The recipes and other contents therein may not be used for any commercial purposes.