Brewdog Stout - Riptide

Brewdog Stout - Riptide

Winter time equals stout time.  I was after something with as substantial alcohol content, it had to warm you up being winter, but I also wanted to get 19 litres so it couldn't be a imperial stout. I was looking through the Brewdog DIY dog and noticed that they had Riptide Stout that appeared to tick the boxes.

I copied the recipe into the Grainfather recipe calculator and got as close as possible, I had to drop the ABV down to 7% range in order to be able to fit the mash into my equipment and still get a full 19 litres into my keg.

I also didn't use the complete hop combo they listed.  As the grain bill was already quite expensive I went tight arse and just used Columbus, I didn't want a heavily hopped Stout anyways (does that mean its no longer and American Stout?).  When I think of hops in a stout I always come back to the Pirate Life stout which to me is just too hoppy and I didn't want it to end up like that.

On the grain side I couldn't get Maris Otter so I subbed it out for Vienna.  I also couldn't get Carafa III so I had to use Carafa II instead.

Brew day was a bit of a pain in the arse.  With all the wheat and oats I ended up with a stuck sparge and the proceeded to break my crappy plastic mash paddle.  So I looked around the house for other options to try and free it up so I could finish the sparge but couldn't find anything.  In the end I used some rubber gloves from my cleaning kit and using packing tape I taped it to my arm and ran the tap up past my elbow so I could reach my arm to the bottom.  It was like porridge down there and took quite a while to free it up so water could flow, and damn was it hot.

In the end it took over 40 minutes to sparge and I had to keep reaching in and freeing it up to keep the water flowing.  In the end this affected how much I ended up in the boil and then how much I had in the keg.

The lesson learnt from this?  Next time use some rice hulls..........oh and invest in a decent mash paddle you tight arse!

Recipe:

American Stout

OG 1.068

EBC 71.6

IBU 68

ABV 7.1%

FG 1.010

Fermentables:

4.5kg Vienna Malt (68%)

500g Flaked Oats (8%)

500g Dark Crystal (8%)

400g Caramalt (6%)

300g Wheat (5%)

250g Chocolate Malt (4%)

200g Carafa Special II (3%)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1272

Mash:

Mashed at 65 degrees C for 90mins

Raised to 75 degrees for 10mins

Boil:
Boiled for 90mins

Hops:

Columbus 28g (16.6AA) 45IBU @ 90mins

Columbus 60g (16.6AA) 23IBU @ Hopstand for 20mins cooled to 80 degrees

Fermentation:
Fermented at 18degrees C for 10 days

Tasting Notes:
This is pretty much what I was after, could maybe have more of a chocolate flavor but this is very smooth and drinkable for a 7% stout, almost dangerous.  (see my notes for the Amarillo Saison)

The body is very smooth I am guessing from the high amounts of oats and wheat in this one.

The color is black but when held up to the light you can see through it just in the narrow parts of the glass so its not a cloudy beer.

Head is nice and solid and last for a long time with great lacing down the glass right to the end.

The nose is super clean, you can tell it is an American IPA based on the aroma from the yeast with almost no hop character to speak off, just what I was after.  Suppose its not really and American IPA then?

Changes for next time?  More chocolate malt and perhaps from coffee or cocoa nibs would give this another dimension.  Maybe even an English yeast?  So an English stout then.........