Brew Day - AG#5 Hop Back Brewery Entire Stout

This is a brew of the Hop Back Brewery Entire Stout.  The recipe has been taken (and ammended) from the Hop and Grain online recipe database.  The original recipe can be found in their Stout section.  

The recipe has had the Black Malt and Carafa Special 3* added.  The Black Malt was originally added to bring the colour up to 170EBC, but then we found the small bag of CS3 in the box and chucked that in too.  This brought the colour up to 192EBC.

* A note on the Carafa Special 3 from the Hop and Grape brew shop website

Adds aroma. colour & body, with a milder, smoother flavour than achieved with husk-on. For use in Dark Beer; Salvator Bockbier; Stouts; Porters; Alt beer; Bockbier; Schwarzbier. Max. 5% 1200 E.B.C.

Grain & Fermentables

• Pale Malt, 3840g
• Chocolate Malt, 160g
• Roasted Barley, 160g
• Crystal Malt, 160g
• Black Malt, 90g
• Carafa Special 3, 45g
• Gypsum, 1tsp
• Epsom Salts, 1/2tsp

Hops & Copper Finings

• Challenger, 30g for 90mins
• East Kent Goldings, 20g for last 15mins
• Protafloc, 1 tablet last 15mins

Brew Details

• Brew Day: 20th January 2010
• Transfered to Secondary: 28th February 2010
• Bottled: 10th March 2010 (~23 litres)
• Yeast: Safale S-04
• Brew Length: 23 litres
• Mash Time: 90 minutes @ 66°C
• Water-to-Grain Ratio (L:Kg) : 2:1 
  
• Boil Time: 90 minutes
• OG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.043 / 1.041
• FG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.013 / 1.011
• ABV - Recipe/Achieved: 3.9% / 4%
• EBU/EBC: 33/192
• Priming: None

We use Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine software for capturing the recipe.  Here's the custom recipe file for this brew.

Pictures

The grain, Pale Malt underneath then from the top, clockwise: Dark Malt, Crystal Malt, Roasted Barley, Carafa Special 3 and Chocolate Malt.  The Gypsum and Epsom Salts are in the middle.

The mash - it was looking dark from the offset:

Very dark indeed:

 

The mash was done in the evening, drained out and the wort was left overnight before starting the boil.  It was wrapped in the red insulation jacket and amazingly it was still at 54°C over 12 hours later.

Here are the hops waiting while the wort comes up to the boil - Challenger on the left and the EKG on the right - the Challengers go in for the full boil:

Post boil gravity not too far off the target:

More pictures here.

Dave & Suki.