For a brew that was troublesome during fermentation and brew day, this one tastes great! The malt base is evident up front, followed by a strong, but balanced bitterness. Next the roast and some light chocolate notes are present finished with the floral willamette hops lingering. This a great stout and it paired well all day yesterday with a thanksgiving feast.
Was it thin like you expected from your low mash temperature?
ReplyDeleteActually no. I was surprised, but the beer feels "full." The apparent attenuation was 73%. I am sure that had something to do with it. I am not sure why the attenuation was low, other than having a major blow off problem 36 hours into fermentation. I probably lost enough yeast in the blowoff that the remaining yeast didn't dry out the beer, before they lost their steam.
ReplyDeleteTo sum it up, I guess I got lucky.
I have made some great beers when everything didn't go according to plan. When I brew the recipe again, I try to fix what went wrong the first time-- and I don't know if this necessarily improves the beer. Of course, something else invariably goes wrong. Lately with less time on my hands, I have been focusing on the basics--strict sanitation procedures, good recipe formulation, temperature control. If my mash temp is off by a few degrees, or my grain crush is not optimal, or efficiency is low (or high), I don't worry about it too much. I'll make an adjustment to the amount of hops in the last case, but other than that, keeping it in the ballpark is good enough for me right now. Of course I'm just brewing for consumption right now--I haven't entered a beer in a competition for over a year.
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