Once you get started with brewing your own beer, you’ll quickly need to learn how to homebrew stouts. Why? Because you HAVE to, they’re just too much damn fun not to brew! And we’re not talking just any plain old stouts, no sir. These days it’s a rite of passage for all homebrewers to brew up their own version of a crazy strong imperial stout.
What makes up a stout?
If there is one single ingredient that makes a stout different from most other beer styles, it’s the addition of roasted barley. Homebrewing class is now in session: Roasted barley is not malted barley. Malted barley has been allowed to sprout or germinate and is then dried for use in brewing. Roasted barley, however, has not been given the chance to germinate and is dried and roasted.
How much to use?
Roasted barley is quite powerful stuff, and you an easily go overboard and ruin your beer if you get heavy-handed with it. For all grain brewers, roasted barley should make up a max of 3-5% of your grist. For malt extract home brewing making standard 5-gallon batches, this equates to around four ounces of roasted barley for steeping pre-boil.
But what else can you add?
Pretty much anything, and that’s why people love to brew stouts. From chocolate to vanilla, hazelnuts to coffee, you name it, someone’s made a stout out of it. Personally, when malt extract brewing, I like to start with a pale liquid malt extract. This then allows me to add different layers of flavor by steeping all sorts of different specialty grains, which is also where the color comes from in my stouts. But of course, feel free to experiment with different base extracts and see what turns out best.
(In the Members Area I brew a Belgian Chocolate Stout from start to finish, and show exactly how to add the cocoa to the brew.)
Best reason for new homebrewers to make stouts?
Because stouts are very forgiving and can hide many flaws. If you get a little overzealous with certain grains or hops in a stout, you can still get away with it. But if you screw up a lighter beer such as a Pilsner, there’s simply no place for those off-flavors to hide. So stouts are a great beginner beer.
So try out this advice, you’ll see that learning how to homebrew stouts is a freaking blast.
Cheers,
Steve
