#31 Export Stout - Recipe

Recipe     -     Brewday     -     Tasting

Last February I brewed a dry Irish stout in preparation for St. Patrick's day.  It was good, nice and creamy though a little bit light on roast, but I remember thinking, "these flavors would go especially well in a bigger stout" which is what I tend to prefer.  Well now that winter is coming, it's time to get started on a stout and this seems like a good way to kick off the season.

Now scaling up a dry stout results in a recipe right in the middle of the range of the foreign extra stout, so I guess you can say that's what I'm making.  It's funny because I have a feeling that's exactly how this style came about.  While there have always been stouts (and porters) in all shapes and sizes, the export stout style (as per the BJCP guidelines*) is pretty much based off of the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout and friends.  Guinness scaled up their recipe with extra alcohol and hops to preserve it for worldwide distribution, which is pretty much what I'm doing here, except mine will be lucky if a bottle makes it across the country.

Like the dry stout I brewed last time, I'll keep the lighter American 2-row instead of a more traditional English floor malted pale malt.  It's true that I generally like more malt flavor in my dark beers, but for this one I want the nice, clean, crisp base.  Add in the flaked barley and I'm expecting a nice milky creaminess instead of the thick malty sweetness normally found in a thick stout.

For roasted malts, I'm starting with the black roasted barley (500L) from the dry stout.  It wasn't nearly as roasty as I wanted, so I'm going to bump the roasted malt from 1lb up to 1.5lbs.  I've read that it isn't necessary to scale the roasted malts on a stout, but I don't really know what to expect.  I also considered other roasted grains but decided just to keep it simple.

(UPDATE: I got to the homebrew shop to find they have changed the roast barley they stock from a 500L version to a 300L version.  I did't think the 300L roast barley alone would give me enough roast flavor for what I'm trying to brew, so I dropped it to 1.25lbs and added half a pound of black patent malt.  This turned out surprisingly similar to the recipe for Stone IRS which I brewed last winter.)

To round it out, we've got Willamette hops used just for bittering, and Irish ale yeast that I've been using in several beers lately.  Between the domestic ingredients and repitched yeast, this has turned into a rather affordable recipe for such a big beer.

Export Stout
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal
Estimated ABV: 7.6 %
Estimated OG: 1.075 SG
Estimated FG: 1.017 SG
Estimated Color: 36.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 60.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt           Name                                     %/IBU
15 lbs        Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)           80.0 %
2 lbs         Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)                 10.7 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz  Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)               6.7 %
8.0 oz        Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)          2.7 %
3.00 oz       Willamette [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min      60.2 IBUs
0.50 tsp      Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)              -
1.0 pkg       Irish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1084)            -

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion @152F, No Mash Out, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 18 lbs 12.0 oz
Estimated Cost: $28.18

* Note that this style also encompasses the sweeter versions--essentially scaled up sweet stouts, just as this is a scaled up dry stout--popular in both the East and West Indies.  Anchor Brewing has a good article on the history of the style, and as always there is a good BYO article on how to brew it.