Milk Stout

Let's pretend this post is from two days ago, when I actually brewed. After my previous post about now being a professional brewer, I was very disappointed in my homebrewing, or should I say my lack of it. So I did something about it. After a great Bears victory, I abandoned my traditional Sunday events of watching the rest of the football games with my friends, and instead chose to brew some beer.

My favorite beer right now if Left Hand Brewery's Milk Stout. So when I was at the homebrew shop I saw a milk stout kit, so I had to give it a try. This was a partial grain kit. That means that a majority of the flavor would come from an extract in the kit, but it would be supplemented by some specialty grains that steep in hot water, similar to tea.

For those that may be interested in the brewing details:

I steeped the specialty grains for 20 minutes at around 160 degrees. The specialty grains for this brew were 8oz Caramel 120L, 4oz Roasted Barley and 4oz Dark Chocolate. Then I took the wort and boiled it with 6.6lbs of Special Dark extract, 0.5lb of Lactose and 0.5lb of Maltodextrin. After bringing everything back to a boil I added 0.5oz of my Warrior bittering hops(17.2%). Fifty minutes later I added 0.5oz of my Willamette aroma hops(4.7%). Ten minutes after that I terminated boil. I cooled the wort, but I don't think I cooled it enough. I had it down to 86 degrees before I topped off the batch to five gallons. I really need to get myself a wort chiller. So the OG at 1.040 was most likely at a higher temp than it should have been. So I missed the target OG of 1.057-1.061. Then I pitched the yeast.

The good thing about writing this two days later is I know that the beer is fermenting. I'm holding it in a temperature stable 68 degrees. The little airlock is bubbling away. I figure by Friday or Saturday, I'll transfer to a secondary fermenter. I can taste it already.