Crawfish and Stout?
Dec
31
Written by:
12/31/2008 9:18 AM
Stout might not be the first beer that pops into your mind when crawfish is on the menu, but that’s what the Keg of the Month (KOM) will be when the KGB has its crawfish boil this coming April.
The only homebrew I have on tap right now is a Samichlaus clone that my buddy, Donald Sajda, and I made in 2007. We kegged it in mid-November and it’s getting rather infrequent pulls because the stuff is cloyingly sweet. That was the second time we brewed Samichlaus as a team and we brewed it again on the 6th of this month. I think this year’s batch will be the last time I brew this beer. Each year the brew is bigger than the last (for our latest, the OG came in at an obese 1.200), and each year the resulting beer has more residual sugars than the one before. I think the batch we brewed the other day will be pretty much undrinkable. Add the distinctive flavor imparted by the yeast and five gallons is just too much of a good thing. Luckily, I have an aunt and uncle who seem to have no limit to their sweet tooth capacity, so they will be put, happily and unwittingly, to some good use.
The point of that digression is to show that I need something not-so-sweet in the refrigerator. When I saw stout on the list of beers needed for a future KOM, I jumped on it. I love the stuff.
I tried brewing this beer on the 29th, but the sparge wasn’t just stuck, it was impacted. Rather than try to salvage a lost cause by lautering through a colander and ending up with a very oxygenated wort (which would lead to papery, cardboard flavors and aromas – I speak from experience, folks), I dumped the mash and ran back to the store to restock on grain so I could try it again the next day. This time, though, I added rice hulls to the mash and the sparge went like a Swiss clockwork.
For all the hard work (not to mention the mileage of two trips to and fro the homebrew supply store), the beer gods smiled on me with exceptional brewhouse efficiency. I planned on fermenting 11 gallons of 1.047 wort, but I ended up with 11.5 gallons at 1.056. According to BeerSmith, that’s a whopping 92.6% efficiency rate, and I’m right proud.
Now if I can get some more luck, the brew gods will get the weather gods to warm us up a bit so the yeast can do their work in a nice 64° environment. If not, the fermentation will struggle along in chilly lethargy.