Here is what’s brewing this weekend. It falls within the style guidelines for a sweet stout. Add a 1/2 to one pound of oatmeal and you’d have an oatmeal stout.

Mikey’s Stout

7.5 lbs pale malt (domestic)
1.0 lb flaked barley
0.75 lb roasted barley
3 oz chocolate malt
3 oz crystal malt
2 oz EK Goldings
Nottingham ale yeast (dry)

Anticipated OG is 1.051, FG is about 1.012, IBU is about 38, and ABV is 4.9%.

The local LHBS carries various yeasts: beer, wine, dry, liquid. You name the fermented beverage and they probably stock it. I’ve found that the quality of dry ale yeasts has improved significantly over the past 10 years or so, especially the Lallemand products. When I’m making a fruity English ale, I often use Windsor. But they also carry Nottingham. I was curious as to what the difference was, so I did a little research and found this:

Nottingham Ale (Lallemand)
A more neutral ale yeast with lower levels of esters and a crisp, malty finish. Can be used for lager-type beers at low temperatures. High attenuation and medium-high flocculation. Fermentation range of 57-70°F.

Windsor Ale (Lallemand)
Produces a full bodied, fruity English ale, but suitable for wheat beers also, including hefe-weizen. Attenuation and flocculation are medium-low. Fermentation range of 64-70°F.

So while Windsor is great for a British bitter or ESB, I think that I’ll switch to Nottingham for the stout I have planned as my upcoming weekend project.

OK, so the guy looks like he’s just coming off of a long bender. But this is actually a very good tutorial on all-grain batch sparging, which is the technique I use. Actually, he even brings up a few tips which I may try to implement in my next brew session. This is Don Osborn, of www.donosborn.com fame. He hails from St Paul, MN, about an eight hour to the south of us.

Here is the recipe for the abbey ale we just made.

11 lbs Pilsner malt
0.5 lb carapils
0.5 lb aromatic malt
1.5 oz Styrian Goldings (60 mins)
0.5 oz Styrian Goldings (5 mins)
1.0 lb sugar (10 mins)
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey Ale

You’re supposed to mash for one hour at 150F, but because of our power outage it was mashed for 12 hours.

OG was 1.064. I made a yeast starter and oxygenated the heck out of it.

My Belgian pale ale just went through a 12 hour mash. I started it at 7:30 pm last night, but at 8:00 the power went out due to a wind storm. It stayed out until almost midnight.

Shepody uses a 240V brew kettle, not propane, so there was no use in running it off.

Anyhow, at 7:30 this morning, the mash was at 116 F (started off at 150). I guess it will be real fermentable, huh?

We’re back online, after a three and a half year hiatus. We let our domain name lapse, but now we’re back and ready to brew tasty beer again!

Behold – the new and improved Shepody Brewery!! Well, I don’t know about improved, but it is rather new. Even though we’ve been here three months, this is still only the 2nd batch of beer I’ve made here. The first was of course the (in)famous Chicken Scrotum Ale. It’s taken me a while to get everything up to the level where I felt I could properly make a batch of beer. I had to wire it for a 220V outlet, build a workbench, get running water, build some shelving, put in proper lighting, etc.

Items to note (left to right):

• laptop computer running ProMash
• brewing notebook
• BrewHeat bucket with strike water
• beer kegs on floor, ready to be washed out. sanitized and re-filled
• sink, necessary in every basement brewery
• blue Coleman cooler, holding grains for WBB Club Stout
• sturdy wooden shelving, holding items such as wort chiller, storage bins, digital scale, stir plate, and a carboy full of Chicken Scrotum Ale