Welcome to the first issue of Fermenting Solutions! While my intention is to showcase projects mainly involving technology, gardening and beekeeping, I thought it only fitting that I start the series off by discussing a homebrewing project.

I've had a bunch of coffee beers, and Thrillist does an excellent job of enumerating some of the best of them. You will notice that many of these are pretty high octane (Tweak is a whopping 17%!). So it should come as no surprise that a friend challenged me to brew a chocolate, coffee stout that remains drinkable after a few pints.

Both chocolate and coffee pose challenges to brewing and I've brewed several duds over the years that just used one of these ingredients. Brewing something tasty using both would definitely be a challenge.

My experience brewing with chocolate has taught me that the fats and oils tend to have a negative impact on a beer's head retention. The vegetal nature of both chocolate and coffee beans pose challenges because it's very easy to extract unwanted tannins that add harsh bitterness to your beer. The raw beans can also harbor microorganisms all too happy to ferment your beer in an uncontrolled way. All of these things can result in something that isn't very drinkable.

After pondering a potential recipe for a few days and not really being excited by any of them, I remembered trying Stone's Master of Disguise. This was very drinkable for its ABV and I remember being blown away by the chameleon like nature of a 'golden' stout. I had never brewed a pale stout before, so I had a new, more exciting direction to take the recipe. A pale stout needs supplemental roastiness to give it a noticeably stout-like flavor without also adding the color that would normally accompany roasted barley and chocolate malts. The chocolate and coffee should work perfectly for this.

...and with that inspiration, I came up with The Great White Hype :

Style: Pale American Stout
Batch size: 5.5 gal
Boil volume: 7.3 gal
OG: 1.078
FG: 1.020
Bitterness (IBU): 20.3
Color (SRM): 9.4
ABV: 7.7%


Grains:

14.00 lb Maris Otter Malt, 84.8%
1.00 lb Flaked Oats, 6.1%
1.00 lb Barley, Flaked, 6.1%
0.50 lb Crystal 40L, 3.0%

Hops:

0.50 oz Magnum (AA 14.0%, Pellet) 60 min, 20.3 IBU

Yeast/Misc:

1.0 unit(s), wyeast 1318 London Ale III

You might feel that this recipe is light on the hops, and you would be right. If I weren't going to add both cacao nibs and coffee beans to this recipe prior to packaging, I would use another half ounce of Magnum and at least a half ounce of finishing hops.

I brewed this over the weekend using my modified Grainfather setup. This video shows the features of the Grainfather which I now use for most of my brews. I'll update everyone in a few weeks regarding how well this recipe worked out and whether my friend's challenge has been met or what I need to do to improve the next batch.

Each week I want to feature something unique that I had to drink and even though this issue has featured many beers, I didn't actually drink any of them this week. So my interesting beer pick of the week is...

Bear Republic's Clobberskull™ is an "English Estate October" ale. Although, I'm not typically a fan of Scottish style ales, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Brewed with split peas and aged in French oak, it's deceptively drinkable for 10.5%. It's definitely a unique beverage that you should try if you come across it.

That's it for this week. Thanks for listening, I'm happy to answer any questions or deep dive on the solutions. Drop me a line @ jason@transmutableexplorations.com on Twitter @jasondonmoyer or on G+ +JasonDonmoyer

Next week I'm planning on tackling some 3d printer upgrades.