This is a recipe for a traditional stout using all grains. It would make a nice base for a coffee stout, a milk/cream stout, a licorice stout, etc. I haven't brewed this yet, so I cannot comment on the quality of this particular recipe. But it is based upon a partial-mash recipe that I brewed that came out well. This all-grain recipe is going to be one of the next ones that I brew.
Ingredients
- 7.5# American 2-row malt
- 4 oz chocolate malt
- 4 oz roasted barley
- 4 oz black patent
- 4 oz caramel 60L
- 1 oz Northern Brewer hops (60")
- Irish Ale Yeast (I prefer White Labs #WL004)
- 3/4 c corn sugar for priming if you are bottling)
In the short time that I have been using all grain methods, I have begun to prefer batch sparging over fly sparging, simply for its convenience. When I use fly sparging, I have to monitor the water flow from the hot liquor tank to the sparge arm and, frequently, I have to give the arm a spin to get it to move around. Ideally, fly sparging should take about 90 minutes, do I have to stand around the wort for 90" to make sure nothing goes wrong. There's also the hassle of cleaning more equipment.
So, to make a long story short, it's just a big hassle for me to use the fly method. With batch, you just pour 170 degree water into your mash tun after the mash, stir it up gently with the grains, and then slowly siphon off the wort through the screen at the bottom of your mash tun. You're done with the sparge in 15" or so.
The trade-off, according to many brewers whose books I've read or whom I've seen on YouTube is that, given a certain amount of dry grains, you don't get as much converted sugar out of the mash process when you use the batch method. In other words, the batch method isn't as efficient as fly sparging. To compensate, I use 0.5# more American 2-row malt in my base grains. So I spend a little more money on malt and save a bunch of time (and blood pressure! :-)) during the brewing process.