1st Step To Making Best Stouts Ever

If your even thinking about making a stout this winter, this is a good one to make.  The stout is actually going to be two different stouts 1) Whiskey Oak Aged Dry Stout 2) Rum Oak Aged Dry Stout.  The thing with this stout, is that you need to plan it out in advance because of the amount of time it takes; 3 – 4 months.  The base of this recipe is a  5 gallon batch of a  “Dry Irish Stout” then I’m going to split the batch in half for the secondary putting the beer into two different 3 gallon carboys.

While they are in the secondary, I’m going to add to oak that has been soaked in whiskey for one and rum for another.  I haven’t tried the rum one before, but a good customer of ours with lot’s of brewing experience told me that this is one that he does.  I’m going to trust him at his word.

If this is something that your interested in, then I suggest you start this as soon as possible because this process will take quite a few weeks.

The scedule looks something on the lines of:

3 weeks of oak soaking   – WEEK 1-3

Make Dry Irish Stout let ferment for 1 week in primary – WEEK 3-4

After a week of fermenting, add the oak that soked into the carboys – WEEK 4

Let the carboys secondary ferment for 6 weeks. – WEEK 4-10

Bottle and let sit for 3-4 weeks. – WEEK 11-14

So at the end of the process it will take about 14 weeks which is about 3-4 months.  Since it’s October, this beer you will not be able to drink until January. In my opinion, that is perfect stout season anyways.  It’s gonna be cold by then and your mentality will be, “Grab Me A Stout”.

For this beer, we will do a series though and go step by step to make it turn out right.

The 1st major step is pretty easy though. 

Buy a small bottle of whiskey and a small bottle of rum. Growing up I always heard when cooking with wine, “Don’t cook with wine that you wouldn’t drink”.  I keep this mentality with brewing as well.  So I have a fine taste, for the whiskey I bought “Makers Mark” and for the rum I bought, “Sailor Jerry’s”.

Now that you got your liquir you need to buy a total of 4 oz’s  2 oz of Oak Chips.  Home brew stores should have them, we do.

Split them up into two different food grade containers.  One will be for the whiskey and one will be for the rum.

The one that’s for the whiskey, pour whiskey on top of the oak until it’s covered.  The one that’s for the rum do the same thing.  After you have poured your whiskey and your rum on top of the wood chips, close them up and set them aside.  If they start to dry out take more whiskey or rum and pour more on top.  It’s as simple as that.  Now we wait 3 weeks.

We’ll make a post when we get to the next step.  Until then.

Cheers