White Stout brewing diary
An account of the brew day by Joe Woods
5.30am - Yikes! What an early start. Brewing starts at 8am sharp, and we’ve got to
negotiate the rush-hour traffic. A few more yawns and it’s off to Lincoln Green
Brewery in Hucknall.
8.00am - We’ve arrived, and after a
quick hello with Beau the brewery dog and a much-needed cup of tea, it’s
time to get ready for brewing. That means removing watches, jewellery and
thoroughly washing hands. This ensures that the beer is made in a hygienic
environment, minimising the risk of nasty bacteria contaminating our lovely White
Stout.
8.20am - It’s finally time to get started on the brew, and we’re going to start by weighing out all the ingredients. But before we begin, there’s one piece of integral safety equipment to put on, a mask. This is important because the oats produce a large amount of dust that fills the air, meaning it is important to guard against inhalation. Safety mask on, next up we weigh out the Marris Otter Oats, Torrified Barley, followed by the Cacao Nibs, which will bring a lovely bitter finish to the beer.
We’ve chosen ingredients that are normally associated with IPAs and lagers for our beer, which may be incredibly unusual for a Stout, but from previous experiments we’re confident that it will be a pale colour, whilst still having the full-bodied qualities of a Stout. After lifting several sacks full of ingredients, my muscles are definitely suffering…
9.35am - After we’ve weighed everything out, the next stage is the Mash. This is where the ingredients we’ve just measured out will be poured into the Mash Tun (a large metal tank), which is then slowly filled up with water that has been carefully heated to a (secret!) temperature, which will release the natural sugars from the mixture. Whilst doing this, we all take it in turns to stir the mix using a large paddle, no need to go to the gym today! This is then left to stew for an hour.
10.44am - When the mash process is complete, the liquid is then moved into the next tank for the Sparge, leaving the original ingredients behind in the Mash tank (more on this later!) Once the brew has been fully transferred over and is bubbling away, we weigh out the hops which are; Admiral, Fuggle and Bramling Cross and then add them all to the mix.
12.01pm - We’ve got to leave the hops to bubble away which means it is time for lunch, and after all that hard work, it is well deserved. We gladly eat our sandwiches in the Lincoln Green staffroom and play with Beau (again!)
1.35pm - After lunch it’s straight back to work, cleaning the leftover mix out of the Mash Tun, and that means that somebody has got to climb in and hose it out! It’s a messy job, but it’s important that the equipment is thoroughly cleaned out so that no old bits of mix are left in the tank, as it might impair the flavour of the next brew.
3.31pm -The liquid is then moved again to the fermenter, where we add the yeast, which is the magic moment… the moment it becomes actual beer (kind of!). After the brew has been transported over, there’s more cleaning to do. The leftover hops need to be cleaned out of the tank, which is still extremely hot as a result of the boiling liquid, so a t-shirt and shorts are advised for this!
The coffee beans will be added a day later by the team at Lincoln Green, which will help to enhance the subtle bitter finish to the beer. We didn’t add them on the day because it would have darkened the colour of our white stout, which we certainly didn’t want to happen after all our hard work! After this has happened, the beer will then be left for around for three days to ferment.
4.47pm - We’re all finished, and I’d like to say a big thank you to Martin, Anthony, and the rest of the team at Lincoln Green for hosting us and helping to brew the White Stout, along with Lisa from The Seven Stars in Rugby for joining us. I’ve had a fantastic day and learnt that brewing is HARD WORK - I cannot wait to go to the pub for a well-deserved pint!
