One of the great joys of my life, the hobby that relaxes me and keeps me sane when the world is threatening to turn me into a pile of goo, is homebrewing my own beer.
I document all of my homebrew adventures at my homebrew blog, the Devils Gate Brewing Company, but this bit of news is so exciting to me, it’s getting its very own post right here on the mothership.
Northern Brewer and I have teamed up with Stone Brewing Company to make an official homebrew version of w00tstout!
This is an official recipe for w00tstout, converted to homebrew specs with the help of Stone Brewing Company’s brewmaster, Mitch Steele. It is released with the blessing of all the collaborators, and I can’t wait to make it myself next week. It’s available in both extract and all-grain kits.
This is a huge beer, and not something I’d recommend for a first time brewer (if you’re looking to get started in homebrewing, you can get your feet wet with my #VandalEyesPA 1-gallon kit).
Hey Wil, any plans to release the recipe outside of a commercial kit? Would love to brew it at home or put my own spin on it, but not sure interested in buying a kit.
Not so* interested, darnit.
The description provides a link to the full recipe, so in theory you could collect all the ingredients yourself: http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/allgrain/AG-w00tstout.pdf
Ahh, thanks Michael, I missed that.
I’m not going to release it myself, no, because I want the people who worked hard to make this happen get some compensation for their efforts.
That said, I’m sure you can find the grain bill, if you’d like, and put it together yourself. The important thing is that you make and enjoy an awesome beer!
Hey Wil, any plans to swing by one of the Northern Brewer stores in MN for the launch?
I’ll eventually make it up there, when my schedule allows.
Hey, Wil. Thanks for posting about this and linking to the starter kit. I’ve thought about getting into home brewing before but have always put it off because it seems so intimidating. I decided to do a little googling to see if there was any place local I could get a start and found a home brewing shop about 5 minutes from where I live! Thanks again.
W00t! I love this beer, and am still sitting on a bottle of the 1.0 until I can get my hands on the 2.0 for comparison. A quick question: if I have a small batch kit, from, say, the VandalEyes PA starter, is it doable to break this recipe into 1-gal batches? I’ve never attempted a beer like this and wouldn’t want to try it all at once if possible.
Michael, you could enter the grain bill yourself on brewtoad.com and then create a batch based on the full 5 gallon, adjusted for 1 gallon. I’m sure it would work and be pretty close, although seems like a lot of effort for a 1 gallon batch.
If equipment is the only thing holding you back, you could do a small volume boil and then top off to make a full 5 gallons. A 6.5 gallon fermentation bucket will only run you about $10-15. I’d be curious to know how the small batch works out. Just remember, if you do a top off, you might need additional hops to get full hop utilization.
You probably could use software like brewtarget or beersmith to convert from 5 gallons to 1 gallon, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
It’s the same amount of work and time to brew a single gallon as it is to brew five or ten or twenty gallons, with the only difference being how much time and effort goes into packaging the final brew.
As far as trying w00tstout vs. trying #VandalEyes, you will likely have a similar experience (there really isn’t much of a difference among brewing the different top fermenting ale styles), replacing the dry hops for #VandalEyes with the bourbon-soaked oak chips for w00tstout.
tl;dr it’s easier than you think, especially if you’ve brewed before. Relax, don’t worry, and have a homebrew!
Every day should begin and end with RDWAHAH.
This makes me very happy. Couple things.
The extract recipe says 60 minute boil on #6. Based on the other info, this should be 90 minute.
Even with a starter, is one vial of liquid going to be enough to tame this beast down to FG? Seems like it might need two.
Looks awesome though. I’ll probably do the AG soon. Might have to pick up some extra equipment if this is going to tie some buckets/carboys up for 1/3 of the year!
Good point. I’ll ask our brewmaster at Northern Brewer if that should be adjusted.
Thank you, sir. I’ll be doing the AG, but would hate to see people doing the extract to be confused mid session.
I was so miffed when I found out wootstout 2.0 was only regional and I couldn’t get it in PA. I had to pretend Stone’s Russian Imperial Stout was wootstout 2.0.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/104413075639528172871/albums/6039211622692653793/6039211625710168466
The kit/recipe helps make up for it.
Oh man, I’m going to have to get serious about home brewing so that one day, I’ll be able to make this delicious beer at home! Great news for people already seasoned at home brewing!
I just put one on my order–I’m stoked to have this ready for holiday tasting. Woot!
For some reason I missed that you now have a separate homebrewing blog. Yes, I’ve been waiting and waiting for brew related posts here so i was really happy to see the link to Devil’s Gate. Now I can spend the rainy weekend catching up with your brewing adventures.
How prevalent is the rye? I am not a big fan of the rye beers I have had in the past but the reset looks right up my alley. I poked around beer advocate and none of the reviews mention rye. I might have to pull the trigger on this it looks like a very interesting beer.
Someone needs to come up with a bottlemark cap for this. It would be great to get some custom caps.
OK I’ve been wanting to try homebrewing for years, and seeing all your posts about it Wil have made me decide to start – no chance of getting any of your starter kits though, as I live at the ass end of the world in Australia!
Super excited to try this! I love W00tstout, and my fiance and I are nearly ready to brew our 4th homebrew.
One question – after boiling and cooling, the directions say to pour the cooled wort into the 2 gallons of cold water, being careful to leave the thick sludge at the bottom of the kettle. Is just pouring it okay? We’ve been transferring our cooled wort with siphoning equipment because we were told that if we just poured the cooled wort, it could agitate the beer too much causing it to be over-carbonated. Are we being overly cautious?
Thanks from a couple of homebrew n00bs. 😉
You don’t want to agitate your beer after fermentation, because at that time it can get oxidized, which is gross. Before fermentation, and after your wort has cooled, you want to get lots of oxygen in your wort before you pitch your yeast, so the yeast can be happy and healthy and eat lots of sugars. To do that, you can either pour the wort into your fermentation bucket through a sanitized strainer, or you can siphon and then aerate with a sanitized stone.
Don’t feel weird about asking questions. I’m happy to help out as much as I can. Happy brewing!!
Yeah we totally haven’t been aerating at the cool-wort-into-water point. Lesson learned! We’ll change it up next time. Thanks for the help! 😀
So I made this today. OG came in a little low (1.100 vs the specified 1.108), probably because I had to do a quick rescue on a nearly-stuck mash. So it’ll be a little less alcoholic than it should be. #RDWHAHB.