Irish Extra Stout 2025

Thanksgiving weekend brew day! I mostly keep base malts on hand but I've acquired a bunch of specialty grains in judge swag bags, as competition prizes, etc. I decided I better brew some recipes to use up some of these grains rather than perpetually storing them.

For today's beer, I'm brewing an Irish Extra Stout. This recipe is based on one of the medal winning recipes from NHC, specifically Paul’s Irish Extra Stout by Paul Sorice Jr., gold medal winner from 2022. I haven't had a chance to meet Paul yet, but he's in the Pinellas Urban Brewers Guild, the same club I just joined a couple weeks ago. I'm modifying the recipe slightly, including the brewing water (I'm using the Black Balanced (Over 31 SRM) water profile in Beersmith). I don't believe I've ever brewed anything specifically intended to be an Irish Extra Stout, so I'm looking forward to giving this one a try. It's my first time using Coffee Malt in a recipe. The 2021 BJCP style guidelines describe this style as follows:

A fuller-bodied black beer with a pronounced roasted flavor, often similar to coffee and dark chocolate with some malty complexity. The balance can range from moderately bittersweet to bitter, with the more balanced versions having up to moderate malty richness and the bitter versions being quite dry. 

I'm not shooting for an overly dry and bitter version. I'm hoping the selected grain bill and water profile will result in a nicely balanced beer. Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it today: 

Target OG 1.058

Target FG: 1.014

IBU: 36

ABV: 6

7 lb. 14oz Maris Otter pale malt 

6 oz. Carafa III malt (Cold steeped and added to BK during sparge)

6 oz. Simpson's Pale Chocolate malt

6 oz. Briess Victory malt

6 oz Simpson's Coffee malt

3 oz. Simpson's Double Roasted Crystal malt

1.25 oz. (35 g) Cluster, 6.5% AA @ 60 min

0.5 oz. (14 g) Cluster, 6.5% AA @ 15 min

4.66g BCAA (10 min)

Yeast Nutrient (Flameout)

Whirlfloc (Flameout)

Zinc Buddy (Added at pitch)

Fermentis Safale S-04

Mash at 153F. Ferment at 64°F for 12 days. Raise to 68°F on day 13 and hold for 3 days.

Water Profile

Target Water Profile
Ca	Mg	Na	SO4	Cl	HCO3
50	10	33	57	44	142

As mentioned above, I'm deviating from the water profile listed on the AHA's website. To 10 gallons of distilled/RO water, add the following:

• 5.4g Epsom salt
• 3.3g Calcium chloride
• 5.2g Baking soda
• 2.7g Chalk

Brewing Notes

No issues other than my gravity is a few points high. I believe this is due to more boil off than I was anticipating rather than higher than normal efficiency. So, I still need to dial that in a bit. I’m happy to say I think I’ve figured out my chilling process. Essentially I’m chilling down to about 99F with groundwater temps. Then I turn the pump on for the pre-chiller setup which is a Blichmann plate chiller connected to an ice water reservoir. With this setup, I was able to chill down to about 57F. I still had quite a bit of ice left too, so I think I could have easily gotten it down to 50F.

Session Readings
Beginning mash pH	5.18
Ending mash pH	5.18
1st running gravity	16.8 (1.067)
Pre-Boil gravity	10.5 (1.041)
Pre-Boil pH	5.18
Post-Boil gravity	15.5 (1.061)
Post-Boil pH	5.09

One thing worth mentioning, my Tilt Hydrometers' batteries both died on me before I moved to Florida. I figured I'd address that once I got settled in Florida. I'm happy to say I replaced the batteries, recalibrated both Tilts, and will be using one on this brew. I find Tilts most useful for lager fermentations as it helps me decide when to perform a diacetyl rest, but I use them in my ale fermentations as well. The only time I don't use them is in wild/mixed fermentations, but I may try that at some point if I can find someone looking to offload one for cheap. In Utah I used an old cell phone for logging, but I decided to buy a Tilt Pico to use in place of the phone. The Tilt Pico is a Raspberry Pi-based device that functions as a Bluetooth to WiFi bridge and eliminates the need for a cell phone. The cell phone solution worked ok, but my phone would periodically crash or reboot after an update and I'd lose logging data until I managed restart the Tilt app. I'm hoping the Tilt Pico is more stable.

Update 11/30/2025 7:15AM

Things are moving along today. The current gravity reading is 1.053 and temps are holding at 64F, although temps got as high as 66F for a short period. I may need to recalibrate the probe on my temp controller. I forgot to mention, I added White Labs Zinc Buddy to this batch. I didn't realize WL was selling this product and it was a little hard to find, but a friend of mine uses it and recommended it (more on his beer in an upcoming post). It's basically a sterile zinc solution that you can add directly to your fermenter and it supports yeast health. Here's a link to more info on WL.