Stout, the world-famous all-day tipple of the old-fashioned Irish punter, is a forgiving style. Between the espresso and chocolate flavors of the roasted malts and the pitch-black color, tasters will be pressed to discern flaws.

Style: Irish Stout

Brew Type: Extract with Steeped Grains

For 5 gallons at 1.042 OG, 44 SRM, 18 IBUs, 4.2 percent ABV

60-minute boil

Directions

• Follow the Steeping Grains and Extract Process.

• Fermentation should take less than a week. Skip the secondary on the beer and package right away. If you're using kegs, you could conceivably go kettle to tap in as little as 4 days.

TIP

Note that even here, you use pale extract. Doing so makes you less dependent on the extract manufacturer and allows you to pick up more fresh grain character in your beer.

The full boil is one technique that improves overall quality of your brew regardless of color. Boiling six gallons of wort reduces caramelized sugars and residual gravity, and improves hops bitterness. Fewer caramelized sugars means paler beer. Since yeast can't ferment them, reducing them yields more fermentable, drier beer.

Going Pale

The first rule of going pale is obvious: use the palest extracts. You have several choices on the market. Choose the freshest and palest appropriate extract. Try a new scheme called late extract addition. Normally, you add all the extract when the wort first boils. Late-addition proponents add extract for just the last fifteen minutes to sanitize. Considerably less darkening takes place. Since hops isomerize better with malt, adding a third of the total extract retains hop character.

Dry as a Bone

Can't do a full boil? Push your yeast to make dry beer. Assuming you make starters, your first fix is increasing doses of yeast nutrient. Stronger beers need stronger yeast, and this is doubly true for yeast swimming in nutrient-deficient extract wort.

Nutrient not working? Switch to more attenuative strains. Look for a strain with a high alcohol tolerance and low flocculation characteristics. Neutral American strains like Wyeast 1056, White Labs WLP001, or Safale US-05 can churn through sugars better than many more flavorful strains.

Finally, you may have an extract issue. Try switching a batch's brands with no other changes. If you get better attenuation, switch from your less attenuative extract. With sweet-finishing extracts, add sugar for part of the gravity. The batch will end up with a lower final gravity.