12/31/2010 Cherry Stout Bob and Denise 6.6 lbs. dark malt extract 1 lb. amber dry malt extract 3oz. Roasted barley 5oz. Black patent 8oz. Chocolate malt 1 lb. Caramel 80L 1oz. Hallertau Hops (AA 6.4%) (60 min) .5oz Hallertau Hops (30 min) .5oz Hallertau Hops (5 min) 1 qt. R.W. Knudsen "Just Tart Cherry" juice Starter made 12/30/2010 from Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast (English Ale) Heat 2 gallons water to 160 degrees, turn off heat, and steep the milled grains for 15 minutes. Discard grains and bring liquid to a boil. Turn the heat off again and stir in the liquid and dry malt extract until completely dissolved. Return to boil. Add first hops and wait 30 minutes. Add second hops and wait 25 minutes. Add third hops and wort chiller (to sterilize it) and wait 5 minutes. Cool wort using wort chiller to under 120 degrees (metal cauldron is bearable to the touch) then pour through a coarse strainer into plastic bucket. Add cherry juice and top up to 5 gallons with distilled water. Add yeast. Decant through a strainer into 6.5gallon carboy. Target OG: 1.064 Target FG: 1.021 Target ABV: 5.6% Actual OG: 1.095 What happened? This is significantly stronger than expected. Maybe the 1lb. DME on the recipe was a misprint? Next day update: I figured out what happened. I poured concentrated wort from the brewpot to the bucket, topped up with distilled water, then took the sample for the gravity reading without bothering to stir. I threw back the first sample and took another but even so I got concentrated wort that had not yet mixed with the distilled water. In all likelyhood the actual OG was close to the target. 1/8/11 Decanted to secondary carboy. Gravity: 1.023 2/16/11 Wort is dark and clear with a small amount of yeast at the bottom. Boiled 2 cups RO water and 1 cup corn sugar, covered and left to cool. Siphoned wort through filtered funnel into bucket. Measured FG: 1.022 Added priming sugar water to bucket and stirred. Bottled 56x12oz. bottles. 2/19/11 or so Opened a bottle to test and found it almost completely flat and gross. Had to discard. 3/15/11 or so Opened another test bottle and found it to be both properly carbonated and extremely delicious. This beer went off slowly but turned out to be totally awesome.