My Oxxxford Tawny beer got bottled last weekend and I started my next batch yesterday. This one is based on Burton Bridge Top Dog Stout and I’ve decided to call it Black Dog Stout (the first time I cooked up from the same recipe, a couple of years ago, I called it Bitter Dog Stout).

The initial gravity was only 1.040, quite a way down from the expected 1.050 in the recipe although not so far from the 1.042 I hit last time. Perhaps I should check that I transcribed the recipe correctly? I’m still working on concoctions from Graham Wheeler’s book, which I stick in a Google spreadsheet and then multiply all the amounts by an experimentally determined factor to fit my equipment (typically I aim for 10l water to start with), do it may be I wrote it down wrong.

Mind you, I was very pleased with the result I got last time so, if this one is also good, perhaps I won’t fiddle.