When should I brew a stout for winter?

If you are talking about any stout but a low gravity dry stout, I would brew now with the idea that you would drink it in 5-7 months. If you are talking about a RIS, then you should brew this weekend and you might crack the first one on opening day

For example, I lost a keg of robust porter in my basement for just shy of a year, it ended up being one of the best dark/roasty beers I have brewed and I am pretty sure some of that was the long rest time.

Do you have Brewing Classic Styles? Jamil's recipes seem pretty solid.

Here is his Foreign Export Stout (sounds pretty good to me)
English Pale Ale LME 10#
Black Barley .75#
C40 10oz
C80 10oz
Chocolate Malt 8oz

EKG at 60 mins to get 44 IBUs

Nottingham dry yeast or WLP013 or WY1028
Ferment at 67 rise to 70 at the end.

 

About 6 months+ for a "standard" porter/stout is my experience. On something "big" then 12 months and up.

 

For a standard gravity Stout I don't think it takes that long. 2 to 3 months to peak.

 

Personally, I'm generally drinking on a standard stout at about the same time as most other "standard" beer styles. A RIS I do age for 2-3 months, especially if I've added something to it. I have not brewed a RIS much above 10%, however.

 

All of my stouts come in at 1.070 and up. They tend to need a bit of age to round the edges, so I typically brew in august and age until xmas, sometimes later.

 

I decided to get a head start on mine so I could have it ready as its cooling down as opposed to waiting till Christmas. I don't mind drinking it even if it isn't winter! I'm going to rack to a secondary for about a week or 2 so I can add some vanilla beans and some coffee on the last 2 days. I then plan on racking it over to my Balcones oak barrel to let it age further for a month or two. So overall, mine will be more than drinkable come October.

 

You might try the AP Stout we did last year. It is "non-traditional" but it worked for an American Stout. I still have some left and at this point, the hops have faded into a hint of fruitiness, reminds me of an export stout.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...erican-stout-whole-leaf-hop-version-ag.241978 there is also a pellet version

 

For an extract stout I suggest using some Munich malt syrup. I helps add some body and flavor. I like my stouts to be closer to an imperial so for a 5.25 gallon batch I use 8 LB golden light DME and 3 LB Munich malt syrup. It usually finishes around 8.5%. Three weeks in the primary and then bottle condition for a couple months and it is ready to drink.

 

Pellet version http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...t-american-stout-pellet-hop-version-ag.241977

You could do something close to this with regular DME (and maybe Munich DME), but you need to mash the oatmeal. If you don't want to bother with a partial mash (it is easy), then this is not the recipe for you.

 

I brewed an imperial oatmeal stout end of june. I got around to bottling just a couple weeks ago.
I figure it will be more than ready by fall, if not labor day.
I personally think all but the biggest stouts (SG 1.1-ish and above) are fine to drink after the normal fermentation / conditioning cycle.
For a recipe, I would say use light extract, and steep with chocolate, carafa and maybe some dark crystal malts If you want a partial mash, flaked oats will give a nice smooth mouthfeel. Bittering hops, maybe 40 - 50 IBUs worth, you don't need much in the way of flavor or aroma ones, maybe just an ounce or 2.

 

I would not use dark LME/DME, I would prefer to start with light DME and then add color/flavor with malt/grain that I specifically chose. But, the name of the beer makes me think that @stealth might have something to do with it. Maybe he can help you out.

 

That thread was from before I started brewing, but I have done several stouts using dark liquid extract with great results. The dark LME I used is from NB: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/maillard-malts-dark-malt-extract-syrup

I add the majority late in the boil with 15 min left, although I will say it does not seem to attenuate as well as the light LME's. Killer flavor though.

 

Late addition of the majority (75-85%) of your extract help avoid negative effects of the Maillard reaction and carmelization. Basically, if I am doing an extract brew I add enough (15-25% of my total extract) at the start of the boil so the sugars in the extract aid in pulling out the hops' alpha-acids. The rest goes in 15 minutes before the boil ends. I have yet to have anything but great success with my extract brews when brewed in this manner.