Dry stout additions

DocBrown · 08-04-2009, 06:13 AM

Hello,
I have a Dry Stout (AHS extract recipe) currently in the primary. When it finishes fermenting I'm planning to experiment with some of it. I have a 3qt glass jug in which I wanted to try a pepper stout and a 1gal jar that I'm hoping to use for a coffee stout.

For the pepper stout, I've seen several threads on here where people mentioned that chipotle milk stouts. Would it be possible to do something like this strictly with additions to the secondary? I have some extra lactose I could add (boil it first I presume?). Also, my wife has crushed chipotle pepper in the cabinet. Would this work as well as fresh peppers? How much lactose and crushed pepper would be reasonable to add to a 3qt batch in the secondary?

I also plan to try a 1gallon coffee stout batch. I've seen threads that mention cold brewing coffee and adding it to the secondary, but I'm having trouble finding a reasonable amount. Would 0.5oz of grounds in 4oz of water be suitable? Should I dump the grounds into the secondary along with the brewed coffee?

scinerd3000 · 08-04-2009, 06:30 AM

For the pepper stout the dried pepper should work. I would suggest boiling some water and soaking the chipoltle in there until it rehydrates. Your going to have to go by taste but i can tell you a small amount tends to go a long way in the ones of i have tried. The people i know who have made them used the canned chilis in adobo sauce and washed them prior to adding to the fermentor. They added them at the very tail end of primary and then racked off to secondary when the pepper taste was at a level they desired. It was suprisingly good but the heat is deffinitly there. Add lactose to taste because some desire sweeter than others. As for the coffee- i would not recomend adding the grounds to the fermentor however i dont have as much experience with that as some others one here. good luck.

DocBrown · 08-04-2009, 06:45 PM

Right now I'm thinking of using 1.5 tsps of the ground chipotle pepper and 1.5oz lactose. I should be able to put that in about 1 cup boiled water to get it all dissolved and hydrated. Does that sound reasonable?

DocBrown · 03-30-2010, 01:00 AM

I know it's been 7 months since I posted this, but I saw another thread asking about pepper additions, so I thought it would be worth posting results.
1) The dry stout recipe didn't turn out particularly well. This isn't necessarily the fault of AHS. I chose to use a different type of yeast because I wanted to collect it and use it for an imperial stout. I don't think the flavors imparted by the yeast went particularly well with the choice of grains. Basically this meant that I was starting with a mediocre beer, meaning that my experimental versions weren't likely to be exceptional either.
2) I added 1.5tsp of ground chipotle pepper and 1.5oz lactose to 1 cup water and added it to just under 3qts of the beer (after fermentation was complete). I let it sit for 2 weeks and then bottled. The pepper was pretty much overwhelming. It might be a decent beer with about 1/3 of what I added. That said, if you like really spicy things, this might work for you. The taste is okay, but it hits you in the back of your throat very quickly. 4oz is about all I'm willing to drink at a time.
3) This beer aged well. When I first cracked open a bottle about 3 weeks after bottling day, I couldn't stand it. I dumped the rest of the bottle after about two sips. After about 3-4 months though, it mellowed substantially. It's not great, but it's not horrible either.

I won't make this particular recipe again. I might try another small batch of pepper beer at some point in the future, but I'll need plenty of time to forget this batch first!