Need feedback on a stout-porter recipe

Hello,
Working on a recipe here, and I wanted to get some second, third, and fourth opinions, if possible. I've got about a dozen brews under my belt, but not much experience making recipes.

It's a partial mash recipe, and I'm calling it a "Molasses double stout-porter". I'm looking for substantial body and mouthfeel, and plenty of molasses character, but still have malt complexity. The recipe here is adapted from a RIS stout recipe out of a book.

Grains:
5 lbs dark DME
2 lbs organic blackstrap molasses
1 lb Amber malt
1 lb flaked oats
12 oz crystal 80
8 oz choc malt
8 oz biscuit malt
8 oz 2 row (to help conversion)
4 oz black patent
4 oz roast barley

Hops:
17 AAU bittering
2 oz aroma/flavor with Saaz

Yeast:
Wyeast West Yorkshire (PC 1469)

OG should be ~1.087


Lots of specialty grains, I know. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

I'd scale back the specialties quite a bit. What does the roast barley give you the black patent and choc malt doesnt? When I make a recipe, I try to have a clear idea of the flavors I want, and what each ingredient will do to get the flavors I want.

I used to make a lot of mediocre beers with "malt soup" grists. Now I make good beer with very simple recipes. Too many competing flavors will cover up complexity, not create it.

Nateo said:

I'd scale back the specialties quite a bit. What does the roast barley give you the black patent and choc malt doesnt? When I make a recipe, I try to have a clear idea of the flavors I want, and what each ingredient will do to get the flavors I want.

I used to make a lot of mediocre beers with "malt soup" grists. Now I make good beer with very simple recipes. Too many competing flavors will cover up complexity, not create it.

Click to expand...

Makes a lot of sense, thank you for that.
Here's the catch...when I went to the LHBS, they ground up my grains for me. They put the Black Patent and Roast Barely in the same bag! So whatever I use for black patent, I automatically have to use for Roasted B.

Maybe I'll take out the Choco and biscuit to clean up the recipe a bit. I know all these dark malts might be redundant, but at the same time I know they are all slightly different..

Nateo said:

I'd scale back the specialties quite a bit. What does the roast barley give you the black patent and choc malt doesnt? When I make a recipe, I try to have a clear idea of the flavors I want, and what each ingredient will do to get the flavors I want.

Click to expand...

Roasted barley will give a lot black patent doesn't. The two will give two very different flavors. The roasted barley will be more chocolate/coffee roastiness while black patent is harsher, more bitter, and "charcoal" like.

But you are absolutely right that when making a recipe make sure that you have a reason for each ingredient, not to just toss things in there for the sake of "complexity" alone.

That said, I made an outstanding stout for this winter that used chocolate, roasted, and black patent malts, and I know many stout recipes that use all three. So it really depends on what you want in your stout. Just don't go tossing things in without purpose. Hope the brew goes well!

I wasn't implying there are no differences between those malts, just that you should have a reason for the ingredients you bring to the table. It was more of a hypothetical question.

Sorry, Nateo, I must have misunderstood. Good points!

Nateo said:

I'd scale back the specialties quite a bit. What does the roast barley give you the black patent and choc malt doesnt? When I make a recipe, I try to have a clear idea of the flavors I want, and what each ingredient will do to get the flavors I want.

I used to make a lot of mediocre beers with "malt soup" grists. Now I make good beer with very simple recipes. Too many competing flavors will cover up complexity, not create it.

Click to expand...

I agree completely. To be honest, a lot of the recipes here seem to
be designed to sell as much stuff as possible at the home brew shop
rather than designed to taste good.

One way to tell the difference between the dark malts is to make
a tea by steeping small amounts of the grains in a small amount of
warm water and tasting them side by side. Or by adding a bit of
the steep to a light beer like Michelob to see what flavor you get.

The head brewer at Guiness said that they could not tell the difference
between stouts made with black malt and stouts made with roasted
barley. Some people don't believe that but it may be because when
you use the large amount typical of stout recipes, the flavors are
so intense you can't really tell the difference. Would a beer hopped
to 100 IBU with Magnum be distinguishable from one hopped to
100 IBU with some other hop?

Ray

JMO..but I'd lose the molasses, biscuit and amber, lose the Roasted Barley if your making a Porter, keep it if you want for a Stout but adjust the chocolate and the Black. Keep it Simple and you'll be happier with the result.