Why are my stouts so aweful ?

Let me start by saying that I love stout. Especially Castle Milk stout and the occasional Guinness we get here over in South Africa.

Over the last 3 years I've made 4 or 5 stouts which, without exception, have been too sweet, did not ferment down far enough, and eventually became hard to handle due to bottle bombs and gushers.

Could anyone give a few pointers on the art of making stouts.

To date i have made a Left Handed Milk Stout clone, O Flannigans Standard stout and a Black Pearl porter with equally disappointing results !!!

Any tips guys ?

I too am South African, and enjoy Castle Milk Stout! From the sounds of things, it looks like you have fermentation problems, rather than it being anything particularly "stout related". The one thing might be your yeast attentuation, and fermentation temperature range. What yeast do you use and what temperature do you ferment at? Sweet, gusher, bottle bomb all sound like incomplete fermentation in primary to me...

how long in primary? sounds like they weren't done fermenting.

and this only happens with stouts and not with any other style you'e brewed?

Wheelspin said:

Over the last 3 years I've made 4 or 5 stouts which, without exception, have been too sweet, did not ferment down far enough, and eventually became hard to handle due to bottle bombs and gushers.

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There's are a couple of clues here all of which lead to the same conclusion: incomplete fermentation. This can be caused by several things. It's happened twice to me and while I know it was bad yeast in one case and suspect it in the other cold temperature could have been partially to blame. The yeast just quit.

Wheelspin said:

Could anyone give a few pointers on the art of making stouts.

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Be sure you have good yeast, lots of them, oxygenate well and be sure fermentation has completed (apparent attenuation well into the 70 - 80% range) before bottling.

Also be sure to use a low sacchharification temperature (148° F or even a bit lower) in order to obtain a highly fermentable wort.

Yup, I'll agree that incomplete fermentation is probably to blame. But why ? I have a fermentation chamber with temp control and have had great success with Octoberfest Ales, IPA's, APA's, Blondes and Weisses. But my stouts never ferment down far enough.

Could this be because of the grains used in a typical stout ? I've been getting down to 1.019, 1.020 with my stouts and I think I've read that this is fairly typical for stouts - or am I wrong ?

WOW, lol.

Not what I was expecting to see.

Unless you are going BIG on your stouts and the OG is significantly higher than other beers, then this sounds like coincidence and imaptience.

The main difference is not likely to be your method, but you are probably using a different yeast when you brew stouts to your other beers. What yeast are you using? Is it good enough, is it being fermented at the right temperature (not too cold?) and is your wort oxygenated enough before you start to get the yeast going?




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Are you mashing or using extract? What is your water like? Is it really soft? Since it only happens with stouts, I wonder if it's possible that the pH of the mash is way out of range due to all the roasted and darker grains and you're getting incomplete conversion. If you have a lot of sugars left that yeast can't eat that would explain the sweetness and could also explain the gushers if you're introducing an infection during bottling. My best guess given the situation. Hope you get it figured out.

Just did my first AG Milk Stout and got the first bottle bomb on Saturday night.

I also got my FG down to 1.019. My temp was from about 20c to 24ish c (i think thats about 68-73ish F).

My OG was 1.054 (think that is well within range) and it stalled at 1.032. I used M10 Workhorse yeast from Mangrove Jack. I sanatized real good and then stirred it up good being careful not to splash. After 5 days it only dropped a point. Racked it over to another bucket and put Nottingham on it. Nothing for 6 days then went like crazy. All the way down to 1.019. Left it for another 2 1/2 weeks after seeing no more activity. Total time in fermenter was 5 1/2 weeks.

Again, FG was 1.019. Which like the OP said seems like the low end of what you get on a Milk Stout according to all the forms. It was my 8th batch and no other bombs before....

Wheelspin said:

Yup, I'll agree that incomplete fermentation is probably to blame. But why ?

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The first suspect would be the yeast. Where are you getting them. Jo'burg is a long way from Wyeast or White Labs, for example. Do the packs swell? Are you making a starter? Do you oxygenate the beer at pitching? Have you tried different suppliers of yeast?

The other would be wort with low relative proportion of fermentable sugars.

Wheelspin said:

I have a fermentation chamber with temp control and have had great success with Octoberfest Ales, IPA's, APA's, Blondes and Weisses. But my stouts never ferment down far enough.


Could this be because of the grains used in a typical stout ? I've been getting down to 1.019, 1.020 with my stouts and I think I've read that this is fairly typical for stouts - or am I wrong ?

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1.020 represents approximately 80% ADF for a wort of OG 1.100 and that would be good attenuation for a dry stout (which would never be made starting at 1.100). For a beer with OG 1.040, which might be more typical of an Irish stout, AG of 1.020 represents apparent attenuation of 50% and that is way too little.

If you have proper temp control I would 1- do a starter, 2- mash your dark grains separately from the base malt and add the worts in the boil.

Maybe you could post a recipe or two including yeast strain, OG, FG, and also include process like pitch rate, fermentation schedule, etc. As was mentioned 1.020 would be too high an FG for a dry stout, but might be normal for a big stout or a sweet/milk stout. Especially if you are adding lactose, a lb of that will raise your gravity about 7 pts per 5 gal. It's hard to make suggestions without seeing the whole recipe and process.