NB Big Honkin Stout and 1# Blackstrap

Arghh!!

I couldn't leave well enough alone. After a perfect brew session that hit the target OG of 1.068, I found myself staring at a 16oz bottle of blackstrap molasses in the pantry. Hmm, wouldn't that taste great in a stout, I thought.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was slowly pouring the molasses into my wort. I was fascinated with how thick and slow the pour was. I kept thinking, that's enough, stop it. But I couldn't, I finished off all 16oz. OG ended up at 1.074. I'm glad I did two 1.25L starters with a Wyeast NW Ale into each.

After pitching, doubt settled in like a close friend. Why the whole damn bottle?

Sure enough a quick search on HBT reveals that blackstrap is potent. More than 5oz will take over a beer, overwhelm the taste and conceal the original beer.

So, now what? I was thinking maybe brewing the same NB Big Honkin Stout and then blending both batches together to lessen the blackstrap flavor. If, after fermentation is complete on batch one, I rack into two carboys, I could fill them with a second batch. Is this a good idea? Would I need more yeast?

Of course, maybe I shouldn't do anything and see what happens.

Just stating that I'm pretty new, but if you ferment the molasses version completely and ferment the original version completely, you can secondary them, together, without having to worry about additional yeast.

Here's my qualms with this dilution thought. If 5oz is enough to start over powering a beer and you used 16oz, you'd need to dilute it, >3:1. So if you only brew one more batch, now you effectively have 10gal using 16oz of molasses, or 2, 5gal batches with 8oz each. I would hate to find out that you didn't dilute it enough and ruin 2 batches instead of just cutting your losses.

That said, what I would do is secondary this molasses batch for as long as you would normally. If it's awful, brew another batch and add some molasses batch to it prior to bottleing till it tastes good. If that's one gallon, so be it. If it's all 5 gallons, great. If you still have some molasses batch left over, brew another batch and add the molasses in at bottling again. That molasses batch can sit in secondary for quite a while.

Hmm, not a bad idea. I keep the original in secondary for a considerable amount of time and on occasion borrow 1/2 a gallon or so to blend into a another stout or porter batch. This may give me an opportunity for a little creative brewing. I'm going to try this idea.

Thanks looneybomber!

Ions thing I have learned leave it. Don't dump or mess with it. See it through, take notes and let it sit for 3 months in bottles or longer. After you taste the final product then you will know what to do next time. You never know you might have a damn tasty beer after all is said and done

Ok, so I transferred the Blackstrap Stout to secondary.

I tasted this abomination and was over whelmed by the molasses. It didn't even taste like beer, just watered down molasses. Still, I resisted the urge to dump it down the drain.

OG was 1.074, today the FG is 1.026. Wyeast 1332 should attenuate at 67-71%. My apparent attenuation is 65%. I was fermenting at 66F. So, to maybe tweak out some more alcohol with the intent to dry out or reduce the sweet taste, I racked to secondary after swirling yeast cake. I think I may have transferred 1/4 of the yeast cake into secondary. Then over the next few days I'll bring the stout up to 70F. Hopefully the rise in temp will urge the yeast to activity. Maybe?

My next brew is going to be a Kolsch. So, when I'm ready to put the Kolsch into primary I'll drop the temp to 60F and move the stout to my closet which has a average temp of 76F. After that, its long term storage with the intent to mix in small amounts to subsequent batches of stout.