Is there a fix for a sweet stout that is TOO sweet, or do I dump it?

I brewed a sweet stout back in August. Here is the recipe I used:

Recipe: Todd's Sweet Stout
Brewer: Steel Horse Brewing Co.
Style: Sweet Stout
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.97 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.98 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.064 SG
Estimated Color: 32.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 84.1 %
Boil Time: 110 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt Name
9 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0
1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose) [Boil for 60 min]
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 15.0
1.0 pkg Irish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1084) -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 4.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp. Step Time
Mash In Add 14.06 qt of water at 165.5 F 154.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 5.05 gal water at 170.0 F


My SG was 1.070 and my FG was 1.022. I thought the FG was good for the style and would be okay. I kegged it after a few weeks in the primary and stuck it in the fridge until now.

I tapped it and had a pint the other day and I had to pour the glass out. I couldn't even finish it. It was waaaayyy too sweet. Almost comparable to drinking the wort sample from measuring SG.

My question is will it get better with time (it has already been aged a while), is there any other fix, or should I just call it a loss and move on to the next brew?

Any suggestions would be very helpful!

I'd take it out of the fridge and let it condition at a warmer temperature for a while. Might give the yeast some time to work on it. If it's been in the fridge since week 3 it may need some more conditioning.

I would try conditioning it longer, but if you are absolutely sure that it is done fermenting, you could try adding a very tiny amount of amylase. I have no experience doing it myself, but I have seen some recipes call for it in secondary to help dry the beer out. I'm thinking something on the order of a few drops. Then let the yeast go at it again. Diluting the enzyme in some extra water to dilute your beer slightly will also bring the FG down.

I would take note of the above comments first, but if you feel like you just can't take the taste I would try to add some coffee to it to counteract the sweetness before dumping it. There has to be someting you could do with it.

Or brew up a regular stout, ferment it out and then mix the two.

It doesn't look like it should be too sweet. Wonder if a measurement went wrong. Lactose does more for mouthfeel than sugary sweetness in my experience.

Let it sit at room temp for as long as you can forget about it, maybe it gets better?

If it doesn't get better, just make sure to drink at least two pints of your other home brew before drinking a pint of the stout.

I'd age it on oak. The tannins will balance the sweetness.
I just did this with a porter that I screwed up and it worked well.

I made a similar milk stout that was lower OG but finished up about the same. IIRC it was a bit sweet early on, though not terribly so. It has since come along nicely and while you could never call it bitter - it is a sweet stout, after all - it is very drinkable and quite delicious. If yours is not, I would definitely consider the mixing suggestion, maybe even with a commercial, drier stout.

It did taste pretty sweet and also a hint of apple as I recall. I'd give it some more time and see if it gets better. If you need help taste testing let me know. Lol

You could try adding coffee to it, the bitterness may balance it out better.

I learned that a while back with lactose - you can always add more, but you can never take it out.

You could add some fruit to it, cherries or raspberries, then let the yeast eat through ask of the sugars in the fruits, it'll leave the tart fruit taste. Just be sure to let it condition for a while.

Conditioning alone might take done of the sweetness away... Is it a cloying sweetness or a sugary sweetness?

I took the keg out of the fridge so it can warm up and age a bit.

I like the idea of adding coffee to it to help the sweetness. I'm not too big on fruit stouts but the oak sounds interesting. I don't have an oak barrel or anything but maybe throwing some oak chips in the keg?

Brewing a second batch without lactose and blending is also a good idea. I would have never thought of that.


I think first I'm just going to let it sit while it's warm to age a bit. I may not try tapping it again till fall. After the cold months, stouts aren't very appealing. If it still is very sweet, I'll try adding the oak chips. If that doesn't work, I'll brew up another batch minus the lactose and blend the two.
I'd really rather not dump it. I have five other kegs available so I can afford to wait on this one.

wobdee said:

It did taste pretty sweet and also a hint of apple as I recall. I'd give it some more time and see if it gets better. If you need help taste testing let me know. Lol

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I don't remember it being this sweet though, but also by then I think I was a little .

Also, when I tried yours that you did with this recipe, you had already aged it two years so maybe it does really need that long to develop. Worth it though because it was awesome!

Screw coffee, add bourbon.

mike_in_ak said:

If it doesn't get better, just make sure to drink at least two pints of your other home brew before drinking a pint of the stout.

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I don't brew many bad beers, IMO, but when I do this is the method I use to drink through them. lol

brewingmeister said:

Screw coffee, add bourbon.

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This, but add oak infused bourbon. 5 oz oak in 16 oz bourbon for 5 days. 8 oz bourbon per 5 gal.

Next time you make this, bump IBU to 40.

Infect it with Brett C and forget about it for a few months

CPDawg said:

This, but add oak infused bourbon. 5 oz oak in 16 oz bourbon for 5 days. 8 oz bourbon per 5 gal.

Next time you make this, bump IBU to 40.

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Okay so if it's 8 oz bourbon per 5 gal, would I use 5 oz. oak in 8 oz. bourbon for mine, or did you bump it to 16 just to give it a good shot of flavor?

Also, can I put those right in the keg? And how long does it need to age on the oak for the flavor to really affect the beer?

I just said 16 oz cause the oak will soak up some of it. I would give it a month after adding.

Personally I would just add some good bourbon. Some oak to a lesser bourbon might fix your wagon though.
Remember the smaller the pieces of wood the less you need because of the surface area. If you oak, just oak the bourbon and leave them out of the keg...you don't want it to go from too sweet to too much oak.

Yeah. If you use granules, use half that amount. And add only the bourbon. You can add it straight to the keg, but give it some time, 3 to 4 weeks.

To recap add about 5oz oak chips (2.5 oz if granular oak) to 16 oz bourbon. Wait 4-5 days and pour the bourbon through a coffee filter. Pour 8 oz of that into 5 gal beer. Age 3-4 weeks.

MetallHed said:

I don't remember it being this sweet though, but also by then I think I was a little .

Also, when I tried yours that you did with this recipe, you had already aged it two years so maybe it does really need that long to develop. Worth it though because it was awesome!

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I don't think it should take that long. I've brewed that same stout many times and it tasted great after 1 month in the keg. I'd give it one more month and if it hasn't gotten better I like that burbon idea.

you could always do a black and tan.

Dry hop the crap out of it and turn it into a Black IPA?

william_shakes_beer said:

you could always do a black and tan.

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Came to reccomend this, or some other type of mixture. Blending with an IPA on the dry side could be interesting.

I had a bottle of Dragon's Milk the other night and after that I am rethinking the bourbon idea. lol

Mixing half and half with a simple IPA might be feasible. A 5 gallon batch of 9 lbs two row and some 60L crystal hopped with cascade to around 60 IBUs maybe.

Right now the keg is sitting at room temperature. I'm going to leave it out for a while and use this time to build a keezer. My old kegorator seems to run all the time on even its warmest setting. It's converted from an old fridge so I think it's time for it to move on.

My second batch, extract, didn't attenuate for shiz. Since it is bottled I pull out some every now and again for cooking purposes. Almost on my last one now. Sweet Stout Kraut has more than a catchy sound to it.

Hermit said:

My second batch, extract, didn't attenuate for shiz. Since it is bottled I pull out some every now and again for cooking purposes. Almost on my last one now. Sweet Stout Kraut has more than a catchy sound to it.

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That'd be a last last last resort. I have done that with other beers that had off flavors, but I'm going to experiment with this one to see if I can make it taste good!

Hop shot?

wobdee said:

Hop shot?

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This stuff?

I could do like three shots to raise the IBUs

It appears that Hop Shot should be boiled to achieve bitterness (the oils in the resin still need isomerization). I would not add that to a finished beer - particularly a sweet stout.

Nor would I add bourbon. I generally dislike strong bourbon flavors in beer, but more to the point, I get a sweet note that I doubt would complement an already sweet brew.

I would brew a low OG, dry, bitter stout and blend 50/50. Shoot for 1.040-ish and 30-40 IBUs, with a healthy dose of roasted barley and high alpha bittering hops.

I had a barleywine that was too sweet. I boiled some hops on the stove, filtered them through a coffee filter, and added the result to my finished beer. It helped a lot, and in fact that barleywine won a local competition later.

MetallHed said:

This stuff?

I could do like three shots to raise the IBUs

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I asked N Brewer about this and yes you need to boil it to achieve bitterness.

Something else I've been reading about is hop tea. A small amount of say 1/4 to 1/2 oz steeped in hot water and strained into the stout may take some of the sweetness out.

Yuri_Rage said:

It appears that Hop Shot should be boiled to achieve bitterness (the oils in the resin still need isomerization). I would not add that to a finished beer - particularly a sweet stout.

Nor would I add bourbon. I generally dislike strong bourbon flavors in beer, but more to the point, I get a sweet note that I doubt would complement an already sweet brew.

I would brew a low OG, dry, bitter stout and blend 50/50. Shoot for 1.040-ish and 30-40 IBUs, with a healthy dose of roasted barley and high alpha bittering hops.

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Yeah after having a bourbon stout, I don't think I'm going to add any. Not a liquor guy to begin with so it doesn't really appeal to me.

passedpawn said:

I had a barleywine that was too sweet. I boiled some hops on the stove, filtered them through a coffee filter, and added the result to my finished beer. It helped a lot, and in fact that barleywine won a local competition later.

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That sounds like a good idea. Someone earlier suggested boosting the recipe IBUs to at least 40 next time. This would be like a homeade "hop-shot" that I could add.

wobdee said:

I asked N Brewer about this and yes you need to boil it to achieve bitterness.

Something else I've been reading about is hop tea. A small amount of say 1/4 to 1/2 oz steeped in hot water and strained into the stout may take some of the sweetness out.

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I think I may end up doing that after you and PP suggested it. I think it would help a lot to balance it out. Now the only question is how much hops and what kind. I would probably want a higher AA with an earthy flavor.

Any suggestions?

I have some Magnum that might work well. High AA and very smooth bitterness and flavor. I'd say maybe 1/3oz would do it.

I just checked my freezer and I have about a .5 oz of Columbus hops left over from that Surly Bender clone. I'll throw that in there first and wait to see if it needs more.

I have the same answer for all of the too-sweet beers: add brett b or c and let it go for a few months.

The OP gave me a growler of this stout to try again after a few more months of conditioning and It does taste better to me than before.

I don't think it's overly sweet anymore but I'm getting a hint of apple aroma and taste. It also seems to fade as it warms up.

Pretty hot and humid day to be drinking stout but I'll suffer through it lol.

Thank you for your sacrifice, wobdee.

Just to be clear I didnt do anything with it except for let it sit at room temp.