PB&J Stout

Call me crazy, mad, stupid, what you will, but I'm going to give this a shot. It's based on an oatmeal stout I made for my buddy's wedding that turned out quite well so I know I have a good base here.

8.00 lb Rahr 2-row
1.00 lb Flaked Oats
0.50 lb Crystal 80L
0.50 lb Roasted Barley
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt
1.00 lb Lactose
OG - 1.063

2 oz EKG @ 60 min - 36.2 IBU

Mash at...156 or so
US04 yeast

1 - 3.30 lb can of Oregon Raspberry Puree in secondary (+0.02 from my calcs)
1 - 1.00 lb jar of Smuckers Natural PB (ingredients: peanuts, salt), oil drained off over 2 months

I'm debating whether I should add the PB at the end of the boil or in secondary. Also I talked to Joe Short about his PB stout last weekend and he said he uses 60lb of peanuts in 7bbl (doesn't worry about the fat, "I just roll with it. It all settles to the top and I rack from under it anyway) so by my calcs my ratio is pretty close there.

Thoughts? Am I completely insane? FYI I'll be naming it:

I'm sure you're insane but I can't wait to hear how this turns out!!... I bet cooling it to ~33 degrees will help separate out any sneaky fat

There as been a few of these experiments over the years. The trick is always the PB. I need to try again, but my first attempt didn't have nearly the PB I was looking for.

I have never attempted to brew something like this (and frankly, it doesn't sound that good to me), but have you ever considered using powdered peanut butter?

It has much less fat (oil).

There are two things in this world that I love dearly.
1. Beer
2. PB&J

But under no circumstances would I ever, EVER cross the two. You must be drunk. What other explanation could there be??? I mean. I mean. Why? That is like murdering your two favorite things? Oh the humanity.






(ok. i'm being a little dramatic. but still. i'm not saying you shouldn't do it, i'm just saying that you shouldn't do it.)

P.S. If it turns out awesome, let me know.

The recipe is all wrong, you should be using Goober Grape!

So, aren't you under by almost a half pound'o'nuts ? By your recipe 1 lb to 5 gal, 3lb to keg, 6lb to bbl, 42 to the recipe you mentioned. So, you are lacking nuts!

What about throwing the PB in the primary, maybe easier to distribute in warm wort, then you rack out of primary after the oil floats, into secondary and maybe you get one more chance to rack out from under any oil that passed to secondary into the bottling bucket?

-OCD

I like pickles and I like ice cream - I would not like pickle ice cream. Same goes here (I'm sad to say).

You folks are not giving it a chance...Think about it...Besides jelly, what goes great with PB? Chocolate! Chocolate Stout...come on...Reeses Peanut Butter Stout. This isn't Pickles and Ice Cream. It's stuff that actually goes together.

I knew that I was going to get several "you shouldn't do it" posts. I eat PB&J and stout with some regularity so I figure it's worth a shot.

jldc: I had considered using PB2 actually, but I didn't want to have to buy $45 worth of it online to do so.

beerocd: Actually I think I'm about good on the peanut ratio since he was talking about actual peanuts and I'm using peanut butter. From what I've seen there's about a 4:3 ratio between the two. It still puts me a bit under, but I'd rather have to add more later than have a PB bomb. Good point about the timing of the addition, though.

I did a PB Porter and used a peanut butter extract, 4 oz for 5 gal. It was great! No head or foam issues. As for the jelly addition, I would say rack your beer over some thawed out concord grapes and age for 2 weeks. My 2 cents. Sounds like a great recipe!

Thanks for the input on the grapes. Not to hate on grape jelly, but I'm more of a raspberry fan so I think I'm going to stick with that.

Here's an update on this - racked to secondary yesterday and it tastes quite good. I ended up adding the PB at the end of the boil but it is not overpowering at all like I thought it might be. It's more of a nice aftertaste than anything. I did have a mm or two of oil floating at the top of the fermenter, despite drying the PB over the course of 2 months. If the raspberry puree balances well I'll be very pleased since I'm sitting on a nice PB stout right now.

what did you do to dry it? have you thought of adding peanuts to the boil? or crushed roasted nuts?

Thanks for the update. I'm also curious how you prepared the peanut butter for brewing.

My method of drying the PB was simply pouring the oil off the top, letting it settle, and repeating a few days later. After a few weeks of this there was no appreciable oil forming at the top so I started packing paper towel in there, which I also changed every few days. Again, there was still a bit of oil visible on the top of the beer when I racked to secondary, but I did my best to rack out from under it. I can still see a small amount of oil on top in secondary but I'm sure that I'll be good when I rack for bottling.

I have since considered using peanuts instead of PB, but after tasting it I'm not sure that I want to change anything on the peanut end. If I tweak anything it will be the fruit, which I'm still waiting for results on. I'm not sure that I would use roasted peanuts though, since the beer is already moderately roasty for a sweet stout. It could be great, but I'd cut back a little on the higher kilned malts in the recipe if doing so.

Final update here - This beer turned out as well as I could've expected for a first attempt. If I brewed it again I would probably cut the raspberry down by a third to a half since it was a bit overpowering even after a few months. We did a side-by-side with Short's PB&J stout last month (see here for those unfamiliar: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/9629/54851) and a few people said "nice clone" (despite me making this 2 months before theirs was released), but everyone liked mine a bit better.

Bringing this back to life a bit, but I'm bottling a PB&J Stout tonight. I made an imperial stout that came out very rich and almost coffee like flavor. In the secondary I added two pounds of fresh raspberries I soaked in some Starsan for a few minutes and for the PB addition, I used two jars of powdered peanut butter (PB2). I took a gravity reading and sampled it last night and I too have too much of a raspberry flavor going on and the PB is a little lost. I still have a jar of PB2 I could add for another 24 hrs but I may hold off and just go with it.

It kind of tastes like a dark chocolote square with the raspberry filling but with a not so good after taste. It started as a ten gallon batch but I split into two fermenters and the other five gallons is sitting with two gutted vanilla beans and I'm adding some cold brewed hazlenut coffee at kegging. Should be a pretty good holiday brew.

Never had Shorts version but I'd love to try it.

Cheers, enjoy the holiday

Short's version is a bit of a mess as well, honestly. I don't think I'll buy it again, as much as I love most of their stuff.

Do you have any pics of the beer or the process. I would love to try this beer or many of Short's other brews. Some people on here don't see a great opportunity in making different brews. Its what sets the real brewers from the fake brewers.

Ask and you shall receive. Unfortunately I grabbed what looks to be a dirty glass here, but oh well. You gave me a good excuse to have this again; it'd been probably 6 months since the last bottle. The raspberry has FINALLY faded enough to where I can taste the peanut butter. Head retention is pretty bad on this beer, but to be honest I don't really care.

So seriously though....on a scale between "I will never brew this again and surprised I didn't die from drinking it" to "Need to start selling this on Ebay for $500/bottle", what would you say you would rate this as?

As it stands right now, I'd probably give it a 4/10. I really think that if the raspberry were cut in half (or more) it'd be much better. It'd probably take brewing it a few more times to get the right balance between the stout/pb/raspberry, but this could easily be a great dessert beer if you wanted to mess around with it.

well....keep us posted then big guy

Will do, if I ever decide to brew it again.

Mine is just starting to become carbonated. I also have overwhelming raspberry going on. The peanut butter is there but barely. I used two jars of pb2 in the secondary. This one is going to stay in hiding for some time.

There's a brewery near me that'll fill a growler with what the call PB&J, it's 2/3 nut brown and 1/3 raspberry wheat. Delicious, though more than a pint or two at a time is a bit too much sometimes. I like where this thread is going... (well, went, I suppose, as it's rather old)