BrewNinja1
Well-Known Member
So after drinking this further, and sharing it with a few friends that love stouts, we've agreed:
It's a bit too 'dry'. Now yes, I know this isn't a dry beer (FG was 1.023 for me), but there is some soft astringency from the 1lb of Roasted Barley. I also don't get as much chocolate flavor that I get from LHMS; I get more coffee and esspresso. This makes the beer taste drier than it actually is. The astringency from the RB, and the heavy roasted notes were the big difference from this clone and LHMS. So next time i brew this I'm going to:
-Cut Roasted Barley to 10oz, possibly 8oz
-Up Chocolate to 14oz
-Mash much higher, I'm thinking 154-158.
-Also cut the 10min hop addition to 0.5oz
The recipe listed is absolutely fantastic, but it blurs the lines between a dry stout and milk stout in taste for me. It's a great beer, but i'm looking to get closer to LHMS, and the sweet stout BJCP category. This recipe obviously has a lot of mouthfeel, but it lacks the creamy chocolate smoothness that LHMS has.
I'll give it a re-brew, and li'll post how the revised recipe turned out.
Thats interesting. After I brewed this and let it age for about 2 months, I bought a real LHMS from the store. Then tasted them side by side blind. I couldnt tell which one was which. They were pretty much identical.