brewing a "Oatmeal choco-coco-mint STOUT"

You that knows much more (anything you know will be more than I do) about stouts, what you think about this:

9# 2 row base malt
1# Crystal 120
1# Vienna Malt
1/4# Chocolate 350
1/2# Carafa2
1/4# flaked oats
1# Lactose

1oz Centenial for 30min
1oz Crystal for 30min
1oz Crystal for 5min
Irish moss for 20min

Mix with a cup of vodka to be added to primary:
1/2# chocolate nibs
1 tsp coconut extract
1 cup blended fresh mint leaves

Dry yeast S04 at 165F

OG=1.060
FG=1.020
SRM=35
IBU=38
ABV%=5

Drop the late hop additions if you want to use the chocolate, coconut and mint- they'll just clash with each other.

I have never used nibs, but had great success with dark dutched coco at the end of the boil, Like Hershey special dark coco. I would think that mint extract would be better than leaves too. Taste like you think it should be. The leaves all have off green grass flavors in them.

The only batch I have ever had to dump out of 60+ batches of beer was a Mint Chocolate stout. I used the Dutched Dark Cocoa for mine. I'm still not entirely sure what went wrong but it was absolutely foul. Think my airlock ran dry or something. But It left such a bad taste in my mouth I have never tried to make another batch

I just got the chocolate nibs delivered, got it from here
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ELL9GI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

The nibs are about 1/4in or less in size. Should I crush then more of use like that?
Should I use it in the primary or secondary? I usually don't do secondary.
Also, on the oats, should I increase it to 1/2lb or more?
I'm chaging the hops to only one addition at start of boil, as suggested.

Thanks

You asked "What do you think about this". My answer: no thanks I would pass. The coconut extract alone makes my stomach curdle. If you want chocolate & mint, and would try to find out if anyone else has had some credible success with those flavors ina stout. If you cannot find that info, don't bother making a full size batch. I guarantee you someone has tried it, and no info would likely mean it was not very good.

Either way, whether you still want to use the coconut extract (ew) or not, make a 1 or 2 gallon batch.

I hope this was a suitable answer to your original question. I do like your bravery though for suggesting such a recipe.

I had a really dark chocolate stout from a local brew pub here that I could swear had coconut in it. It was incredible.

But I would pass on the mint. Just my personal taste.

jjones17 said:

You asked "What do you think about this". My answer: no thanks I would pass. The coconut extract alone makes my stomach curdle. If you want chocolate & mint, and would try to find out if anyone else has had some credible success with those flavors ina stout. If you cannot find that info, don't bother making a full size batch. I guarantee you someone has tried it, and no info would likely mean it was not very good.

Either way, whether you still want to use the coconut extract (ew) or not, make a 1 or 2 gallon batch.

I hope this was a suitable answer to your original question. I do like your bravery though for suggesting such a recipe.

Click to expand...

Did you see my response? Yeah i tried it. My idea was to make a girl scout thin mint in a glass. What I ended up with was a complete and total abortion. Its the only batch of beer I have ever made that I dumped. Absolutely foul.

This sounds like there's just way too much stuff going on in there. You might as well throw the Sharks and the Jets in there too, and really get the party going. Keep it simple brother, you're only gonna have problems with that recipe, IMO. I can't say I've ever tried anything like that, or ever would, but it seems like you're gonna waste a lot of ingredients. Scale it down and make a 1 gallon batch, see how it turns out. Then you'll know what to keep, what to tweak, and what to get rid of.

Also, it's not entirely clear how you were planning on adding the "spices" but I recommend separating them. It would suck to get the perfect amount of chocolate but screw up one of the others.

Chocolate stouts are pretty common, so I recommend directly copying what someone else has done with chocolate. Then when the beer has finished fermenting, do some shotglass blending to test the mint or coconut flavors.

I think you have the potential for a really awesome and unique beer, but you need to be very careful with it and do some serious experimentation. And for the love of satan, take some good notes on your experimentation process so we can all benefit from the mistakes as well as the success.

IMO...you need more roasted malts in there.

I make a chocolate mint milk stout that everyone really enjoys. I started with Eschatz recipe here and made a few very minor changes, I halved the chocolate malt to 4 oz and added in 4 oz of debittered black, I use 2/3 oz chopped mint in the last 5 minuts of the boil, I also add 1 lb of lactose at that time as well, then I soak another 2/3 oz of mint for a week or two in a mason jar with enough vodka to cover the chopped leaves, strained through a coffee filter and added to the keg when racking the finished beer into it. one of my fall favorites!

azscoob said:

I make a chocolate mint milk stout that everyone really enjoys. I started with Eschatz recipe here and made a few very minor changes, I halved the chocolate malt to 4 oz and added in 4 oz of debittered black, I use 2/3 oz chopped mint in the last 5 minuts of the boil, I also add 1 lb of lactose at that time as well, then I soak another 2/3 oz of mint for a week or two in a mason jar with enough vodka to cover the chopped leaves, strained through a coffee filter and added to the keg when racking the finished beer into it. one of my fall favorites!

Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks for the link. So a chocolate-mint stout has been brewed and came out good. That is good to know.
I'm amazed how diverse the feedback was. Some stated my recipe is a waste, but some actually did it and were sucessful.
I'm making several changes to my recipe based on the comments here, so thank you guys.
It may not come out good, but trying diferent things is the reason why I'm homebrewing.
You know, if people wouldn't challenge the limits and experiment, we would probably have only 2 or 3 styles of beer today :fro: