Sweet Stout Deception Cream Stout

HokieBrewer said:

2 weeks in the bottle and this beer is delicious. Thanks NCBeernut!

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No problem. If only I could put this thread on my med school application, they would see how I was changing lives.

I brewed this last night - oh man, it looked so good I could have drank right from the counterflow chiller! This will be my "go to" Christmas beer!

This recipe sound too good to not give it a try,
I will make it as soon I bottle my current batch.

Just one question.
How much liquid malt extract instead of the DME?

What is the formula to calculate DME to LME?

1 lb grain = .75 lb LME = .6 lb DME

so lb DME x 0.75/0.6 = lb LME

Thank You NCBeernut.

NCBeernut said:

1 lb grain = .75 lb LME = .6 lb DME

so lb DME x 0.75/0.6 = lb LME

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Or make it easy on yourself and multiply the amount of DME by 1.25

E.g., 4.5 Amber DME x 1.25 = 5.625 lbs LME

BigB said:

Or make it easy on yourself and multiply the amount of DME by 1.25

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0.75/0.6 = 1.25...Not a real complex or time-consuming calculation. Just trying to show the math.

Either way works fine thought. Cheers.

NCBeernut said:

0.75/0.6 = 1.25...Not a real complex or time-consuming calculation. Just trying to show the math.

Either way works fine thought. Cheers.

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LOL. I know, I was ribbing you! You are obviously the scientific type

BigB said:

LOL. I know, I was ribbing you! You are obviously the scientific type

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You got me. It's the Biochemist/Chemist wheels turning in my head.

How would subbing out the wheat for flaked oats and/or flaked barely work? I've never used more than 1/2lb of flaked in any recipe, and only just recently used 1lb of flaked oats in a brown (still conditioning), so I can't tell you what it will impart with that amount.

.75lbs of each maybe?

The oats will do everything the other flaked products will do, plus add a creaminess to the beer. But at such a small amount anyways, I don't think it will make much of a difference which you use.

Finally after 4 weeks of Primary its in the keg to sit in the closet and naturally carb for a few weeks. Its going to be kind of light though, I had a lot OG of 1.051 and a FG of 1.021, not bad (~3.9%) but not exactly what I wanted. Tastes good though.
Up next weekend I think will be either Cheesefood's Caramel Cream Ale or possibly Yooper's House Pale Ale.

Just drank a gravity sample from this, brewed it 11/4, its sitting right at 1.020 w/ a starting of 1.058. This stuff already tastes AMAZING!! This won't be the last time I brew this recipe for sure.

7mmSTW said:

Just drank a gravity sample from this, brewed it 11/4, its sitting right at 1.020 w/ a starting of 1.058. This stuff already tastes AMAZING!! This won't be the last time I brew this recipe for sure.

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Sounds like you are right on track! I'm actually brewing the all-grain version this winter with a little coffee (cold-steeped) added at bottling. I'll report back in...well...2011.

I brewed this(extract) on 10/31, and had an OG of 1.060, mine is also sitting at 1.020 now. I'm still sipping the sample as I type this

Should be a great beer! Looking forward to trying an AG version of this in the future.

NCBeernut said:

Sounds like you are right on track! I'm actually brewing the all-grain version this winter with a little coffee (cold-steeped) added at bottling. I'll report back in...well...2011.

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This stuff tastes better at 2 weeks than alot of commercial stouts. I haven't brewed that much and this is my 2nd AG. This things a confidence builder!! I think the base is there for almost any flavor to be added, coffee, vanilla, chocolate, caramel, etc...

I will be brewing this next week. Thanks for the recipe NC. Pics to come.

Brewed Yesterday afternoon. Subbed out the basemalt for Munich, and hops for leaf nuggets at 30ibus.

Making this On Friday or Saturday. Made a starter yesterday with what I thought was Irish Ale - turned out to be European Ale (Wyeast 1338) - says it is good for a sweet stout, so time will tell. Plan to add coffee beans at flameout.

I just floated a half keg of this at a informal beer tasting party a few days ago. Everyone raved about how great it was. It also earned the nickname "Wonka Blood". I kinda like it. A full batch is in the pipeline.

Brewing this tomorrow!

Question: Can I use some of the DME from this recipe to make the 1.5L yeast starter and then pitch the whole thing into the wort. You know, do the boil and then the yeast pitch will be my final top-off to 5 gals.

OR

Should I use extra DME, make the starter, decant and then pitch into the already 5gal wort?

2nd option

Your starter will take a few days to "start". But your wort will be fine sitting in fermenter with no yeast for a few days until the starter is ready if you "have" to brew tommorrow.

I wish I had read through this thread a couple months ago. Now I'm kicking myself for not brewing this 3 months ago. I'm working this recipe into my rotation. I haven't brewed with Wyeast 1028 before but I have brewed with Nottingham. What would the differences be? Also I have access to Pacman yeast and really enjoy it I wonder what this would be like with that yeast.

I got impatient and cracked one of these open today. Even when undercarbed and a little green, this has to be the best stout I've had. Tasty!

wilson1417 said:

Your starter will take a few days to "start". But your wort will be fine sitting in fermenter with no yeast for a few days until the starter is ready if you "have" to brew tommorrow.

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Your starter will be ready overnight. Typically high krausen occurs 16-24 hours after pitching. Starters are super fast because of the massive amount of yeast compared to the small amount of wort. If you make a smaller starter, like a 1L or so, you can pitch the whole thing into the wort to be fermented at high krausen. However, if you make a larger starter like a 2 L starter, you would probably want to let the starter ferment out completely for 2 days, then chill for a few days in the fridge to force the yeast to drop out of suspension, then on the day to pitch decant the liquid off the top and allow the yeast cake to warm up to room temperature before pitching. The idea behind decanting off the liquid is because when you make a starter you really want to aerate it (which promotes yeast reproduction) but the resulting "beer" is oxidized. Therefore, you don't want to pitch 2L of oxidized, unhopped, liquid into your beer. However, many experienced brewers, including Jamil Z., say that a 1L starter is fine to pitch directly into your wort (assuming you do so at high krausen). This is the method I use 90% of the time because I primarily make 1L starters. Some brewers will always do the decant method because they don't want to put any oxidized liquid into their beer. There is certainly nothing wrong with this approach, but I personally like the high krausen method because the yeast are active and ready to go.

Also, although you can sometimes get away with leaving a wort sit covered for a day or so without pitching, but the longer you wait, the longer nasties like infections or wild yeast, have an opportunity to establish a beach head in your beer... this method didn't work out so well for the Germans in WWII.

I woke to find my starter's krausen had already sank. I have the starter growler chilling right now and there's already a good 1/2" of white cake at the bottom. Should be ready to pitch by tonight! SCORE!

Thanks again!

Just finished cleaning up - Did the AG version - 5.5 gallons with SG @ 1.060. Pitched with Euro Ale (Wyeast 1338)

So, Tuesday morning the wort was seemingly just sitting around doing nothing. But, when I dipped my thermometer in and it read 68, close to where I wanted it. I licked the thermometer to get a taste, and it was very coffee forward with no alcohol.

I got home last night and noticed it had a nice krausen and was happy bubbling away at 70 degrees. Figured it had a week or two to go, as Euro Ale (Wyeast 1338) is described as possibly being very slow to ferment.

Got up this morning to see how my brew was going - krausen was gone - just a few bubbles left on top of the wort with a temp of ~66 (it is in a cold garage). I figured something was wrong, but took a hydro reading to see. It read 1.019, just a point from the estimated FG. Took a lick of the hydro - not bad at 60 hours, still lots of coffee.

So, my slow Euro Ale yeast took 60 hours to ferment this thing. Now it gets a 4 week rest in the primary, then bottle, then drink.....

BTW: Two ounces of Organic Sumatra was coarsely cracked and added at flame out. Wort was allowed to rest 5 minuted before chilling. Hit it with yeast form a 2 liter starter.

I brewed this yesterday...All Grain and I hit my OG dead on...This was my first AG...

I did end up using pale chocolate malt(thats all they had) mixed with some chocolate malt I had from a previous porter...but the wort tasted great...

Ohhh..I also added a half pound of flaked oats...

I also made a 1400ml starter from WLP001 California Ale (my first time ever with a starter) that I harvested from my last beer I made...pitched it at high krausen...

This morning it was bubbling away at 64F....

I don't think this really takes 30 days to ferment....

Saturday brewing a Blue Moon Clone...

Crimsonwine said:

I don't think this really takes 30 days to ferment....

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Many people leave beers in the primary for 3-4 weeks to ensure most (all?) of the fermentation by products are cleaned up and it also promotes a pretty compact trub/yeast cake.

SwampassJ said:

Many people leave beers in the primary for 3-4 weeks to ensure most (all?) of the fermentation by products are cleaned up and it also promotes a pretty compact trub/yeast cake.

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Holy crap, I swear I can almost FEEL Revvy's all encompassing eye glance at this thread.

Dude, beer ferments out rather fast. This is known. It also leaves behind a bunch of bad flavors that the yeast needs to clean up. Just Leave the beer alone for a few weeks, and all will be ok.

Does Lactose add any gravity points ?

I brewed this on 15 Nov
Used LME instead of DME

1800ml starter with WLP 004 Irish Ale

and because I had a open bag of Lactose, I added .75lb of Lactose instead of the .50lb.

OG 1.055
Fermentation at a steady 67 F

The first few days it went nuts, bubbled and burped so loud the scared my dogs. I did lose maybe a cup or two of krausen into my blow off bottle.

Now today 13 Dec, My Gravity reads 1.032, and tasted very sweet / too sweet

I Swirled it a bit to kick up some yeast.

Q. Would the extra .25 lactose account for the higher Gravity? (I wouldn't think so, at least not that much)

normally, I don't worry about this stuff and just leave my beer alone in the primary for 3 weeks to a month then keg it.

I knew this one (my first stout) would take longer. But, after getting this high FG reading then reading in this thread that some of you were getting down to 1.019 within a week made me start to wonder.

No emergency yet, I still have some "Session Mild" on tap.
I'm getting ready to RDWHAHB I just wanted to hear any input you may have or solutions. (if it needs any)

I'll check it again in a week.
Thanks

Yes, lactose does add to OG and FG (because it is not fermentable) but the 1/4 lb difference would only add about .001-.002.

You rat bastards! Here I was being good, saving my money for Christmas shopping and silly things like rent, when y'all have to start going on & on about this terrific stout! What's a thirsty Irishman supposed to do? I mean, with St. Patty's Day just around the corner, I NEED a good stout on hand, right? I guess a trip to MLHBS is in order. I hope you're all happy with yourselves.

Mine is still overpowered by coffee notes. Cant taste any of the caramel / chocolate. I don't know if I grabbed the wrong barley, but it always had a strong overpowering coffee aroma. I am hoping the bottle conditioning will tone some of that down.

I split my batch one per the recipe and doubled the lactose and primed with brown sugar in the other half. I must admit the batch with the extra lactose / brown sugar is much more well rounded. Don't get me wrong, the original is great - but after I tasted 2.0 I was sold.

I also got very strong coffee aromas. Other than the difference in my expectations, it was excellent.

What's the reason behind the late lactose addition? Is it just for better hop utilization or is there some other reason why lactose should be added late?

passing4sane said:

What's the reason behind the late lactose addition? Is it just for better hop utilization or is there some other reason why lactose should be added late?

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I think it is just to kill any nasties. Keeps it from scorching

jeremysavoy said:

I still make this using Maris Otter and 1084 Irish Ale yeast ... truly the best beer I have on tap, never lasts long!! I also use Galena at FWH.

In fact I'm picking up this stuff today from American Brewmaster in Raleigh to brew tomorrow !!

Here are my ingredients for the partial mash version ...

Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.50 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 25.64 %
3.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 30.77 %
1.50 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 15.38 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 10.26 %
0.75 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 7.69 %
0.50 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 5.13 %
0.85 oz Galena [13.00 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 28.9 IBU
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
0.50 lb Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 5.13 %

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast

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I brewed using these ingredients. I also used a starter of W1084. Now here's the thing: there was about 1 inch of krausen after about 12 hours, then after about 48 hours it was all gone and fermentation appeared to be done. I shook it up and let it sit another day and still no more activity. I took a gravity reading and it was down to 1.020 (from 1.061)! Is something wrong? I have never seen this little of activity. Could my gravity readings be off? Any advise would be helpful and until then I will RDWHAHB!