Coconut Cherry Chocolate Milk Stout

[size=+2]Recipe: Coconut Cherry Chocolate Milk Stout [/size]

Style: Flavored Sweet Stout


Recipe Specifications

Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.35 gal

Estimated OG: 1.062 SG
Estimated IBU: 32.7 IBUs
ABV: 6.5%



Ingredients:


I'm planning on adding the cherry juice and cocoa powder to the secondary. Fancy coconut extract will be added at bottling to half of the batch, so the other half will be cherry chocolate milk stout.

This is my first brew ever. Any suggestions are appreciated.

This seems like it has a lot of variables for your first beer. I know its all exciting, but I would suggest something a bit less complex for your first brew.

Nah.

I can do it.

What about the recipe? I may reduce the quantity of some of the ingredients a little.

The other wacky flavor combos I considered for a coconut milk stout:

- chocolate, almond, coconut (almond joy milk stout)

- tamarind, chili pepper, coconut (Thai milk stout)

I'll probably make them someday. :fro:

I brewed this today. My first brew day went well. No catastrophes.

OG 1.075

I used 6oz of cocoa instead of 8oz and put it in the boil at the end.

My plate chiller put the boiled wart into the fermenter at 64 degrees in less than 10 minutes.

I tasted the cooled wort. Interesting to taste but very rough. Does non fermented stout wort ever taste good?

It took almost exactly 24 hours to start bubbling.

I used 5 gallons of water. The LME increased the volume to 6 gallons. I intentionally ended up with 4 gallons in the fermenter and will use the cherry juice to get 5 gallons of beer in the secondary.

This recipe sounds nuts but interesting. I haven't brewed a stout but I haven't had any beers taste rough before fermentation.

In that last post, are you saying that you're going to add a gallon of cherry juice to get the volume up to 5 gallons?

I'll use no more than 92oz of pure cherry juice. I may use less.

I'll use a little water to top off to 5 gallons depending on how much juice I use.

So you're not using maraschino cherry juice?

How did you decide on how much cherry juice to add? That just sounds like a lot of juice to me.

edit: oh I see up there where you're not using maraschino cherry juice. Probably a good call

I'm using cherry kool-aid mixed strong.

I figured the recipe should be 10-15% juice. That's about what it would be if I used it all.

I bought two 46oz bottles of cherry juice. That's were the 92oz figure comes from.

How much juice would you add?

Now that's what you need in your beer. I'm sure it would be the first and only beer to stain your mouth red.:cross:

I'm not really sure how much I would add. I guess it depends on how strong of a flavor that juice has. I've never had cherry juice but using that much sounds like you'd get a prominent cherry flavor. It would probably boost your ABV quite a bit too depending on fermentability of the sugars in your juice.

It really sounds like a lot of juice but it is a stout. I would probably experiment by using different amounts in a split up batch. Kind of like you're only adding the coconut milk to half of your batch, you could split it up even a little further and put 15% juice in one part and maybe 5-10% in the other.

Maybe that's getting too complicated but you are doing a pretty crazy recipe for your very first batch so why not?

I have two weeks to figure it out.

The cherry juice is pretty strong. Very tart. Michigan cherries.

I'll probably use somewhere between 64oz and 92oz.

This brand:

I think you're going to regret putting that much cherry juice in there especially with it being to tart.

You could try dry hopping some fresh cherries for a couple of weeks to impart the flavor but without adding the extra sugar that the juice has in it. I've heard of people freezing their fruit and adding it to their secondary fermenter for up to three weeks

By no means am I trying to dog on your brew. I'm just giving my 2 cents.

This is epic.

You should dry-hop with a Butterfinger...just to see what happens.

That much juice will give you too much of a wine taste. I used 10# of blueberries in a stout and it is almost undrinkable. It is like chocolate blueberry wine not beer at all

I recommend either cherry purée in secondary or cherry extract at botling.

Or maybe add a 750ml bottle or twi of lindmans kriek in the secondary.

uncleben113 said:

By no means am I trying to dog on your brew. I'm just giving my 2 cents.

Click to expand...

It's OK even if you are dogging on my brew. It's my first brew, not my first born.

NineMilBill said:

This is epic.

You should dry-hop with a Butterfinger...just to see what happens.

Click to expand...

Hmmmm...not a bad idea. I'd consider a Heath bar. Never been a fan of Butterfingers.

mewithstewpid said:

That much juice will give you too much of a wine taste. I used 10# of blueberries in a stout and it is almost undrinkable. It is like chocolate blueberry wine not beer at all

I recommend either cherry purée in secondary or cherry extract at botling.

Or maybe add a 750ml bottle or twi of lindmans kriek in the secondary.

Click to expand...

I'm committed to using super deluxe 100% pure montmorency cherry juice!

The only question is how much should I really use. I might try using just one bottle of juice (46oz) in a five gallon batch.

Go for it!

If it's one bottle or two bottles, you might try starting out with 1 and adding to it later on down the road if you deem necessary. Taste it when you think you're ready to bottle and if it needs more, then you have a whole other bottle to spend. You can always add but never take away

I'd use real coconut if I was confident the rest of the brew was going to be good. Maybe next time.

I'd boil the juice before I put it in but that's just me and I'm a total noob, only have 15 gal under my belt in the last few months.

How would coconut milk be?

Nantana said:

I'd boil the juice before I put it in but that's just me and I'm a total noob, only have 15 gal under my belt in the last few months.

How would coconut milk be?

Click to expand...

No you don't boil store bought juice it is already pasteurized. I've read boiling it makes it taste bad (bitterness maybe but don't quote me on the exact off flavor)

Coconut milk has way too much saturated fat. Otherwise, I'd try it.

The cherry juice is pastuerized and has no preservatives. It will get dumped in the secondary.

You should try adding that cherry juice to a similar strength stout to taste to figure out how much you want. 96 oz sounds like a hell of a lot.

And damn, this is your first brew and you have a plate-chiller? I need to get me one. What's your set up?

That is way too much cherry juice. I would only add a few onces, meaning less than 10.

FarmerTed said:

You should try adding that cherry juice to a similar strength stout to taste to figure out how much you want.

Click to expand...

+1

This is a really good idea.

FarmerTed said:

You should try adding that cherry juice to a similar strength stout to taste to figure out how much you want. 96 oz sounds like a hell of a lot.

And damn, this is your first brew and you have a plate-chiller? I need to get me one. What's your set up?

Click to expand...

I'm going to do that. Great idea. :rockin:

I think it would be easy to over do it or under do it with the cherry juice. This takes the guess work out of it.

I guess my set up is sort of fancy for a beginner. 10.5gal polarware pot with spigot. Bayou Classic sq14 burner. Dudadiesel plate chiller. Silicone drain tubing. Plastic fermenter buckets and carboy starter brew kit from Midwest. Coopers 24oz PET bottles and various craft beer bottles.

I brew using a flight of stairs off my back deck. The brew pot is at the top. It drains down the stairway to the plate chiller which drains into a sealed fermenter at the bottom of the stairs. The plate chiller was about $50 more expensive than an immersion coil. I think it's worth the extra $50 for the convenience, speed and efficiency it provides.

StarletteLD said:

That is way too much cherry juice. I would only add a few onces, meaning less than 10.

Click to expand...

The batch is 640oz. You're suggesting only 1%-2% juice or less. You might be right, but I don't think that will be enough for me. I don't want to have to struggle to taste the cherry.

I think the magic number will be one 46oz bottle of juice which will make the beer 7% juice, but I'm going to test with another stout to find a good ratio.

yeah that set up is sweet for a beginner, definitely jumped in with both feet into this hobby huh?

If my beer sucks, I can't blame the equipment.

transferred to secondary today. Had to use a blowoff tube after about an hour. The yeast must have liked the cherry juice.

I added the full 92oz of cherry juice after testing more concentrated ratios.

30% juice was where the cherry overpowered the stout note. I used 14% juice. It sounds like a lot, but the cherry isn't too strong at this concentration.

The stout was pretty robust out of the primary with a nice caramel and chocolate note and mild bitterness from the hops. It smelled nice. It was quite a bit better tasting than the wort sample.

Here is something I don't get.

The gravity was 1.020 out of the primary or 7.3% abv.

I then added 92 oz of cherry juice and some water to the secondary. I took a sample and the gravity was still 1.020.

Is it supposed to stay the same or did I misread it at least once?

I think I get it. The gravity of the cherry juice was cancelled out by the top up water.

It sounds like that's what happened. How does it taste

I drank about 8oz of what went into the secondary. It tasted decent. It is a little less concentrated of an overall flavor than I was going for. The stout by itself was fairly robust. The cherry juice mellowed it out quite a bit, added some tartness, fruityness and not too much sweetness.

If I could redo it, I'd use a little less top off water and maybe avoid the need for a blowoff tube as well.

I think it will be drinkable.

Bottled this recently. Added 2oz of cocoa to the priming sugar solution. It tasted ok. Still a little less concentrated than I was hoping for, but not too watery. It's adequately boozy at 7.3%, but not harsh at all.

I added about a half gallon of topping water to the secondary and should have skipped it. I made up for the primary fermentation loss, which I think was a mistake. If I make it again, I'll probably use 10% juice instead of 14% and use more steeping grains.

I put 1tsp of bakers coconut extract in the last gallon. It provided a noticeable coconut aroma and a mild coconut flavor that blended well with the cherry and chocolate.

Should be decent with some carbonation.

I'd be interested in trying one or two if you don't mine sending one my way. I've got a bourbon vanilla porter that came out great and a few other brews I could trade