Sweet Stout Deception Cream Stout

Had it this weekend, and it was excellent. Dry hopping with the espresso beans really took this to the next level, added a nice roastiness to it, along with some bitterness that perfectly offset the sweetness from the lactose. The growler I brought up was gone in under a half hour (just two of us drinking beer, and I left my brother in law to it after one, figuring there's a keg of it waiting for me at home!)

Next time I brew this (and I WILL brew this again) I think it'll be a base for a chocolate cream stout.

Just bottled this 2 days ago. I had a small glass straight from the fermenter. Its delicious! Awesome recipe!

mikeerich said:

Just bottled this 2 days ago. I had a small glass straight from the fermenter. Its delicious! Awesome recipe!

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Haha. It needs a bit more than 2 days in the bottle, but thanks for the praise. Glad you are enjoying it.

Actually getting waay excited about this one after reading through the thread. I've bumped it to the top of my list and will be brewing this one as soon as my Hefe is in the bottle!

Well I have just read this whole thread and I have been looking for a base stout for my Jamocha Stout that I want to make. I think I'll follow the recipe and add Chocolate nibs and cold brewed coffee in the secondary.

sounds great!

I think I might try brewin this one up. I dont have experience with DME so according to my calculation I should be using ~3.6# Amber LME and ~1.2# Wheat LME, sound okay?

I'm curious why the use of Wheat extract? Seems an unusual choice of extract for a stout?

I'm a total beginner, so please forgive the naivete of the question.

Brewing this today!

And I'm no expert either but I would guess the wheat is for head retention and adds a complexity to the sweet taste complimenting the lactose.

JediJoel said:

Brewing this today!

And I'm no expert either but I would guess the wheat is for head retention and adds a complexity to the sweet taste complimenting the lactose.

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You pretty much nailed it. I wanted this one to have a really nice head. I don't know how much it really makes a difference having it in there or not. This was one of my first recipes and I really liked it so I just don't mess with it. This is almost certainly true for the amber DME - if I still brewed extract, I would just increase the crystal malt and use extra light DME instead of the amber.

Hi, NCBeerNut -

This looks like just the ticket for a chocolate stout base. Did you ever try the cocoa and vanilla bean (an earlier post of yours indicated you wanted to try that)? If so, would you mind sharing the quantities and how long in secondary w vanilla beans, etc? Looking forward to brewing this up! Thanks

Brewed this yesterday. Did 10 gal AG. I only had 1 lb of chocolate malt, but I hope it'll be close enough. Used WLP 004. Buckets seem to be happily bubbling away.

I know it was mentioned that this stout didn't age well. So, what's it's "Prime" age?

Finally tried my batch after about 3 weeks of bottle conditioning. It is outstanding!

This was my second all-grain batch and it turned out quite well. I added a bit of a vanilla bean in secondary and I really like the flavor. I will definitely be brewing this again!

Do the 0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt, Chocolate Malt and Roasted Barley need to be mashed and sparged, or can they just be steeped at 155?

Naked_Eskimo said:

Do the 0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt, Chocolate Malt and Roasted Barley need to be mashed and sparged, or can they just be steeped at 155?

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Nope, no mashing needed- just steep 'em. In an extract recipe with steeping grains you are just trying to get flavor or other quality out of the grains. With a mash you admittedly do get that but you are also striving for fermentable sugars. In an extract recipe, the fermentables are in the LME or DME.

Just tried the Deception Stout--it came out really great! As an fyi, I brewed the exact extract recipe as suggested by NCBeernut, including using Denny's Fav yeast. I did not use a secondary and left the batch in the fermenter for 30 days before bottle conditioning for two weeks on the dot. The beer has a great head and is well carbonated. You get a definite coffee aroma with a hint of chocolate or caramel and the beer goes down smooth as silk with a really nice finish. I am interested to see how this one ages if I can hide a few from myself and my buddies. I am also going to do the all grain version and will let you know how it comes out. Here is a lame blackberry pic but you get the idea...

Thanks much for sharing the recipe and your advice NCBeernut, I really appreciate it...

kcpup said:

Hi, NCBeerNut -

This looks like just the ticket for a chocolate stout base. Did you ever try the cocoa and vanilla bean (an earlier post of yours indicated you wanted to try that)? If so, would you mind sharing the quantities and how long in secondary w vanilla beans, etc? Looking forward to brewing this up! Thanks

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No I didn't. I have been going crazy brewing a bunch of new recipes.

CA-LT1 said:

Brewed this yesterday. Did 10 gal AG. I only had 1 lb of chocolate malt, but I hope it'll be close enough. Used WLP 004. Buckets seem to be happily bubbling away.

I know it was mentioned that this stout didn't age well. So, what's it's "Prime" age?

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I'm not sure. My batch lasted me about 3 months and it was great in that time frame. It really started getting good after about 6 weeks. I mentioned that it didn't age really well because I tried a bottle that I had given KingBrianI when it hit about a year, and I thought it had kind of lost its "touch." So I'm not sure where in between 3 and 12 months that it really hit its peak.

Speaking of that guy, we brewed a big batch of an all-grain RIS back in March that is still conditioning. It is finally really starting to get good. When the verdict is in I will probably post that recipe too.

On another note that is awesome that all of you have been enjoying this recipe. Hopefully I can break myself away from all the new stuff and brew this one again soon.

Prost!

LHBS has no lactose. Anyone brewed wthout it? Maltodextrine for sub? I'd like to brew it this weekend if I could get around the lactose issue.

Well, I solved my lack of lactose problem. Actually, I oversolved it. I greedily bought more than I needed and inadvertently added .75 lbs instead of .5. Soooo, i'm now concerned my stout will be too sweet and I'm thinkin about adding coffee in an attempt to balance the sweetness. Anyone who's added coffee to this recipe I'd love to hear how much. It's already fermenting so it would be an addition to the primary or secondary. Also, I'm entertaining the idea of adding vanilla bean as well. Anyone with thoughts on how I should proceed would be GREATLY appreciated.

tdoft said:

Well, I solved my lack of lactose problem. Actually, I oversolved it. I greedily bought more than I needed and inadvertently added .75 lbs instead of .5. Soooo, i'm now concerned my stout will be too sweet and I'm thinkin about adding coffee in an attempt to balance the sweetness. Anyone who's added coffee to this recipe I'd love to hear how much. It's already fermenting so it would be an addition to the primary or secondary. Also, I'm entertaining the idea of adding vanilla bean as well. Anyone with thoughts on how I should proceed would be GREATLY appreciated.

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I wouldn't worry about the little extra lactose at all. The lactose addition in this recipe is conservative - a whole pounds is pretty common for milk stouts. While lactose is not fermentable, it is not a very sweet sugar like table sugar. If you want to brew a regular cream stout like this one, I say just keep it the way it is. If you want to do a coffee stout, I think coffee would do phenomenally well in this beer. On the other hand, I would strongly recommend against adding vanilla. To me, it can add the perception of sweetness and can easily get cloying if not done just right, so I think you would make a better beer without it.

Great! Thanks sooooo much Ncbeernut. I will leave it as is and next time consider adding coffee.

NCBeernut said:

I buy my hops at hops direct. Everything else I get from American Brewmaster.

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Too Cosmic! I was referred to this thread and recipe by BigB. I read the OP, no further, and said " Yep - gotta do it" then proceeded to go get my supplies.

At American Brewmaster. Exactly as listed, except the Hops, I think.

Man, I KNOW it's gonna be good - got my tools from the same shop as the master!

I brewed this and primaried it for a month. It tasted SOOO good at bottling. Nice and roasty up front with caramel in the middle and a touch of sweetness on the back. I got 1.060 OG and got it down to 1.019. Great brew, can't wait to taste it carbed. I WILL brew this again!

Just tasted the hyrdrometer sample 1 week into primary, I did the all-grain version... Holy Moly! This is by far one of the best tasting beers I've ever done. I'm pretty sure this will be one of my regulars. SWMBO loves it as well, so that's a bonus!

Going to be hard to wait another 3 weeks + carb time :rockin:

OK, brewed up extract today, but it was an adventure. I can only hope all was not for nothing..

First, as I was getting the grains ready for steeping, I dropped the bag. Like 1/2 pound of the already milled and blended grain goes into he trash, literally and figuratively. So I just happen to have some leftover, barley and chocolate , so into a blender and approximated it. Don't know if it will make a difference, but oh well.

Then I noticed after I had added the hops that it was .75, not a whole 1 oz. Don't know that it will make a difference, but oh well.

Decided to do malt in halves - half of the Amber and all of the wheat at the beginning, and the other half of the amber near then end. Went great. Until the pot boiled over like a hell broth in a bad horror film. Got it under control, but who knows what volume I lost.

I did manage to get the best cold wort time I have ever done - 13 minutes flat from boil to 68 degree.

Got it in the bucket, took gravity reading - 1.060. So who knows. I'm sure I made good beer, but for my first " follow a recipe" brew instead of a kit, I had quite the morning adventure....

Sounds like an average beginner's brew day. haha. Like you said, I'm sure that it will make good beer. If you didn't forget the lactose, it should still be pretty close - just with a little more bitterness.

NCBeernut said:

Sounds like an average beginner's brew day. haha. Like you said, I'm sure that it will make good beer. If you didn't forget the lactose, it should still be pretty close - just with a little more bitterness.

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Everything else went as outlined in the OP. I was so psyched up for this one - Went to American Brewmaster and got all the gear, was happy to get the Denny's fave. It is a first on many levels for me - first liquid yeast, first lactose, first all lme , first not a kit, first usage of hydrometer - and the list goes on and on. I even bought some special bottles ( the Grolsh style ) to bottle some up next month .

( OH, and the wort tasted awesome. I was drinking a little Duck Rabbit Milk Stout while cleaning up, and I thought it was pretty tasty on a little sip to sip comparison. So excited! )

Just bottled this one up, and I'm trying to forget about it for a month or two (just in time for October fun!). I am REALLY looking forward to it, especially after the flavors I tasted in the sampling round out and mesh a bit. The coffee flavor is definitely the boldest in the batch, with a taste of chocolate following up. Hopefully the lactose 'sweet' will come out with age, otherwise I might add more on the next round.

Gravity was pretty close to the OP. SG 1.066, FG 1.027

I'm going to brew this after I've moved, and I noticed the idea to add coffee to this one, which sounds amazing to me. Anyone have a recommendation for how much would be an appropriate amount? I've also never actually brewed with coffee before, do you use ground coffee or whole beans?

Just brewed this up this weekend, and man -- the Denny's is going gangbusters! The airlock is definitely going nuts.

Cant wait to taste it --- only 2 months to go

catatonicmonkey said:

I'm going to brew this after I've moved, and I noticed the idea to add coffee to this one, which sounds amazing to me. Anyone have a recommendation for how much would be an appropriate amount? I've also never actually brewed with coffee before, do you use ground coffee or whole beans?

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Do a search for adding coffee to a brew, I know there are at least a few thread on the hows and why already in progress. I might suggest you brew a batch of this as it is written before you do that though, as the coffee flavor from the grain is already pretty prominent on its own.

copper said:

Do a search for adding coffee to a brew, I know there are at least a few thread on the hows and why already in progress. I might suggest you brew a batch of this as it is written before you do that though, as the coffee flavor from the grain is already pretty prominent on its own.

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+1. The coffee flavor is there out of the box on this one. It's really very good.

Naked_Eskimo said:

Just brewed this up this weekend, and man -- the Denny's is going gangbusters! The airlock is definitely going nuts.

Cant wait to taste it --- only 2 months to go

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Ditto and Ditto.

My airlock sounds like some crazy mad scientist's equipment - blub blub blub blub blub blub blub.....

Awesome! I have never had such a vigorous activity in 24 hours time - I am a believer in the liquid yeasties for sure now!

Hannable1975 said:

Ditto and Ditto.

My airlock sounds like some crazy mad scientist's equipment - blub blub blub blub blub blub blub.....

Awesome! I have never had such a vigorous activity in 24 hours time - I am a believer in the liquid yeasties for sure now!

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This was the first brew I did with harvested yeast from a prior batch. With a 1L starter, this sucker took off in a few hours. Fastest launch I'd ever had myself.

OK, so In the fermenter on Sunday , and now it's Thursday. Krausen is fallen, air lock is slowed tremendously. Took a hydro reading - got a 1.028. Has a very alcoholic scent.

To those who have made this nectar before : Does it sound like I am right on schedule?

catatonicmonkey said:

I'm going to brew this after I've moved, and I noticed the idea to add coffee to this one, which sounds amazing to me. Anyone have a recommendation for how much would be an appropriate amount? I've also never actually brewed with coffee before, do you use ground coffee or whole beans?

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I added two ounces of QUALITY espresso beans to the secondary. Put 'em in a small bowl, cover with vodka, let it sit for five minutes or so, and then just pour the whole thing in while racking. That seemed to be the magic number - the coffee flavour on this is FANTASTIC. I did a 10 gallon batch, and only added beans to one of the carboys, and the one with the coffee addition was (to me) light years ahead. Really balanced the sweetness perfectly.

The key is using REALLY good beans, tho, and as fresh as you can get them. Bad beans can add more of a burnt flavour, and older ones won't impart too much flavour at all.

Brewed a batch of this yesterday with an added lb of 2-row to compensate for efficiency issues I've been having. I wanted to use some s-04 slurry but I didn't have time to bottle, so I used Notty. I'm out of town for the week and the beer is fermenting in a closet. SWMBO called me and told me she could hear bubbles and smell beer. I'm hoping it didn't blow the airlock off!

OK, Had to move mine to a secondary to free up my bucket. Gravity was unchanged over a week anyway. ( I did the extract version - ended at 1.024 , started out with 1.060 ).

The sample I used when I took y gravity reading the last time tasted pretty darn good, if a little hot, to my young , not super experienced taste buds.

I went back though the thread, and did not see this, but if so, I apologize, but I have a question. I have read in several places about using DME to prime for bottling. I get the impression it makes the head denser and a little creamier - which to me sounds perfect for this. Since i have plenty of time, and am making this for the holiday season, is this a good brew to try this on? I have some light DME, and a little Amber left over from my shopping to make this bad boy....

Has anyone tried adding oatmeal to make the mouthfeel even more creamy? This will be my first stout and 1st attempt at BIAB brewing, just waiting to finish sewing my bag that is big enough for a 15 gallon mash tun. I couldn't decide between Jamil's oatmeal stout recipe and this one, so I thought maybe just try combining them- add oatmeal to this recipe and see how it goes. Anyone think this is a bad idea?

Klaus

Hannable1975 said:

I went back though the thread, and did not see this, but if so, I apologize, but I have a question. I have read in several places about using DME to prime for bottling. I get the impression it makes the head denser and a little creamier - which to me sounds perfect for this. Since i have plenty of time, and am making this for the holiday season, is this a good brew to try this on? I have some light DME, and a little Amber left over from my shopping to make this bad boy....

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I've never tried it, but I would definitely be interested in your results with it. If it ferments out, I think it would be really nice. Since it isn't as fermentable as plain corn sugar or table sugar, just realize that it might add a little sweetness and will probably take longer to carb.