2 Stout recipe--Guidance please

Hello!

I was trying my hand at a couple of stout recipes that I have made myself. I was wondering if anyone would look at them and give me an input as if you think it is good or could use some kind of change. They seem pretty good to me! I dont know what yeast to use with these and I will list my grains and hops i plan on using. They are really similar mainly one is Raspberry Chocolate and the other is a Chocolate oatmeal. These are the first recipes that I have even attempted so please be gentle.


Chocolate Oatmeal Stout 5 Gallon Batch--------6.6%ABV--Recipe Bitterness 33

Grains
American Black Patent--.750lb
American Chocolate Malt--1.000lb
Crystal 40L--.500lb
Dark Malt Extract--3.300lb
Flaked Oats--1.000lb
Light Malt Extract--3.000lb
Roasted Barley--.750lb

Hops
Bullion--.750oz
Northern Brewer--.500oz

Chocolate Raspberry Stout 5 Gallon Batch------6.4%ABV----Receipe bitterness 38

Grains
American Black Patent--1.000lb
American Chocolate Malt--1.000lb
Crystal 40L--.500lb
Dark Malt Extract--3.300lb
Light Malt Extract--3.000lb
Roasted Barley--1.000lb

Hops
Bullion--1.000oz
Northern Brewer--.250oz


Thanks for the help in advance!

where's the chocolate / rasberry?

where's the chocolate / rasberry? You have the chocolate malt but are you going to add any actuall chocolate or cocoa beans or rasberries to the recipie? You could probably go with white labs irish ale yeast WLP004 which should be sufficiant.

western_seraph said:

These are the first recipes that I have even attempted so please be gentle.

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OK, here are a few general comments. Both recipes seem over the top in terms of dark grains and extracts. Bear in mind that the color of Guinness Stout is achieved with 10% roasted barley. Including the dark extracts those recipes are in the area of 50% dark ingredients. Consider using light malt extract and get your color solely from dark roasted grains. It will still be plenty dark enough and your brew will have a larger portion of fermentables resulting in a more attenuated and better tasting beer. Flaked oats require mashing. Reduce the extract by a pound and replace with a couple pounds of pale malt then mini-mash the flaked oats with the pale malt.

western_seraph said:

American Black Patent--.750lb
Flaked Oats--1.000lb

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Patent does not really belong in a stout. It can get acrid fast.

Oats must be mashed.

I just brewed a kit from Brewers Best that was an Irish stout and it included crushed black patent. I was trying to go off this recipe a little bit to at least get a baseline for some ingredients I should use.

The kit also came with 6.6lbs of Dark extract so I thought using the 3.3lbs dark and 3.0lbs of light malt extract would make it a little lighter. I reented the information into Qbrew with using the 6.6lbs of Dark extract only and my Recipe Color changed from 60 down to 40. I think that is a little more acceptable.

Thanks for the help!