"Christmas" Cranberry Chocolate Stout - Partial Mash

Let me know what you think of this recipe. I will likely make this on Saturday. I not totally opposed to going to the store and picking up more grains to sub for the LME and dextrose, but this is what I have on hand.

5gal batch
Target ABV = 10%

- 1.5lbs of chocolate malt
- 0.5lbs of black patent
- 0.5lbs of roasted barley
- 2 cans of Briess Traditional Dark LME
- 4oz unsweetened cocoa powder (added to the boil)
- 1oz pacific gem (16.3AA) for bittering
- 1oz willamette (5.3AA) for aroma
- Irish Moss will be added to the boil for clarity
- 1/2 gal preservative free 100% cranberry juice (added to the fermenter)
- Some dextrose will be added if necessary before pitching to get the gravity up (since I don't have any other grains on hand and don't want to add any more LME)
- Safale S-33 yeast (tolerance of 11.5%)

Will bottle carb in 1L plastic bottles with 2 tsp of dextrose and after tasting around Xmas, I will condition it for 2 months or so.

A couple of thoughts:

I'm not sure what size the cans of dark LME you have are, but with all those roasted malts, you won't need dark. Go with light LME. Maybe add in some other grains too, like crystal for more depth of flavor. At this point you may want to look into stove top partial mashing.

Also, I'm not sure how much cranberry would be appropriate, but I am quite confident it is less than 1/2 gallon. Make sure too, to use 100% cranberry, and try to find no sugar added, etc. Just pure cranberry juice. My guess (but again, I'm not sure) is that 16oz would be quite enough. That 100% stuff is strong!

the cans are 3.3lbs of LME. I have Muntons Extra Light on hand as well. Would you go with 2 cans on Extra Light or one can traditional dark and one can extra light?

I was afraid that all the bitterness would trump the cranberry juice.

Was considering adding crystal 60 but my LHBS was out when I was there last. I guess another trip is warranted.

What do you mean by stove top partial mashing....I plan on steeping the grains and doing the boil on my stove top because I'm in an apartment in new york city and can't use propane here.

FYI...this is my first beer. So far I have made a cider, lemonade and hard tea....all much easier than beer.

I would go with 2 cans of light LME. But you won't get to 10% ABV with that in a 5 gallon batch. The roasted malts won't add much sugar, and unless you bump up base malt in a mash, you'll have a lower ABV. But for your first beer, that may not be a bad thing. Big beers in general are harder to make.

As far as stove-top mashing, check this out: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/

Advice in general: once you've brewed, don't mess around with it too much. If it's lower gravity than expected, it'll still be beer. Don't add in more dextrose or stuff like that. Go easy on powerful flavors like cranberry, you can always add more next time if you want, but it's tough to take it out! Finally, it may yield more consistent results to add a fixed amount of priming sugar to the whole batch before bottling, rather than adding teaspoons to each bottle, as well.

so....after the recommendation here, another forum and from my LHBS, here is the updated recipe. As I said, Saturday is my brew day so I still have time for last min tinkering

- 2lbs standard 2-row
- 2lbs of crystal 60
- 1.5lbs of chocolate malt
- 0.5lbs of black patent
- 0.5lbs of roasted barley
- 2 cans of Briess Sparkling Amber (Should pair well with other grain choices)
- 2oz unsweetened cocoa powder (added to the boil)
- 1oz pacific gem (16.3AA) for bittering
- 1oz willamette (5.3AA) for aroma
- Irish Moss will be added to the boil for clarity
- 1/4 gal preservative free 100% cranberry juice (added to the fermenter)
- Dextrose as necessary
- Safale S-33 yeast (tolerance of 11.5%)

...that's the new and improved plan

I think that looks better, but you seem to have gone overboard on the crystal malts. 1lb seems to be pretty standard, though a bit higher is not uncommon. It's important to keep in mind that Briess amber LME already has crystal 60 in it. It wouldn't hurt to swap out 1lb of that crystal for 1lb of 2-row.

I'm still concerned about 32oz of cranberry juice, but again, no experience here, so if you go with that, report back and let us know how it works!

moved this to secondary today. the cranberry flavor has definitely taken a back seat to the chocolate. i think its almost too chocolaty but its great at this point. with a few weeks in secondary then bottle conditioning/aging for a month or so, i think its a winner.

How's the hop character, any oak from the Pacific Gem? It strikes me as something that would have low IBUs from from the boils OG provided the extract didn't go in late or anything.

it isn't very bitter at all...its lacking a bit of bite in the hop area.

i have enjoyed my samples so far, but it really only hits one note...chocolate. Its too soon to say what i may do differently because its not carbed/aged/chilled yet.

i have to read up on dry hopping to see whether or not its too late for anything like that.

today i bottled a bit of the chocoberry beer...i will post the label i came up with later. i was racking it to get it off the lees and decided to rack it to a 3gal carboy and bottle the rest. call it impatience but i had to have some.

essentially, i love it and wifey hates it.

it is incredibly dark and rich, as you would expect a chocolate beer to be, and it is both sweet and bitter at the same time, if that makes sense. for those reasons, i consider it a success but she has never liked dark heavy beers. she is more of pale ale lover (when she drinks beer).

it is forced carbed and had a 2 finger medium brown head and laced excellently in the glass. the texture is a bit more "loose" than I had hoped. Its not "thick" like a guiness stout. the aroma was actually unexpected...it was more coffee than anything. the taste was sweet but the bitter which again was a surprise. upon racking it the last time on 1/2, it wasn't very bitter (hence my last post) but I is quite nice now. I really never expected it to taste so different than it did on 1/2. I am not sure if it is because it has had time to age or if because the sample I had on 1/2 was from the top (turkey baster hydrometer sample).

a small "victory" for me was calculating the expected ABV. As per my calculations, the ABV was to be around 11.2. I pretty much nailed it at 11.1 so I'm happy.

I guess that's the only thing that is important...whether i think its drinkable because if I'm not happy with it..what was the point.

anyway, if you notice my siggy..i've got a pineapple wine planned...because wifey says i have to make something fruity for her because she just doesn't like dark beer. oh well!

here is the label.

i will keg the rest of it in a week or so (just have to get another keg or finish off 3 gal of beer that's in it...what a friend I have...i got a pin lock keg for free with 3gal of a pilsner that a friend made in it.)