Thoughts on a coffee, oatmeal, vanilla, cream stout??

So like the title says, I want to combine all these and the way I see it is the oatmeal and lactose should make for a sweeter smooth mouthfeel, and if I can do the coffee right to get that bitterness down to something similar to founders breakfast stout then the I can add vanilla in the secondary till I get the right flavor profile. Any suggestions or thoughts on this one?

Sounds like it could be very tasty. There is a lot going on there, so it is going be tough to get everything just right on the first brew, but once you get it right, I bet it will be really good!

Without a recipe its hard to totally judge the idea. Do you have a recipe yet or any ideas?

Here is what Founders has to say about the Breakfast Stout:

8.3%ABV
60 IBUs

The coffee lovers consummate beer. Brewed with an abundance of flaked oats, bitter and imported chocolates, Sumatra and Kona coffee, this stout has an intense fresh roasted java nose topped with a cinnamon colored frothy head that goes forever.

Click to expand...

I would hesitate to go low on the hops/bitterness. With a beer this big, going much under 60 IBUs will result in an unbalanced sweet beer. You might want to search Founders Breakfast Stout recipes, then go from there.

Yeah that's what I was thinking on the recipe was founders breakfast stoudt. Not sure about the Hops though, I don't want it to hoppy I was thinking of shooting for about 35 ibu I actually prefer a more one dimensional beer to the balance. Thinking something like 6.2% would be good for the abv.

Oh, ok. Thats fine for a ~6% beer. I just wanted to warn you that in making Imperial styles, you need to hop them a lot more than you think.

Yeah, you have a lot of moving parts in that beer, so be careful. You may want to keep the hops down (as you mentioned), as both hop flavor and bitterness tend to clash with all that other stuff you'll put in there. However, if you are adding the lactose, be mindful that you have to balance that out.

Frankly, I'd leave out the lactose and just go with the oatmeal, but it's your beer, and I'm looking forward to hearing how it comes out.


TL

Cool I'll post my recipe idea tonight when I wake up.

Related question...

Would you want to do more bittering/high alpha % hops early on, to pump up the bitterness and balance the beer, but not add much aroma & flavor?

I'm still very new, but what I'm thinking is ~11-13% alpha at 60min and just that. (not sure quantity, would have to run the calcs). That way you get the IBUs and balance, but you don't get the IPA aroma, you get the aroma of the malts, coffee, etc...?

Yes, thats kind of the idea. To be more specific, people tend to use high AA% hops for bittering so they can use less. You don't get much, if any flavor, and no aroma from 60 min additions. Therefore, why use a lot of hops, which can be expensive. You also end up with less actual hop mass in the kettle from using less high AA% hops versus a lot of low AA% hops.

Just to make things a little more complicated in a beer that already has a lot of interacting flavors:

A 30 min hop addition with middle of the road alpha hops that have earthy character might round out your beer while adding a couple of extra ibu's.

And a somewhat related question for those who know: when making additions with coffee (or any other non-hop bittering agent) how do you determine the bitterness added by the coffee? Out another way, do you need to decrease your ibu's given that your using anothe bitter ingredient? If so, how do you decrease the hop additions?

-a

What you said right there with the coffee biterness is why I'm going to keep my hop AAU low and cold steep my coffee. I did have a question with the cold steeping though. Should I crush the beans then steep or not crush the beans? Also if it makes difference for the coffee I'll prolly use some kopi luak beans so I know these aren't as acidic generally so...

Sorry to hijack your thread, but this thread just made me think about a peanut butter stout. Haven't figured out how to get the peanut butter in there yet though