Clone Beer Founder's Breakfast Stout Clone

For anyone that has kegged this. I am assuming low volumes CO2 like other stouts. What would you recommend? Right now it is in the keg at 2.2 volumes CO2.

are people bagging the flameout addition of coffee or just chuck it in?

Do you want the grounds making it in to the primary?

Thanks!!

I brewed this again last weekend but used this stuff this time around.



The sample was delicious and really chocolaty. It's good stuff.

bmock79 said:

are people bagging the flameout addition of coffee or just chuck it in?

Do you want the grounds making it in to the primary?

Thanks!!

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From keeping up with this thread, I think people have done both. I did not bag anything, strained into primary and coffee did make it into primary. It will just settle out with the rest of the chocolate and trub at the bottom. I racked to secondary after 2 weeks to cut back on all the trub the beer was sitting on.

RandalG said:

I brewed this again last weekend but used this stuff this time around.

The sample was delicious and really chocolaty. It's good stuff.

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How much did you use? And was this the only chocolate addition you used?

are people bagging the flameout addition of coffee or just chuck it in?

Do you want the grounds making it in to the primary?

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I use the fine mesh nylon straining bags for everything, hops, coffee, and steeping grains (if doing extract brew). I recommend them for everything.

In this case I did add the coffee at flame out, I think it's required to get the flavor / aroma you need for this beer. The coffee also adds some bite.

My opinion is the coffee grounds should not go into the primary if at all possible. Ever eat a coffee ground in your brewed coffee? Not good. Very bitter. I'm sure it won't ruin the beer, but could contribute to a higher level of astringency in the finished beer.

~Adam

dustinp said:

How much did you use? And was this the only chocolate addition you used?

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I used the whole can (6 oz.) and yes it was the only chocolate edition. Although it's probably going to be more chocolaty than the Founders version I'm a big fan of chocolate so I didn't mind. I figured I can scale back the next time around if need be.

When I made my batch of FBS, in went the chocolate when it was supposed to, and the coffee at flameout, chilled and right into the fermenter with the lot. The result was gorgeous!

I'm about ready to pull mine out of warm [conditioning] storage and begin to carbonate the keg. I added 2oz. of Bourbon soaked oak cubes in the primary for 3 weeks and a cup of Bourbon into the keg when racked.

My version of KBS -- in my case ABS, Adam's Bourbon Stout.

Cheers,
~Adam

So a few questions after reading through all the posts! STOKED first of all to try this hopefully this coming weekend!

1. There was an article in Beer magazine this month about brewing with coffee beans and their suggest best way to do it was with cold steeping of half pound of cofee into 24 oz of cold water over night then throwing that into the fermentor. I was thinking of doing 2oz of ground coffee at flameout and then doing the cold steeping of 24 oz water with half pound coffee... but this might be too much? maybe half it? Thoughts?

2. Those that have used oak chips, which have you found to be the best and how long do you suggest keeping them in the secondary for? How much oak chips do you use? I have never brewed a batch with them but wanted to do around a 5.5g batch of this and then oak/bourbon half and just keep the other half as is. Thoughts on how much bourbon/oak chips I would wanna use for about 2.5g?

3. Those of you who have tweaked the ABV for this, I was looking at going for about 9-10%, as it gets higher to around this mark.... or even into 11% how's the boozy taste come through? If you allow it to age and sit for long enough does it meld well enough together to where you don't taste it really and it melds into the chocolate and coffee flavor?
I was planning on doing 3-4 weeks in primary and then transfering to secondary and keeping there for another 2 months probably then bottling. Should I secondary for longer or does it really matter if I age it in secondary or the bottle?

Thanks everyone, really looking forward to this one!

One more question. I want to keep the IBUs at around 55-60 and while I can mess with the IBUs in beersmith to hit that target I don't know what the prefered time and hops to really change and mess with to hit that and create the desired/best hop profile in the beer. I.e. upping the 60 min to around 1.5 and keeping the rest the same or adding to them all about the same amount to hit the 55-60ish IBUs?
Thanks for the dumb question, appreciate the help!

1. There was an article in Beer magazine this month about brewing with coffee beans and their suggest best way to do it was with cold steeping of half pound of cofee into 24 oz of cold water over night then throwing that into the fermentor. I was thinking of doing 2oz of ground coffee at flameout and then doing the cold steeping of 24 oz water with half pound coffee... but this might be too much? maybe half it? Thoughts?

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Whole coffee beans steeped in the fermenter (like dry hops) yield a nice aroma. 2-4 ounces per 5 gallons of beer. For this recipe, I'd use the 2oz of ground coffee cold-extracted as the receipe suggests, as I think your ratio of 24oz and 8oz coffee is off for the cold extraction. I would reduce to 2oz coffee and 8-12oz water. Add the cold steeped coffee to the bottling bucket, not fermenter.

2. Those that have used oak chips, which have you found to be the best and how long do you suggest keeping them in the secondary for? How much oak chips do you use? I have never brewed a batch with them but wanted to do around a 5.5g batch of this and then oak/bourbon half and just keep the other half as is. Thoughts on how much bourbon/oak chips I would wanna use for about 2.5g?

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I use 2 ounces of oak CUBES for 3 weeks in the primary (or secondary, if you so please) for a subtle oak flavor. Any oak cube or chip should be soaked in alcohol (vodka, bourbon, etc) for one week if possible.

If using chips, they add flavor much faster because of the increased surface area. The correct method is to sample the beer until you reach the desired oakiness you like. But in your case, I'd say use 1 to 1.5 ounces of chips for 2 weeks.

3. Those of you who have tweaked the ABV for this, I was looking at going for about 9-10%, as it gets higher to around this mark.... or even into 11% how's the boozy taste come through?

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More booze, more time spent aging. I'd encourage you to try the recipe as-is and see how you like it.

4. I want to keep the IBUs at around 55-60 and while I can mess with the IBUs in beersmith to hit that target I don't know what the prefered time and hops to really change and mess with to hit that and create the desired/best hop profile in the beer. I.e. upping the 60 min to around 1.5 and keeping the rest the same or adding to them all about the same amount to hit the 55-60ish IBUs?

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I would target at least 40 IBU's from the 60 minute hop addition and 15 IBU's from the 30 minute. If you bump the alcohol up, increase the 60 minute hop addition and IBU's with it. You need the hop bitterness to balance the sweetness.

Cheers and beers,
~Adam

AOD said:

I would target at least 40 IBU's from the 60 minute hop addition and 15 IBU's from the 30 minute. If you bump the alcohol up, increase the 60 minute hop addition and IBU's with it. You need the hop bitterness to balance the sweetness.

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So right now how I have the recipe setup through beersmith, it should come out right around 1.96-1.100 with the ABV right around 10%. My IBUs I have upped to right around 66-70. Think this will be about right or too much bitterness with the coffee addtions in this recipe?

You bumped the gravity up approximately 15%, so I would increase the IBU's roughly the same. 70 IBU is a good target, IMO.

With 10%, you'll probably want 55-60 IBU's minimum for the 60 minute addition. This will help reduce a cloying sweetness.

Make sure you make a huge yeast starter or get some yeast from a local brewery. Oxygen is a must, use an oxygen stone. Ferment it cool ~60F (in a water bath) to start for 3-5 days, then slowly ramp it to mid to high 60's. You want it cool at first to prevent fusel and hot alcohols and then warmed slightly to make sure the yeast keeps eating sugars.

~Adam

A couple days ago I pulled the keg out of the closet (conditioning at room temperature, non-carbonated) and added some cold steeped coffee. I put 2oz of ground Kona coffee into a jar with about 24 ounces of water, then let that sit in the fridge for two days. I strained the mixture into another jar. Tasted good...not very strong, but like a cup of coffee. I added 8 ounces (1 cup of coffee, basically) to the keg.

Just had my first taste of this since I kegged it weeks back. Wow. Love it. The bourbon addition to the keg is nice, not overpowering. I'm getting some chocolate, bready malt, very low roast / burnt flavors because I used half Carafa malts for the dark grains. Some light oaky notes from the oak cubes and bourbon.

My recipe is a page or two back for reference, I brewed it slightly different without the flaked oats. To me the base beer is very close to the Breakfast Stout, but I was shooting more for Kentucky Breakfast Stout. Mine is not quite 10.3% (or 11.3%??) like Founder's, so it's just a touch thinner and drier in finish.

Merry Christmas to me! Enjoying the mellow alcohol warming.

Cheers all,
~Adam

Brewing this one in about a week.

Got a wealth of info from this thread.

I ll let you guys know how it goes.

Brewing this as we speak.

Smells AWESOME and I havent even put the cocoa nibs and belg choc in yet!

I ll keep you posted/

Photos!!!

That sounds so good right now.

Done with this beast of a brew.

Notes:

Added nibs @ 15 min and coffee grounds after flame out (course ground Sumatra).

Used brew bag to strain wort into primary (BIG MISTAKE, got stuck and ended up squeezing 1 gallon of wort with my sanitized yet bare hands.

Racked on a massive cake of S-04, that went great had rapid bubbling in 15 minutes.

So far so good. Other than that this is the most messy, greasy, oily, yet sweet smelling brew I have ever made.

Planning on a 2 week primary and 3 week secondary. We ll see though.

Sounds absolutely perfect, Castle! Ride 'er out!

DubbelDach said:

Sounds absolutely perfect, Castle! Ride 'er out!

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Shall try, worth the wait that's for sure.

However, fermentation has really slowed down since I racked on a massive S-04 cake. Still bubbling but slowly. I really want to give it 2 weeks primary and 3 secondary but i might instead do a 1 week primary and 2 week secondary depending on how slowly it goes.

If it is going pretty slow I would give it more time in primary rather than secondary the more yeast the better.

I just left mine in the primary for a month, then bottled. The results were great.

rico567 said:

I just left mine in the primary for a month, then bottled. The results were great.

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makes sense guys. Shall do.

I have also heard that it may add body to the final result. Shall see.

You can't really add body to the final result once it's in the fermenter...unless you stop fermentation early and leave behind residual sugars. This is a bad thing if you are bottling.

Did some side-by-side tasting a week ago of Founders Breakfast Stout and my version posted a couple pages back. Again I was going for more of a Breakfast Stout beer with a bourbon and oak character similar to Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS). But since I used the coffee and chocolate addition strategy in this thread, there's definitely some similarity.

In Founders version I noticed the yeast character has a touch more maltiness than my version made with WLP001 California Ale. This could be from their mash strategy or other variables. In another Founders beer (Old Curmudgeon) I noted more "English" to it with some esters and very light fruitiness. There's no agreement on what yeast strains they use at Founders from what I could find on the internet, so I can't say they share the same yeast.

The coffee and chocolate character between the two beers was VERY similar. Overall, both were great beers...this recipe is a great starting point for making your own beer! I think the only thing that is not mentioned on the first page of this thread is the original IBU's for the beer. You should target 60 IBU's if you want to accurately match this beer.

Cheers,
~Adam

AOD said:

Did some side-by-side tasting a week ago of Founders Breakfast Stout and my version posted a couple pages back. Again I was going for more of a Breakfast Stout beer with a bourbon and oak character similar to Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS). But since I used the coffee and chocolate addition strategy in this thread, there's definitely some similarity.

In Founders version I noticed the yeast character has a touch more maltiness than my version made with WLP001 California Ale. This could be from their mash strategy or other variables. In another Founders beer (Old Curmudgeon) I noted more "English" to it with some esters and very light fruitiness. There's no agreement on what yeast strains they use at Founders from what I could find on the internet, so I can't say they share the same yeast.

The coffee and chocolate character between the two beers was VERY similar. Overall, both were great beers...this recipe is a great starting point for making your own beer! I think the only thing that is not mentioned on the first page of this thread is the original IBU's for the beer. You should target 60 IBU's if you want to accurately match this beer.

Cheers,
~Adam

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Sounds very interesting Adam. This is helpful info to all those like me who wish to create brews in the FBS-KBS-CBS family.

Mine had slowed down significantly but then last night I gave it a gently, little
nudge and what do you know, some bubbling restarted yet again. I know this brew has massive amounts of fermentables but also non fermentables so a little "assistance" from my side didnt seem that wrong a thing at the time. Didnt take hydro reading just yet, really curious to see what secondary SG will be on this one.

So I just racked into my secondary gravity is at 1.021. I added 16 oz of rum and 16 oz of coffee. I hoping for a higher alcohol and nice coffee flavor.

coonz said:

So I just racked into my secondary gravity is at 1.021. I added 16 oz of rum and 16 oz of coffee. I hoping for a higher alcohol and nice coffee flavor.

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16 oz of rum you say???

God bless, the final gravity will be really low now for sure and the taste... heavenly!

So i brewed this about a month ago and FG is not as low as I hoped. I raised the grain bill a bit and the OG was about 1.095. FG only went down to 1.032. If i bottle and since it is a good chunk off of the FG goal, should i cut the bottling sugar down a bit to avoid bottle bombs or should i be fine with normal sugar amount for this style?
I usually keg and don't bottle a lot so I wanted to make sure.

Thanks

Not sure I know the answer to the last post...

However I brewed a variation of this yesterday. Only used 13 lbs of 2-row and adjusted the hop schedule for slightly increased IBUs.

The roasted coffee smells was really strong while mashing. Reading the threads here it sounds like most people thought the coffee was a bit much and the chocolate could be brought forward more. So I might consider eliminating the cold coffee addition and do something to add more chocolate. Not sure yet.

I split my batch and oaked half and just left the other half as usual. So far, the oaked have IMO tastes 10x better but that's me. It is only slightly oaked, not much. Just enough to get the vanilla and slight oak flavor out of them! Cant wait to age this a bit and see how it comes out!

Matteo57 said:

So i brewed this about a month ago and FG is not as low as I hoped. I raised the grain bill a bit and the OG was about 1.095. FG only went down to 1.032. If i bottle and since it is a good chunk off of the FG goal, should i cut the bottling sugar down a bit to avoid bottle bombs or should i be fine with normal sugar amount for this style?
I usually keg and don't bottle a lot so I wanted to make sure.

Thanks

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what is your new recipe? Depending on how much you changed the grain bill (i.e. increased the unfermentables) you may only get to 1.032 anyway. Think about it. The original recipe is 1.086 to 1.023. You went up 9 gravity points for your OG from the original recipe and now you are nine points above with your FG from the original recipe. This is a HUGE beer. you may need to wait a little bit longer. shake up the fermentor a bit too to get the yeast back in action.

adamjab19 said:

what is your new recipe? Depending on how much you changed the grain bill (i.e. increased the unfermentables) you may only get to 1.032 anyway. Think about it. The original recipe is 1.086 to 1.023. You went up 9 gravity points for your OG from the original recipe and now you are nine points above with your FG from the original recipe. This is a HUGE beer. you may need to wait a little bit longer. shake up the fermentor a bit too to get the yeast back in action.

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Shaking it up a bit worked just great for me. Just make sure you do it soon after your airlock levels out or stops moving. Yeast will get back to work soon after.

So my fermentation started quickly after I pitched a big starter, however there is little to no krausen. Fermenting at 64 degrees. After 25+ brews, this is the first one that hasn't shown any krausen, I'm not concerned however I wonder why? I wonder if it has something to do with the unique grain bill + coffee and chocolate additions.

periwinkle1239 said:

So my fermentation started quickly after I pitched a big starter, however there is little to no krausen. Fermenting at 64 degrees. After 25+ brews, this is the first one that hasn't shown any krausen, I'm not concerned however I wonder why? I wonder if it has something to do with the unique grain bill + coffee and chocolate additions.

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Good observation. Perhaps all the fat from the chocolate kills any kind of foaming? Curious to see what the more Breakfast-Stout-experienced brewers have to say about it.

CastleBlack said:

Good observation. Perhaps all the fat from the chocolate kills any kind of foaming? Curious to see what the more Breakfast-Stout-experienced brewers have to say about it.

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After doing some research it appears as though the oils from the coffee and maybe even the chocolate might be the reason why little to no krausen. Granted I'm fermenting a little low in temp but not too low.

Either way I'm excited. Bubbling away nicely.

periwinkle1239 said:

After doing some research it appears as though the oils from the coffee and maybe even the chocolate might be the reason why little to no krausen. Granted I'm fermenting a little low in temp but not too low.

Either way I'm excited. Bubbling away nicely.

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Mine did the same thing, not near the krausen that my typical brews have.

i made this about a week ago. my final gravity is right on. i was going to let it sit another week and then put it in a secondary to age for a good while. what does everyone think is the optimal amount of time to age before kegging??