Sweet Stout Left Hand Milk Stout Clone

Why ruin a great beer? But I say go for it! Keep pumpkin and spices mild to allow the awesome stout come through.

Made this last night. My efficiency was a tad high, so I ended up with 5.5 gallons of 1.062. Darn... I guess I'll have to drink that half gallon

Thanks for the recipe.

I brewed this clone two weeks ago and will start cold crashing tonight and bottle it up Wednesday or Thursday. Took hydrometer readings four days apart and it finished at 1.024.

I am still dialing in my efficiency, so it ended higher than expected... At 73% instead of my expected 60%, so my ABV had a bit of a boost to 6.6% or so.

I fermented at around 64-65F for the primary fermentation. The taste is wonderful, but the smell is a bit "boozy". I am sure it will mellow out after a few weeks in the bottle. I am really excited for it!

Are you guys mashing all the grains for 75 minutes, or holding some out for a bit?

Scriv said:

Are you guys mashing all the grains for 75 minutes, or holding some out for a bit?

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I mash them all.

Scriv said:

Are you guys mashing all the grains for 75 minutes, or holding some out for a bit?

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There's not much oatmeal in this recipe, but I mash any oats in a regular pot w/strainer of course, on the stove then add liquid to grain mash after 45min or so. Had 1 stuck mash..never again. Just have to subtract water amount from grain mash, once oat liquid is poured its back to where it should be.

Great, thanks! I'll be making this on the 26th, only I'm going to add coffee after primary fermentation is over.

Scriv said:

Great, thanks! I'll be making this on the 26th, only I'm going to add coffee after primary fermentation is over.

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I made one of my versions a coffee milk stout and it was a huge hit. Best version by far. I am making a neopolitan milk stout based off of this recipe for a festival. Adding the chocolate and vanilla in the next week.

Does this look good? I wasn't sure where some of the grains would go.

Scriv said:

Does this look good? I wasn't sure where some of the grains would go.

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Haven't played with 3.0 yet, but i would play with it more to get chloride/sulfate ratio 1.3 or 1.4. Like to enhance sweetness with stouts

Scriv said:

Does this look good? I wasn't sure where some of the grains would go.

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Just try to get as close as possible to the london water profile

Won a few awards with this beer at a local craft brewfest competition. Thank you

I have the same question as I have overcarbed some of my beers. Even when using N.B.'s chart. I am brewing this one today and would hate to ruin it on the final stage. 1.8 vol. is that correct?
So to those that bottle could you share your carbonation secrets, please?
Thank you.

also-- Brewsmith tells me to mash in for 60 minutes, and I see that mostly you guys are doing 75 minutes. I'm new at this and wonder why, and what should I do? Blindly follow the software or you guys with the experience?
Or, am I understanding this wrong?

brewista_may said:

how much dextrose did u guys go with when you bottled ? (5gallons)
Not sure what would be best .. What amount worked nicely for u ?

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So the brew went really well. Hit the numbers but slightly under 5 gals in the fermenter.
The bee's are terrible and two of them ended up in the fermenter after the boil I fished one out but missed the other and he's still in there. At least I hope it was a bee and not a fly. I only got a glimpse of it as rode the stout stream downward...total pilot error.

FoamFollower said:

I have the same question as I have overcarbed some of my beers. Even when using N.B.'s chart. I am brewing this one today and would hate to ruin it on the final stage. 1.8 vol. is that correct?

So to those that bottle could you share your carbonation secrets, please?

Thank you.



also-- Brewsmith tells me to mash in for 60 minutes, and I see that mostly you guys are doing 75 minutes. I'm new at this and wonder why, and what should I do? Blindly follow the software or you guys with the experience?

Or, am I understanding this wrong?

Click to expand...

I had overcarb issues that were related to my measuring/estimation errors. I'm now very careful and exacting as possible about my bottling volume and it hasn't been an issue since. Also, always use the same chart for consistency.

Mashing. That topic is probably its own thread. I now do an iodine test for conversion. Once it's converted it doesn't really matter if you leave it in longer.

FoamFollower said:

So the brew went really well. Hit the numbers but slightly under 5 gals in the fermenter.

The bee's are terrible and two of them ended up in the fermenter after the boil I fished one out but missed the other and he's still in there. At least I hope it was a bee and not a fly. I only got a glimpse of it as rode the stout stream downward...total pilot error.

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Poor bees! That's actually kinda funny.

Just bottled my second batch of this stuff, I forgot how tasty it is hydro sample went right in a glass, so gooood

Invertalon said:

I am still dialing in my efficiency, so it ended higher than expected... At 73% instead of my expected 60%...

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So far so good! Can you mention where the large efficiency jump came from? I batch sparge instead of fly, but always seeking new techniques.

What temp did you guys mash this at?

Still making my way through this thread. What does everyone recommend for liquid yeast?

DC_0602 said:

What temp did you guys mash this at?

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I brewed this Saturday, mashed it at 154.

What are you guys getting for FG? I've been fermenting for 10 days now and it's still at 1.030, hoping it drops a bit.

Low 20s in the first four or five days

Scriv said:

What are you guys getting for FG? I've been fermenting for 10 days now and it's still at 1.030, hoping it drops a bit.

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Yeah, there are reports of this all over this thread. I'd warm it to see if the yeast will finish out. Also, you can try the Cask and bottle conditioning dry yeast. Otherwise, it may just be a mash issue where you didn't hit the magical temp.

What temp did you ferment at and what was your mash temp?

Brewing this recipe tomorrow, cant wait to taste the finish product!

chapusin said:

What temp did you ferment at and what was your mash temp?

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I mashed it at 154, and fermented at 67. I have since raised the fermenter temp and there's new activity, I'll check it again in a couple days.

Gah brewed this today missed the OG. Had an OG of 1.054

So I've brewed this more times than I can count. I've added cold pressed coffee, cacao, PB 2, and they've all come out great. A few weeks back I did a ten gallon version of this and split the batch between original recipe and Mexican hot chocolate version, inspired by Perennial's Abraxis Stout. I made a tincture of cacao, vanilla, cinnamon and roasted ancho pepper. The tincture nibs and pepper went into the fermenter today. I'll post tasting notes in a few weeks.

Just finished cooling this. It's sitting in the fermentation bag to cool the last 10*. Pitching in the morning. Hit most of my numbers, added 1 lb of dme to account for brewhouse efficiency. Sitting at 1.063 waiting for the yeast.

Scriv said:

What are you guys getting for FG? I've been fermenting for 10 days now and it's still at 1.030, hoping it drops a bit.

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Just curious, did you take into account the Lactose that is not fermentable but manifests itself in a gravity reading??

jcc4507fly said:

Just curious, did you take into account the Lactose that is not fermentable but manifests itself in a gravity reading??

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Yes, I'm not expecting it to drop below 1.020, but I'm hoping it'll go below 1.030

Scriv said:

Yes, I'm not expecting it to drop below 1.020, but I'm hoping it'll go below 1.030

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Gotcha. What was your OG?

Mine was at 1.074, which is a bit higher than normal. Should have a final here within a week-ish..

PianoMan said:

There's not much oatmeal in this recipe, but I mash any oats in a regular pot w/strainer of course, on the stove then add liquid to grain mash after 45min or so. Had 1 stuck mash..never again. Just have to subtract water amount from grain mash, once oat liquid is poured its back to where it should be.

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What type of vessel do you use for mash tun? False bottom? Have you tried adding rice hulls to your mash tun? I use them most brews, especially if my grain bill calls for anything flaked!

jcc4507fly said:

Gotcha. What was your OG?

Mine was at 1.074, which is a bit higher than normal. Should have a final here within a week-ish..

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OG was 1.066

Scriv said:

I mashed it at 154, and fermented at 67. I have since raised the fermenter temp and there's new activity, I'll check it again in a couple days.

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Has your gravity changed much over the last few days? Not sure if you mentioned it before but, which yeast did you pitch? Did you make any changes to the recipe? For example, did you scale the recipe up or down? How much lactose did you use? What was your wort volume?

jcc4507fly said:

Has your gravity changed much over the last few days? Not sure if you mentioned it before but, which yeast did you pitch? Did you make any changes to the recipe? For example, did you scale the recipe up or down? How much lactose did you use? What was your wort volume?

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No, I think it's done. I used rehydrated US-05, no changes to the recipe, but the volume to the fermenter was less than 5 gallons, something went wrong with my water numbers somewhere. I used 1lb lactose. I'm going to eventually keg it with some cold brew coffee, hopefully that'll cut the sweetness a bit.

Thought you may be interested...

You may want to check what your apparent attenuation was to help diagnose/understand better what may have happened. If your attenuation was low consider verifying your pitch rate is correct next batch. I also noticed you mashed at 154*, this will also lead to a sweeter beer. I typically mash this brew at 151*, that way it finishes on the dryer side. The lactose will then sweeten it up perfectly.

I'll use my batch for the example.
Let's say my OG=1.074
And FG= 1.025
12 gallon batch
2.5# of lactose
Safale US-05, which has Apparent Attenuation of about 80%AA
ABV= 6.4%

To accurately figure the apparent attenuation we need to subtract the Lactose gravity from our OG and FG. Lactose has a potential gravity of 1.043 ppg (43 points per pound per gallon).

Potential Gravity of Lactose X Pounds Used / Wort Volume

So in my batch 43x2.5=107.5/12 = 9 points or 0.009; Now we can subtract out 9 points from the OG & FG.

OG: 1.074-0.009 = 1.065
FG: 1.025-0.009 = 1.016

Apparent attenuation: OG-FG/OG=AA%
65-16=49/65 =75%AA

I'm sure it will be a great beer and taste amazing! But if you're like me, I'm always trying to learn, improve and be more consistent. Even if it is just a couple gravity/abv points. [emoji482]

any thoughts on swapping out the base malt with vienna?

Never done a primary Vienna beer so no. But if you have done it or want to experiment, go for it.

Be sure to check for conversion and it would be good to have some 2row handy if it fails or takes too long to self convert.

I experimented with using Munich malt for a Stout and it never converted until I tossed 2lbs of 2row in.