Sweet Stout Milk Stout

Jwin said:

Gently shake the makers every couple of days.
You split the beans, right?
Enjoy!
Let's us know how the chocolate vanilla and bourbon meshes

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Yes, I split the vanilla beans then clean out the black goey stuff inside then I sliced the outside and inside a bit to rough it up.

I will post my progress here. Really exicited to see how this turns out!

I brewed this but Used Safale S-04 and ended up with a F.G. of 1.030.

I'll call it (Sweet Milk Stout Session)

I decided to bottle it anyway since its been at 1.030 since two weeks.

Do you think this could be because I mashed a bit too high temp? I targeted 69C (156F) but my thermometer sucked... I bought a proper one now..(thermapen)

The fermentation was pretty vigorous for the first few days and the yeast cake was big and thick.

Edit: Just drank my first bottle yesterday! Damn it taste really good Thanks for sharing this gr8 recipe

What was the mash time & temperature? Also, when did you put the lactose in the boil? Thanks.

I usually mash around 156F. This being said, for the next batch, i am going to drop the temp to 153-154F. I am going to see if i can get the FG to drop a little more, as my last couple batches have finished higher than i would have liked.

I add the lactose at 20 min. Unless i forget, in which case i add it at 15 with the irish moss.

Thanks. I was brewing it the day I asked the question, so I mashed at 154 and put the lactose in at 30 minutes. I'll keg it next weekend, since that will be 3 weeks in the fermentor. Looking forward to it!

Sorry for the delayed response. Hope you enjoy it!

Well, my FG came out to 1.020 but I'm going to keg it anyway. Should be ready in time for the Superbowl which was my goal. I'll let you know how it came out.

I'm pretty sure the higher FG's are do to the yeasties not being able to chew on the lactose. That's kinda the 'milk' part.
I've got the ingredients for a milk stout but have not brewed it yet. While I was researching recipes, higher FG's was a big question ask on the other posts.
This does sound tastie!
Cheers,
Willie P

Hey

We brewed this and have it in fermenter going on 3 wks. You don't do a secondary fermenter?

Thanks
Jim

I have stopped adding my lactose to the boil as the milk sugar is non fermentable. I feel i have a better gauge on the beer being finished. Then i boil 2 cups of water with the pound of lactose forming a simple syrup. I add that to the botttom of a sanitized keg and rack the beer on top with great success.

Brew_Bastard said:

Hey



We brewed this and have it in fermenter going on 3 wks. You don't do a secondary fermenter?



Thanks

Jim

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I do not use a secondary for this beer.

ncsuwerewolf said:

I have stopped adding my lactose to the boil as the milk sugar is non fermentable. I feel i have a better gauge on the beer being finished. Then i boil 2 cups of water with the pound of lactose forming a simple syrup. I add that to the botttom of a sanitized keg and rack the beer on top with great success.

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This is an interesting idea. Have you done a taste comparison of the original recipe vs your method?

I am planning on brewing 5.5 gallons of this recipe for a St. Paddy's Day party with my neighbors. This sounds like an awesome beer, and I brewed a great porter that is finally ready to serve, they all loved it! I am pretty new to all grain brewing, and this is the first time I have tried to create a recipe in Beersmith... So i created a new recipe using the ingredients in the first post of this thread and added details from the other posts... here is my question:

Beersmith said to mash in 18.75 quarts and steep at 155 for 75 min then fly sparge with 5.53 gallons at 168 degrees F... does that seem like a long time to steep the grains?

cgm said:

I am planning on brewing 5.5 gallons of this recipe for a St. Paddy's Day party with my neighbors. This sounds like an awesome beer, and I brewed a great porter that is finally ready to serve, they all loved it! I am pretty new to all grain brewing, and this is the first time I have tried to create a recipe in Beersmith... So i created a new recipe using the ingredients in the first post of this thread and added details from the other posts... here is my question:

Beersmith said to mash in 18.75 quarts and steep at 155 for 75 min then fly sparge with 5.53 gallons at 168 degrees F... does that seem like a long time to steep the grains?

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Could be. I'm more concerned about how thick that mash might be. Have you set your equipment profile up in beersmith?
Also, I would be cautious not to mash over 155. If you hit any higher you could have a damn sweet beer. But that is a personal taste thing...

Jwin said:

Could be. I'm more concerned about how thick that mash might be. Have you set your equipment profile up in beersmith?
Also, I would be cautious not to mash over 155. If you hit any higher you could have a damn sweet beer. But that is a personal taste thing...

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Yes, I set up my equipment profile... I will double check to make sure that I am using it.

By to thick of a mash, do you mean that there is not enough water?

As for mean temp, I am just going left what is suggested in this thread. I think op mashed at 156 but was excitement with cooler mashes. I am learning as I go... I thought more sugars would get fermented so more sugars=higher abv. Does that mean that some of the sugars in this recipe are not fermentable (besides the lactose) of fire that mean that there will be more sugars than the headdy will be able to consume during fermentation?

cgm said:

Yes, I set up my equipment profile... I will double check to make sure that I am using it.

By to thick of a mash, do you mean that there is not enough water?

As for mean temp, I am just going left what is suggested in this thread. I think op mashed at 156 but was excitement with cooler mashes. I am learning as I go... I thought more sugars would get fermented so more sugars=higher abv. Does that mean that some of the sugars in this recipe are not fermentable (besides the lactose) of fire that mean that there will be more sugars than the headdy will be able to consume during fermentation?

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In the simplest terms, higher mash Temps produce longer chains of sugars, which are non fermentable. 155 is not a problem, but the higher you go the sweeter and thinner end product you will have. Also, the same goes if you use a yeast with low attenuation. Combine a high mash temp and under attenuation(which can be caused by several factors) and a high mash temp and you could have a very high FG.

Doing the math it doesn't look unreal. You could probably do a double batch sparge with that amount, unless you are fly sparging. Sorry, shouldn't be to thick. I've been on high gravity 11g batches and partygyling so when I see 18qt, I inherently go What?

Anyway, plan ahead, sanitize twice and have a great brew day!

Jwin said:

In the simplest terms, higher mash Temps produce longer chains of sugars, which are non fermentable. 155 is not a problem, but the higher you go the sweeter and thinner end product you will have. Also, the same goes if you use a yeast with low attenuation. Combine a high mash temp and under attenuation(which can be caused by several factors) and a high mash temp and you could have a very high FG.

Doing the math it doesn't look unreal. You could probably do a double batch sparge with that amount, unless you are fly sparging. Sorry, shouldn't be to thick. I've been on high gravity 11g batches and partygyling so when I see 18qt, I inherently go What?

Anyway, plan ahead, sanitize twice and have a great brew day!

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Thanks for the explanation! I am going to follow WildGingerBrewing's recipe as much as I can and see what shakes out... I think I need to take a better look at my equipment profile, because it is recommending I use a little less than 2 qt per pound of grain.

Is everyone doing 90 min boil times, but waiting 30 min to add the first hops... or did i read this thread wrong?

What does everyone think about this? I might brew today... this would rule out the possibility of a yeast starter. If not, i will get the supplies today and brew mid week.

Good answers, jwin. As to the boil question, a 60 min boil is all that is needed for this beer. 90 min would be a waste of time, and a loss of beer. Enjoy!

WildGingerBrewing said:

Good answers, jwin. As to the boil question, a 60 min boil is all that is needed for this beer. 90 min would be a waste of time, and a loss of beer. Enjoy!

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Thanks! I'm looking forward to brewing this soon.

Thanks for the recipe! I brewed it today...


Yup... there is some sugar in there to ferment! It tasted pretty sweet, I imagine that it will still be a little sweet after fermentation because the lactose will not ferment. it was a bit more bitter than I expected, we will see how it tastes in a few weeks!

Awesome!

Hmmm... I kegged it just now... my gravity after the boil was 1.072 @ 65-70 degrees. I cold crashed, so the temp is down to 36 degrees and my final gravity is 1.004. Beersmith tells my my abv is 4.2 as opposed to the expected 5.5.

BS doesn't have me input the temp, could the abv be higher than the 4.2 the program is telling me. if it makes a difference, the beer is very sweet

To add to the fun, It was been cold crashing since last Thursday night, the beer had a blow off line going into a growler. The first couple of days, I checked on it, and while some star san had been pulled up an inch or so out of the growler, there was plenty of room before it would get sucked into the beer... or so I thought. I had about 2-3 inches of star san in my growler when I started, but the growler was practically empty. it is very likely that the beer system was open. In my carboy, the top 1/2 or so of beer was much lighter in color. I am assuming that this was the sar san that was sitting on top layered like a black and tan. I syphoned off 90% of that layer.

Should I be worried? The beer tasted fine (with the exception of it being very sweet). Bitterness was perfect, color, etc. was as expected.

cgm said:

Hmmm... I kegged it just now... my gravity after the boil was 1.072 @ 65-70 degrees. I cold crashed, so the temp is down to 36 degrees and my final gravity is 1.004. Beersmith tells my my abv is 4.2 as opposed to the expected 5.5.

BS doesn't have me input the temp, could the abv be higher than the 4.2 the program is telling me. if it makes a difference, the beer is very sweet

To add to the fun, It was been cold crashing since last Thursday night, the beer had a blow off line going into a growler. The first couple of days, I checked on it, and while some star san had been pulled up an inch or so out of the growler, there was plenty of room before it would get sucked into the beer... or so I thought. I had about 2-3 inches of star san in my growler when I started, but the growler was practically empty. it is very likely that the beer system was open. In my carboy, the top 1/2 or so of beer was much lighter in color. I am assuming that this was the sar san that was sitting on top layered like a black and tan. I syphoned off 90% of that layer.

Should I be worried? The beer tasted fine (with the exception of it being very sweet). Bitterness was perfect, color, etc. was as expected.

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If you didn't adjust for the low temp, your FG is off. With these numbers, your ABV would about 9.2%. You should take both OG and FG readings around 68-70F. Or whatever your hydrometer is calibrated too.

As for the star san, it certainly won't hurt you, but I can't promise that it won't give a slight off-flavor. In reality though, 2"-3" of star san in a growler is probably not enough to even notice in 5 gal of beer. Don't sweat it and enjoy!

WildGingerBrewing said:

If you didn't adjust for the low temp, your FG is off. With these numbers, your ABV would about 9.2%. You should take both OG and FG readings around 68-70F. Or whatever your hydrometer is calibrated too.

As for the star san, it certainly won't hurt you, but I can't promise that it won't give a slight off-flavor. In reality though, 2"-3" of star san in a growler is probably not enough to even notice in 5 gal of beer. Don't sweat it and enjoy!

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Wow! This is strong. This makes sense because it fermented like crazy.


The beer was still really sweet last night. Do you think it would be too late to add some coffee to the keg to add some flavor and cut done of the sweetness? I plan on serving this Sunday. If I can add coffee, how much for a 4.5 gallon batch?

Thanks for any help, I am new to this and probably should be posting done of these questions in the new brewers forum.

First off, i think your readings are incorrect and need adjusting. If you added a pound of lactose to this, there is now way you got down to a 1.004 FG. You meed to take another reading at the correct temp.

Second, this beer is sweet because of the lactose, which does not ferment out (see above). Some of the sweetness will dicipate with age, but not go completely away.

Third, i have never added coffee after fermentation but have brewed with it. When i do, i use a full pound at flame out and let it steep. Since you do not want to add 180F or so coffee to the beer, i would suggest cold brewing or brewing and cooling down to beer temp, then adding to keg. But i am not a fan of opening a keg once a beer is carbed and ready. If you insist on it, i would brew a half gal with 8-10oz of a good, strong, dark roast coffee.

Feel free to ask questions about this beer here. I'll do my best to answer them. Good luck!

WildGingerBrewing said:

First off, i think your readings are incorrect and need adjusting. If you added a pound of lactose to this, there is now way you got down to a 1.004 FG. You meed to take another reading at the correct temp.

Second, this beer is sweet because of the lactose, which does not ferment out (see above). Some of the sweetness will dicipate with age, but not go completely away.

Third, i have never added coffee after fermentation but have brewed with it. When i do, i use a full pound at flame out and let it steep. Since you do not want to add 180F or so coffee to the beer, i would suggest cold brewing or brewing and cooling down to beer temp, then adding to keg. But i am not a fan of opening a keg once a beer is carbed and ready. If you insist on it, i would brew a half gal with 8-10oz of a good, strong, dark roast coffee.

Feel free to ask questions about this beer here. I'll do my best to answer them. Good luck!

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Thanks so much! I just want to share some awesome beer with friends and family.

Here is a pic of the gravity after cranking and before I kegged it. The temp controller was set to 38 degrees

Imust have misplaced the 0... it was 1.040


It is still really sweet... Granted the carbonation is not set yet, so that will change the flavor. If I were to add coffee, I would be strong and flavorful coffee in my French press and cool it down to the same temp as the beer. Maybe it will brew stove coffee and added or out a pint and see how it tastes tomorrow. I had you on opening up the beer to contamination this late in the game, but as the beer sits, it just isn't good enough yet. I asked the guy at the homebrew shop for a lb of lactose, but my buddy was borrowing my scale so I just dumped it in. I hope it wasn't actually a two lb bag.

Coffee might do two things... Well three. Add flavor... But could be good or bad at this point, add bitterness to possibly offset solve of the sweetness. Lots of people like lots of sugar in their coffee. And finally if I add 1/2 gallon of cold coffee, it will lower the abv.

Did it look like I read the gravity right?

Edit: I just got home from work... still way too sweet, but I added coffee and it definitely tasted better with it! There was a point of diminishing returns, so we will see if I can fine tune it. The carbonation is thankfully still low, so I am guessing that I can add coffee and it won't just settle to the bottom of the keg because of its density compared to the carbonated beer.

I really don't know what I did wrong, the receipt from the brew store said 1 lb of lactose and if the abv is north of 9%, then I would say that quite a bit of the fermentable sugars were eaten up by the yeast. Besides being way too sweet, this beer is awesome.

Im not sure i follow you 100%. What temp is that beer? Based on what you're saying, that sample is about 38f and waaaaaaaay to cold to take a legitimate sample. Your FG should be around 1.018-1.025 for the most part.

It is a sweet beer as the lactose doesnt ferment out. The coffee will not affect the FG or ABV at all. Without a legitimate temp adjusted sample, i cant tell you what your abv is. I suspect it is around 4.8-5.2% abv.

I highly suggest reading some books on the subjects and learning a little more before deciding if this is a good or bad beer. As a new brewer, i think you might be missing several common factors. I hope you like it, but am unsure that your ending processes have been correct to produce a good finished product.

Well, I brewed this again and it ended up tasting like $#|t. It smells metallic and tastes the same. The de bittered black malt was over a year old and maybe I should have tasted it before using it. I also used RO water instead of spring water. I added one tsp of CaCl to the strike water before mash. I don't think it's infected, but I guess that's possible. It's not totally undrinkable, but it's not good like is has been in the past when I brewed it. It's been in the keg for two weeks so there's the possibility that it will get better, but I just don't know at this point. Something is off on this batch. I know it's a great recipe because I've brewed it before!!!!

2.5 gallon batch

4 lb Maris Otter
8 oz de bittered black malt
6 oz flaked barley
6 oz roasted barley
4 oz flaked oats
4 oz cara pils
4 oz crystal 120L
7 oz Lactose (Boil with pint of water before bottling or kegging)
—Hops
11 g (.375 oz) Brewer's Gold (60 min) 5.9AA
7 g (.25 oz) Fuggles (30 min) 5.2AA
— Water Chemistry
CaCl - 1 tsp to 4 gallons RO/Distilled
—Yeast
WLP005 British Ale Yeast (1L starter)
OG 1070
FG 1029

phyllobeddo said:

Well, I brewed this again and it ended up tasting like $#|t. It smells metallic and tastes the same. The de bittered black malt was over a year old and maybe I should have tasted it before using it. I also used RO water instead of spring water. I added one tsp of CaCl to the strike water before mash. I don't think it's infected, but I guess that's possible. It's not totally undrinkable, but it's not good like is has been in the past when I brewed it. It's been in the keg for two weeks so there's the possibility that it will get better, but I just don't know at this point. Something is off on this batch. I know it's a great recipe because I've brewed it before!!!!

2.5 gallon batch

4 lb Maris Otter
8 oz de bittered black malt
6 oz flaked barley
6 oz roasted barley
4 oz flaked oats
4 oz cara pils
4 oz crystal 120L
7 oz Lactose (Boil with pint of water before bottling or kegging)
—Hops
11 g (.375 oz) Brewer's Gold (60 min) 5.9AA
7 g (.25 oz) Fuggles (30 min) 5.2AA
— Water Chemistry
CaCl - 1 tsp to 4 gallons RO/Distilled
—Yeast
WLP005 British Ale Yeast (1L starter)
OG 1070
FG 1029

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I tasted a sample of a milk stout that's still in the primary and I also used 8 ounces of the same black patent and it tastes just fine. Black patent doesn't seem to be the problem on this one now.

Thats interesting. And sucks too! The only thing i see that you did different is boiling the lactose first. But i dont see that causing metallic flavors. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1462728561.845464.jpg

Keep us posted on the results as it ages.

WildGingerBrewing said:

Thats interesting. And sucks too! The only thing i see that you did different is boiling the lactose first. But i dont see that causing metallic flavors. View attachment 353560

Keep us posted on the results as it ages.

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Aw crap! I DID boil the lactose, with about 10 minutes left. I had that in my notes to try for the first time but nixed it and boiled the lactose like normal. I decided it would be too much trouble later on and I've always boiled it. Doh! My bad.

I just add the lactose directly to the boil with about 15 min left. I still cant imagine boiling it in water first then adding it, would give metallic flavors though.