In Decembers issue of Brew Your Own, they featured a recipe for a Creme Brulee Imperial Milk stout brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company and it's brewed with vanilla beans. It sounds amazing and I'm about to brew it, but I have some difficulties understanding the directions BYO has given. For instance it doesn't say when to add the lactose, then the hop additions are weird. The recipe is made for extract with AG option. Well, the extract version says 1 oz Columbus for 60 min and .75 Chinook for 30 min. In the AG option, it says "Reduce the 60 min hop addition to 1.25 oz Columbus hops" Don't they mean ADD MORE hops? Just wondering if anyone else has tried it and how it came out.
Has anyone brewed the Creme Brulee Imperial Milk Stout out of BYO?
- Thread starter lukadog
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It sounds like they have the hop amounts reversed..in an extract version, the gravity of the wort is usually much higher (assuming you do a partial boil), so the hop utilization is lower. In that case, when doing an AG version of the same recipe, you would reduce the hop amounts. As for the lactose, I haven't brewed a milk stout before, so I don't have experience with it. I have seen some recipes call for its addition with 15 mins left in the boil, so I would expect this is possibly the standard.
Well the original recipe calls for 1oz of the Columbus. So when I'm brewing AG, should I just keep the 1oz schedule or reduce to say .75oz?
Yes, I would personally use the lower amount for an AG recipe. 1 oz Columbus at 60 minutes is a bit low for an IRS anyway, but I am guessing since it's a sweet stout, they are tending to the lower side on IBU. I just made an IRS at around 100 IBU and I used 2.5 oz of a Warrior at 90 min, so 1 oz of Columbus at 60 min (less boil time, and slightly lower alpha acid) seems a bit low. You may want to even increase a bit to counter the sweetness.
j_dub4t
Active Member
I brewed this one up with my buddy at the beginning of January. We brewed it just as the instructions stated as a partial boil and threw the lactose in at 10 min (We almost forgot as we were about 12 deep into a case of Yard's IPA). Our OG (at 5 gallons) ended up being 1.109.
I ended up making a 1.5L starter with a vial of WP002 and WP007 (the LHBS didnt have 2 vials of the recommended yeast). We oxygenated and then let it rip. It got all the way down to 1.028, which was surprising. By calculation that is about 10.7% ABV.
The beer is dangerously drinkable. The alcohol does not come through at all except for a gentle warming. I will say that I am a bit disappointed in the appearance of the beer though. It does not look like an imperial stout should. It looks more like a porter or maybe even a brown ale. I believe that this may be due to our lack of experience handling that many specialty grains/mini-mash at the beginning. The flavor/aroma had a heavy vanilla, but no where near the intensity of Southern Tier's beer.
Regardless, a very drinkable beer that I would like to get a second chance at. I would like to hear your feedback on how the beer turned out for you.
I ended up making a 1.5L starter with a vial of WP002 and WP007 (the LHBS didnt have 2 vials of the recommended yeast). We oxygenated and then let it rip. It got all the way down to 1.028, which was surprising. By calculation that is about 10.7% ABV.
The beer is dangerously drinkable. The alcohol does not come through at all except for a gentle warming. I will say that I am a bit disappointed in the appearance of the beer though. It does not look like an imperial stout should. It looks more like a porter or maybe even a brown ale. I believe that this may be due to our lack of experience handling that many specialty grains/mini-mash at the beginning. The flavor/aroma had a heavy vanilla, but no where near the intensity of Southern Tier's beer.
Regardless, a very drinkable beer that I would like to get a second chance at. I would like to hear your feedback on how the beer turned out for you.
BrewMonster
Member
That's amazing, I just used that yeast and I thouht it peaked at about 7%. When you add two different kinds of strains does the latter take over after the firat is finished? Just wondering bc I mixed a abby ale yeast with an English ale yeast and it didnt turn out how i thouht it would.
BrewMonster
Member
That's amazing, I just used that yeast and I thouht it peaked at about 7%. When you add two different kinds of strains does the latter take over after the firat is finished? Just wondering bc I mixed a abby ale yeast with an English ale yeast and it didnt turn out how i thouht it would.
Well, mine turned out fantastic. I brewed this for a friend that is not a beer lover, but loves vanilla, so I thought this would turn him. It didn't. Still is great though. Very dark and carmaley, nice vanilla on the nose but goes down extremely smooth. I only got 7.8% ABV from mine but my starter was much smaller, and lost some beer due to a bad blow off. However, it is definitely a one beer dessert beer for me.
j_dub4t
Active Member
Consuming that amount of sugar in less than ideal conditions can strain the yeast and cause it to drop out before all of the fermentables are gone. The idea is to build up enough yeast with the starter to properly ferment the beer out. Alcohol alone will not cause a yeast to stop working as most yeasts will work past 10% ABV if treated properly.
I could have used only one vial, but it would have required a much larger starter for this big of a beer(I am limited to 2000mL). Go to mrmalty.com and look for the yeast starter calculator to get a better idea of this calculation.
It is my understanding that both yeasts will be working at the same time instead of one before the other. I know that with some hefeweizen strains, the budding or replication of the yeast will create a certain flavor profile. If the yeast has to grow alot before fermenting (underpitching), the flavor will be different than if you pitch a much larger amount of yeast. It is possible that the presence of the english ale yeast lessened the need for the belgian yeast to grow, therefore lessening its flavor impact on the beer. Fermentation temperature could have also been to blame for unexpected results. This is just a guess on my part as I am not too knowledgable about belgian strains, but I think that it could be a good place to start.
