Sweet Stout Yeast

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emjay

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I'm going to be making a chocolate sweet/milk stout and am wondering what an ideal yeast might be. I'm not a huge fan of dry stouts, and I don't know if it matters, but I'll be using a good amount of lactose.

I have a vial of White Labs Burton Ale yeast, but don't mind using something else if it means better beer. :)
 
I'm not an expert in the style, but I looked at Brewing Classic Styles and Jamil recommends WLP006 Bedford British yeast.

The Burton Ale yeast has a slightly higher attenuation than 006, so you might want to go with the 006 to provide a little more residual sweetness. The Burton Ale yeast doesn't sound too far off though, so you could probably get a good sweet stout from it by modifying the recipe slightly.
 
Just checked the White Labs site because I couldn't find it on my LHBS site, and it says that Bedford (006) attenuates 3-5% higher than Burton (023) actually.

Either way, I drove myself nuts looking for it on my LHBS website until I realized it was a seasonal "platinum edition." Seasonal for July/August supposedly, so even if they had it in stock I'm not so sure I'd buy yeast that old. Thanks a lot, but I'm going to look at other yeast profiles as I'm still not sure if I'm going to settle on Burton.
 
I typically use WLP004 for my sweet stouts, I brew a chocolate orange stout that many like and it usually ends with a 1.022 - 1.028 FG depending on what I decide I want the OG to be (1.069 - 1.079) including 1lb of lactose.
 
I typically use a yeast (Pacman) that attenuates really well. I prefer the sweetness to only come from the lactose (I use about 2 kg). I also like to throw in about 30g of cocoa-nibs after it reaches TG for about one month. Have fun with your stout.
 
I typically use a yeast (Pacman) that attenuates really well. I prefer the sweetness to only come from the lactose (I use about 2 kg). I also like to throw in about 30g of cocoa-nibs after it reaches TG for about one month. Have fun with your stout.

Thanks. And yeah, I'm definitely throwing in some good quality dark chocolate, though everybody seems to have a different idea of the ideal time and way to do it :)

That's a LOT of lactose though. All the recipes I checked out put it between 0.5 and 1lbs. I definitely want it to be good and sweet, but nobody finds 4.4 lbs a bit much?
 
That's a LOT of lactose though. All the recipes I checked out put it between 0.5 and 1lbs. I definitely want it to be good and sweet, but nobody finds 4.4 lbs a bit much?

That's even a lot for a 10 gallon batch. It must taste like a milk shake.

BTW, I use WLP002 English Ale for my sweet stouts.
 
I'm brewing a Jamil's recipe for sweet stout this weekend and am planning on using WLP005. I just did a Nut Brown with it and it has a slight cherry like ester that is really nice.
 
You need to use WL English ale yeast 002. It will give you the residual sweetness you are looking for.
 
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