BYO Founders Breakfast Stout

So I wanted to do a clone of the founders breakfast stout and found a recipe on BYO.com I had a few questions on it though with the smaller ingredients, for instance would i put the flaked oak in a hop sack? Also, if I put the ground coffee right in the fermentation bucket, would i need to strain my beer before bottling in order to not have the grinds in the beer? And it asks for dark bittersweet bakers chocolate, just wondering what size of pieces that needs to be in?

Any other recommendations?

Thanks

Here's the recipe from their site:

6.6 lbs. (3.0 kg) Briess light, unhopped, malt extract
1.7 lbs. (0.77 kg) light dry extract
22 oz. (0.62 kg) flaked oats
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) chocolate malt (350 °L)
12 oz. (0.34 kg) roast barley malt (450 °L)
9.0 oz. (0.25 kg) debittered, black malt (530 °L)
7.0 oz. (0.19 kg) crystal malt (120 °L)
2.0 oz. (57 g) ground Sumatran coffee
2.0 oz. (57 g) ground Kona coffee
2.5 oz. (71 g) dark, bittersweet baker’s chocolate
1.5 oz. (43 g) unsweetened chocolate baking nibs
14.3 AAU Nugget pellet hops (60 min.) (1.1 oz./ 31 g of 13% alpha acid)
2.5 AAU Willamette pellet hops (30 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 5 % alpha acid)
2.5 AAU Willamette pellet hops (0 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 5 % alpha acid)
1⁄2 tsp. yeast nutrient (last 15 minutes)
1⁄2 tsp. Irish moss (last 15 minutes
White Labs WLP 001 (American Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) yeast
0.75 cup (150 g) of corn sugar for priming (if bottling)

Step by Step:

Steep the crushed grain in 2 gallons (7.6 L) of water at 155 ºF (68 ºC) for 30 minutes. Remove grains from the wort and rinse with 2 quarts (1.8 L) of hot water. Add the liquid and dried malt extracts and bring to a boil. Add the hops and Irish moss as per the schedule. Add the Sumatran coffee and two chocolate varieties at the end of the boil. Add the wort to 2 gallons (7.6 L) of cold water in a sanitized fermenter and top off with cold water up to 5 gallons (19 L). Cool the wort to 75 ºF (24 ºC). Pitch the yeast and aerate the wort heavily. Allow the beer to cool to 68 ºF (20 ºC). Hold at that temperature until fermentation is complete. Transfer to a carboy, avoiding any splashing. Add the Kona coffee and condition for one week, then bottle or keg. Carbonate and age for two weeks.

Funny this pops up. I just got home from the LHBS and put this recipe together with some help.

First off, I'd put the oat in the sack with the rest of the grains when you mash them. My LHBS added some rice hulls and kept the grain separate for the time being from the other grains. The rice hulls will help keep from making a sticky oatmeal mess when you mash it. You can mash them all together in a grain bag though.

As for the coffee, add it loose, and pour the whole kettle into the bucket. After it's all done, the hops, trub, yeast and chocolate nibs as well as the coffee will fall out and most of it will settle. Rack to secondary, and add the cold press coffee, or whole bean coffee to the secondary.



As for the chocolate, I ended up getting powder, so I didn't have to deal with it. Keeps the oils out, which will help with head retention as well! I'd assume that the smaller the better to allow it to melt, because keep in mind you are added at flame out, so it'll be 200+ degrees... The chocolate will melt anyways, so smaller doesn't hurt anything!

I'm planning on racking on to chipped oak from an old bourbon barrel thats been soaked in bourbon as well! Should be great, and will let it age roughly till the holidays!

Good luck with it!

Great, thanks for the help. Looking forward to doing this one. Hope it comes out well because I can never get enough Founders Breakfast stout to last.

Come back and let us know how it turns out. I'm planning on brewing mine this weekend!

Hoping to hit all the numbers, and get everything right.. I'm just trying to figure out what coffee's I want to use, I'm a coffee... snob I guess you could say, as much as I'm a beer snob.

I also think that I'm going to add the coffee loose at flame out, as well as adding the nibs maybe at 5 minutes or at flameout, to keep the bitterness down on them.

I'm gonna rack on secondary to MORE nibs, bourbon barrel chips and add the other addition of cold steeped coffee.. Might taste it every few days to see how it's coming along, and then perhaps add some more coffee to the priming solution at bottling to keep the coffee forward if it fades.

So finally finished the beer. Started it about 4 months ago. left in the secondary for about a month. Carbonation took about 2 but finally have bubbles. Still would like it just a little more carbonated but its coming of age. I'm still going to let this guy sit for another few months so the coffee taste can mellow. Followed the recipe and mine tastes like espresso. Very strong coffee taste and overpowers any chocolate. We'll see what time does. Hopefully this is one of the many keeps getting better with a few years on it.