my revised sweet and salty caramel stout recipe, take a look. Comment and criticize.

So I want to have a very caramelly stout. After much revising this is the current recipe. Tell me what you think

everything except the extract is mashed.

Using brew target as my program

dark extract: 4lb
crystal 20: 2lb
crystal 40: 1lb
crystal 120: 1lb
special b: 1lb
roasted barly: half a pound
black malt: fourth a pound
chocolate malt : fourth a pound

do you think that will be caramelly enough?

I plan to add salt after the priming is done.

Will this be a sweet and salty caramel stout ?

hopped with .25oz columbus 60 mins
.25oz at 30 mins

OG: 1.056
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.4
IBU 22
color: 48

That beer looks like it might be liquid sugar with all of that crystal malt.

I'd be cautious about adding salt outside of using it to adjust your mash, which you aren't doing.

Your best bet, I'd think, would be to add it right when you go to drink it. IIRC, salt and yeast don't play nice together so you could run into problems if you are bottling this batch.

The rest of it looks good. I'm not sure if the Crystal 120 would overpower the flavor you would get from the 40 and 20. It definately would overpower the color, but the roasted barley and chocolate malt will rule them all for color.

iron_city_ap said:

I'd be cautious about adding salt outside of using it to adjust your mash, which you aren't doing.

Your best bet, I'd think, would be to add it right when you go to drink it. IIRC, salt and yeast don't play nice together so you could run into problems if you are bottling this batch.

The rest of it looks good. I'm not sure if the Crystal 120 would overpower the flavor you would get from the 40 and 20. It definately would overpower the color, but the roasted barley and chocolate malt will rule them all for color.

Click to expand...

yeah this is my first beer that i have designed all by myself. my goal is that it tates like a carmel stout. do you think this would be caramelly enough?

and as for the salt i plan to add it after the priming processis colplete i think i will be using swing caps so i will just swing them open one by one and add the salt. im not to worried about the salting but more of the caramelly flavor being significant enough

I have a hard time believing you'll get all the way down to 1.014... If you're steeping those other grains, they should mostly be unfermentable.

What would your software return, gravity-wise, if you plugged in a recipe of just the 4lb dark extract?

Also, much of caramel's flavor comes from compounds that aren't really that sweet... Those crystal malts will add a lot of sweetness, but it looks like you're trying to simulate caramel with malt. I don't think anyone would give you a hard time if you just made some caramel and added it to secondary. That way, you could adjust the caramel until you had the right presence.

Lastly, instead of salting the beer, you could try salting the glass. It would give you a little insurance, and make kind of a cool presentation. I think that, if the salt were visible to the drinker, you'd need less of it to make it taste salty. I find that salted caramels are better when the salt is sprinkled on top vs mixed in, for what I assume is the same reason.

belmontbrew said:

I have a hard time believing you'll get all the way down to 1.014... If you're steeping those other grains, they should mostly be unfermentable.

What would your software return, gravity-wise, if you plugged in a recipe of just the 4lb dark extract?

Also, much of caramel's flavor comes from compounds that aren't really that sweet... Those crystal malts will add a lot of sweetness, but it looks like you're trying to simulate caramel with malt. I don't think anyone would give you a hard time if you just made some caramel and added it to secondary. That way, you could adjust the caramel until you had the right presence.

Lastly, instead of salting the beer, you could try salting the glass. It would give you a little insurance, and make kind of a cool presentation. I think that, if the salt were visible to the drinker, you'd need less of it to make it taste salty. I find that salted caramels are better when the salt is sprinkled on top vs mixed in, for what I assume is the same reason.

Click to expand...

thank you for your insight. i am mashing all of my grains. i am useing the program "brew target". i am trying to use as much crystal malt as possible to add as much caramel flavor as possible. i dont want to use real caramel. the dark extract is actually "dark malt extract"

This doesn't look too bad, this is what I would do though.



Amber extract: 6lb (it will be dark enough with the chocolate and black)
crystal 20: .5lb
crystal 40: .5lb
crystal 120: .25lb
special b: .25lb (can be anywhere from 120 lovibond or higher, really like this grain)
roasted barley: .25-.5lb (this grain can dominate the taste)
black patent malt: 1lb
chocolate malt pale: 1lb (this will be a little light than reg chocolate malt, help the caramel come through)


This is off the top off my head, use your brew software to find your right gravity. What are you going to do for yeast and hops? May want to try 1oz or 2 of lactose to bring out the sweetness a little more to taste.

Brew_4iT said:

This doesn't look too bad, this is what I would do though.



Amber extract: 6lb (it will be dark enough with the chocolate and black)
crystal 20: .5lb
crystal 40: .5lb
crystal 120: .25lb
special b: .25lb
roasted barley: .25-.5lb
black patent malt: 1lb
chocolate malt pale: 1lb (this will be a little light than reg chocolate malt, help the caramel come through)


This is off the top off my head, use your brew software to find your right gravity. What are you going to do for yeast and hops?

Click to expand...

just safale 04

.25oz columbus hops 60mins
.25 @ 30 mins

how would this recipe taste compared to the one i already had? do you think it would taste caramelly enough?

Columbus can be a little bit pungeant and funky, I would just add some for bittering and leave the 30 min addition out. But your choice you might like it.

What I've found and I think everybody starting off brewing does this... you add more specialty grains the better the beer right?... not really. A little bit goes a long way, you add a whole bunch of specialty grains and you can't differentiate what your tasting. But it is whatever you find palatable. Most people would think the amount I listed would be a little much for specialty grains.

The amber extract will also be atleast 30% crystal and other caramel type of grains (may want to check out the extract, some don't specify though)

A caramel porter might be something your more looking for if you want the caramel to stand out with less roasty, chocolate, coffee taste. A stout is basically a beefed up porter with roasted barley.

If you want a lot of complexities in your beer I would make an imperial and age for atleast 5 months. You can find a lot of different recognizable tastes in a well conditioned beer I've found rather than a month old ale.

Brew_4iT said:

This doesn't look too bad, this is what I would do though.



Amber extract: 6lb (it will be dark enough with the chocolate and black)
crystal 20: .5lb
crystal 40: .5lb
crystal 120: .25lb
special b: .25lb (can be anywhere from 120 lovibond or higher, really like this grain)
roasted barley: .25-.5lb (this grain can dominate the taste)
black patent malt: 1lb
chocolate malt pale: 1lb (this will be a little light than reg chocolate malt, help the caramel come through)


This is off the top off my head, use your brew software to find your right gravity. What are you going to do for yeast and hops? May want to try 1oz or 2 of lactose to bring out the sweetness a little more to taste.

Click to expand...

This is looking real interesting, looking to brew a caramel stout. Did anyone try out the recipe above? Any thoughts on hops that might match well?

Did this ever get brewed?