Sweet Stout Deception Cream Stout

Thinking about making this, would really like something with good coffee or chocolate flavor. Are additions recommended? What additions have been successful?

I've done espresso and basic old folgers, both cold brewed in a french press at bottling and both were great.

First beer brew, BIAB cause I have the equipment, could anyone help scale the all-grain recipe to one gallon? Specifically, what should I set my boil volume to, and how much hops should I add? I'm assuming the rest of the ingredients, e.g. grain and lactose, are just 1/5 of the given values. Thank you.
Edit: Also, if I'm using distilled water, how much (if any) of various kinds of brewing salts should I add?

laserstone said:

First beer brew, BIAB cause I have the equipment, could anyone help scale the all-grain recipe to one gallon? Specifically, what should I set my boil volume to, and how much hops should I add? I'm assuming the rest of the ingredients, e.g. grain and lactose, are just 1/5 of the given values. Thank you.
Edit: Also, if I'm using distilled water, how much (if any) of various kinds of brewing salts should I add?

Click to expand...

Your boil volume is very dependent upon how vigorous of a boil. Assuming stove top you should control to an easy rolling boil, and I'd imagine near a qt extra at begin of boil. Plus you will lose some via grain absorption. Try a brew calculator on line (e.g. Brew 365). Or search here in the large 1g brewers thread for this info. Grains and hops yes 1/5. Salts use Bru'n Water calcs for a stout. Take time reading through, not that difficult and good luck with your brew day! Let us know how it turns out.

Thanks for the recipe! I can't believe how long the talk has been going on this one
I got this one going last weekend, fourth batch of beer made! Excited to have it ready, theoretically, by St. Patty's. Fingers crossed!

I am drinking this now and its REALLY good! If anyone is on the fence about making this, do it. It is excellent.

Gets better as it ages.

Just bottled mine up last night! Things went well.

I did half with the original recipe. Added lactose to the other half to be the equivalent of making the recipe with a full pound. Curious to taste the difference after a month or so of carbing/conditioning...

Even the hydro sample I took tasted good. I was amazed! Excited to see what a little time does to it... And, you know. Being carbonated AND cold

Brewed this a few weeks ago and pulled the first sample yesterday. I was a bit concerned at first because BrewTarget has the FG at something around 1.016 (I think it has something to do with the lactose and now that I type it, I remember it happening the first time I brewed this many years ago) and my SG was at 1.021. Came back here to see what the original expected FG was, glad to see I'm nearly dead on.

I fermented with WLP004 - Irish Ale, and the wife wants to keg this with some homemade vanilla extract. We tried a few drops in the sample, and boy was it tasty!

Just sampled a bottle after about 4 weeks to carb/condition. Tastes great! This one was from my "double lactose" half of the recipe. It was very lactose-sweet and had that thick feel in the mouth. I actually think the original recipe will be more to my taste... Gonna try one of those bottles soon!


About halfway through...

I've gotten to the point where I feel some of the milk stouts get a little too muddy/sweet tasting, like maybe they need a hit of roast barley or something to give a little of the edge back... I haven't made this beer in awhile, but I may re-brew it and try something along those lines.

I plan on making this soon, and have a packet of Windsor yeast that could potentially work for this ale. Did anyone use it in this recipe and what are the impressions?
Im aware its a low attenuating yeast and plan on mash a little lower to compensate it.

Brewing this All Grain recipe this Thursday. I scaled it to 6Gal batch with Beersmith and I'm still debating if I put 0.75lbs of lactose or 1lbs.
The only change is that it will be fermenting with US-05. Anything else is the original recipe.

Any Hints?

Beerdrinker85 said:

Brewing this All Grain recipe this Thursday. I scaled it to 6Gal batch with Beersmith and I'm still debating if I put 0.75lbs of lactose or 1lbs.
The only change is that it will be fermenting with US-05. Anything else is the original recipe.

Any Hints?

Click to expand...

I tried this experiment, kinda, with my ~5.5 gallon batch. I made the full batch with the original 0.5 lb of lactose. At time of bottling, I added 0.25 lb of lactose to half of the batch (equivalent of using 1.0 lb of lactose for the whole batch).

The 1 lb / 5 gal batch is very good. It's my fiance's favorite. Very sweet, but it has that really thick / velvet mouthfeel. She doesn't normally like 'dark beers', but likes this one. Calls it "Chocolate Milk" tasting.

The 0.5 lb / 5 gal batch is excellent. It's my favorite. A lot thinner (still thick, but not almost 'muddy' like the extra lactose batch). Still plenty sweet, and some of the cocoa/coffee flavors can really shine through.



Long story short, what will I do for the next batch? Probably half and half again... If it were just for me, I'd tend toward LOWER LACTOSE.

Sorry, I know that doesn't help at all

Finally I went with 0.75 lbs.
I will post the result in 2 months.

A question to the Pro's that have made this.

Would this be a good one to add chocolate and strawberry to? Any suggestions for a good outcome?

Christopher808 said:

A question to the Pro's that have made this.

Would this be a good one to add chocolate and strawberry to? Any suggestions for a good outcome?

Click to expand...

I would think this would be a solid choice to add strawberry and chocolate. Use the strawberry puree, 2 cans if you want some real apparent strawberry flavor.

Think I might brew this one for my next batch, sounds great! Without reading through 1400 posts did anyone discover any major recipe improvements from the original?

This is great and is a brew I make every year, thanks again

View attachment 1506781483438.jpg

"anyone discover any major recipe improvements"

In a word NO, at least for me. I've tried AG with 2-row, Maris Otter, different hops and yeasts (tending toward British or neutral), liquid extract (for simplicity) ...

And I always end up enjoying the Original recipe as stated. Only change I make is a personal preference for s-04 in low 60s. Don't get me wrong, Denny's yeast make for fine ales great taste and soft/smooth finish.

After all is said and done, do the original. If you think it might be improved, try it and let us know.

Happy Brewing
Jeff

Hi everybody. Has someone make this beer with an AG recipe? If it does, what base Malt is better?

Lele said:

Hi everybody. Has someone make this beer with an AG recipe? If it does, what base Malt is better?

Click to expand...

I did an AG version of this for one of my first beers ever. I think it might have been my second ever (unless I'm mixing it up with the Left Hand Milk Stout recipe - both were among my first few), and first AG. I used a somewhat low-grade local 2-row here in China and it came out just fine. The other malts generally overpower the flavor contribution from the base malt in a roasty beer like this, so anything should be fine.

FatDragon said:

The other malts generally overpower the flavor contribution from the base malt in a roasty beer like this, so anything should be fine.

Click to expand...

I know that DME is sweeter than Pale 2-Row, and so I thought that a Maris Otter or a combination of Maris Otter and Golden Promise was better than a simple 2-Row. What do you think about? In your opinion, is it the same thing?

Lele said:

Hi everybody. Has someone make this beer with an AG recipe? If it does, what base Malt is better?

Click to expand...

OP provided the AG recipe in the original post.

Lele said:

I know that DME is sweeter than Pale 2-Row, and so I thought that a Maris Otter or a combination of Maris Otter and Golden Promise was better than a simple 2-Row. What do you think about? In your opinion, is it the same thing?

Click to expand...

As @blacklabel8829 mentions, there is an all-grain version of the recipe in the first post, which suggests regular pale 2-row.

The problem with using MO and Golden Promise is simply that they're more expensive than regular 2-row. In a beer like this, they're not going to make a huge flavor impact. What minimal flavor impact they would make as compared to 2-row should be a positive one, though. If you don't mind the extra $3-5 it's likely to cost you to sub for the 2-row, I'm sure it won't hurt the beer.

That said, I like to use Vienna (and would try MO if it were more readily available where I live) as the base malt for my oatmeal porter. It's only got something like 300-350g roasted grains in 21-22 liters, though, and no caramalts, so there's less for it to compete with.

Just found this recipe, got a pale ale on deck for right after christmas but i think im gonna plug this in beginning of january. Recipe looks great cant wait.

So brewed this up 13 days ago, OG was 1.062 FG was stable at 1.022 so racked to keg tonight. 5.3% sample actually tasted good, first time i can say that about any beer. Big coffee flavor. Ill put it on gas tomorrow and pull a pint in a week. Looks like it will be another good beer!

I made this a while back. Without looking for notes I remember it tasting pretty good!

Transferring to keg tonight after 6 weeks in fermenter. Looking forward to drinking during the super bowl

Hi,
this looks great, can't wait to give it a try.

4 Things:

1. Anytime I try to brew a stout it tastes like liquorice (yuk). Are people doing water additions for this or will the roasted malts do the trick? Do these threads not have a search function, or am I blind?

2. As an aside, here is the (rounded) recipe in metric units if anyone wants them. The numbers are weird because I'm using Brewtarget 2.3.0 instead of Beersmith. If I bump the pale malt to 3.5KG (~7.7lb) it gets me close but the FG is still way too low. Anyways, I'll trust the recipe and just use Brewtarget to generate instruction sheets and stuff.

3. My shop only stocks 660SRM Roasted Barley. Given this recipe calls for 300 SRM, can I just use approx half the amount?

4. White wheat malt doesn't seem to be a thing in Europe. Would pale wheat malt do?

Deception Cream Stout - Sweet Stout (13B)
================================================================================
Batch Size 17.888 L
Boil Size 20.888 L
Boil Time 1.000 hr
Efficiency 75%
OG 1.054 sg
FG 1.011 sg
ABV 5.5%
Bitterness 36.4 IBU (Tinseth)
Color 37.6 srm (Morey)

Fermentables
================================================================================
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Briess - Pale Ale Malt Grain 3.000 kg Yes No 80% 3.5 srm
Briess - Wheat Malt, White Grain 700.000 g Yes No 85% 2.5 srm
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L Grain 450.000 g Yes No 74% 60.0 srm
Chocolate Malt (UK) Grain 350.000 g Yes No 73% 450.0 srm
Milk Sugar (Lactose) Sugar 225.000 g No Yes 50% 0.0 srm
Roasted Barley Grain 225.000 g Yes No 55% 300.0 srm
Total grain: 4.950 kg

Hops
================================================================================
Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Magnum 13.5% 22.000 g Boil 1.000 hr Pellet 36.4

Miscs
================================================================================
Name Type Use Amount Time
Yeast Nutrient Other Primary 2.464 mL 0.000 s

Yeasts
================================================================================
Name Type Form Amount Stage
Danstar - Nottingham Ale Dry 11.00 mL Primary

Mash
================================================================================
Name Type Amount Temp Target Time
Sacchrification Infusion 11.100 L 70.867 C 65.000 C 1 hr
Final Batch Sparge Infusion 16.273 L 82.392 C 75.000 C 15 min

White wheat is planted in the spring and it most used for pasta. Red wheat is planted in the winter and is mostly used for breads. Flavor-wise, they are pretty interchangeable. Most people can't tell a difference but some say that red is a little maltier so your substitution will be fine (if it even is a substitution).

Entered 4 beers in a local bjcp comp, this being one of them. For me, this was the best of the 4 but it scored the lowest at 29, 2 other beers placed. Common criticisms were that it was too dry for the style (finished 1.022), and not enough lactose sweetness (used 8oz). I was told if I had entered it in the dry irish stout category it would have done better.
I still think this is a fantastic beer but i will up the lactose next time and play with water chemistry a little more.

Wow I'm so excited to brew this one next weekend.
Can't find the Wyeast in New Zealand in stock. Is WLP013 a good replacement? http://www.thebrewhouse.co.nz/beer/wlp013-london-ale

Did anyone try a dry yeast? Danstar Windsor is listed as substitute?

boland said:

Did anyone try a dry yeast? Danstar Windsor is listed as substitute?

Click to expand...

I used US-05 with a full pound of lactose and it turned out great. If I went with the half pound recipe, I'd probably use Windsor or S-04.

boland said:

Did anyone try a dry yeast? Danstar Windsor is listed as substitute?

Click to expand...

Hi boland - I'm in NZ as well. I made the AG version of this with all Gladfield malts 18 months ago and it was fantastic. I used 2 packets of Mangrove Jacks M42 which worked well. It went from 1.059 down to 1.019 and tasted really clean. My notes say I threw a few late hops in (force of habit) which weren't a great idea, and once they aged out it was a much better beer.

About to make it again, basically exactly the same, why mess with success?

Hi @julianz thanks I've brewed it 2 weeks ago with the Denny's Favorite as per original recipe. It has reached 1.022 and is stable, so I'm cold crashing it now and will bottle soon.
It already tastes AWESOME! Usually I don't really like it pre-bottling, but this stuff is awesome Going to repitch the yeast this weekend in a Nugget SMASH

Not said too much, this is going to be a favorite! One week after bottling I couldn't resist Still too flat, but damn what a good beer.

Made a batch Sunday.Fermenting away.

I've been looking for a recipe for my first Stout. Thinking this may be it!

Brewed this as a 6 gallon all-grain batch just over two weeks ago.

I'm looking to split the batch and keep 3 gallons true to the recipe (except i increased the lactose to .75lb instead of .5) and then add:

• 2 vanilla beans (bourbon soaked, split and scraped)... or
• 4/5 ounces of "caramel" coffee beans (course crushed, drop muslin bag with bean in secondary)... or
• both the above...

I'm worried that the coffee beans (even being caramel flavored) will add too much coffee to the brew and be overpowering... but hoping the caramel comes through more than anything.

Maybe just 1 vanilla bean and 2 ounces??... struggling here, help!

What do you guys think?

akuhn0301 said:

Brewed this as a 6 gallon all-grain batch just over two weeks ago.

I'm looking to split the batch and keep 3 gallons true to the recipe (except i increased the lactose to .75lb instead of .5) and then add:

• 2 vanilla beans (bourbon soaked, split and scraped)... or
• 4/5 ounces of "caramel" coffee beans (course crushed, drop muslin bag with bean in secondary)... or
• both the above...

I'm worried that the coffee beans (even being caramel flavored) will add too much coffee to the brew and be overpowering... but hoping the caramel comes through more than anything.

Maybe just 1 vanilla bean and 2 ounces??... struggling here, help!

What do you guys think?

Click to expand...

Either/Or/Both sounds good. It is just a matter of personal taste. Personally, I don't think you can over-coffee a stout. I've had some punch-you-in-the-face coffee stouts and they were awesome, but I've also met a lot of beer lovers who disagree.