Adjusting my Milk Stout

I'm working on a milk stout after the first taste (moving it to a secondary to sit for a few more weeks) I noticed that it has a distinct coffee taste. I didn't use much Roasted barley and chocolate.. They were each .75lbs, in a 11lb total grain batch.

Is there anything I can do with the stout sitting in the secondary that will calm the coffee taste down. It has a great texture and I love everything else about it..

all you can do at this point is age it and hope the taste dies down.

0.75 lb of roasted barley in an 11 lb batch will DEFINITELY give you a strong coffee flavor. Your grain bill is 6.8% roasted barley, and usually people use less than 5% when they specifically want a coffee flavor. Roasted barley is very strong, so if you want it to be more subtle, you should try around 2%.

I think milk or sweet stouts are about balance between four flavors: roast-y (or coffee), sweet, bitter and malt. Getting these in balance so that they satisfy your tastes is the challenge.

I brewed an Espresso Porter last year. When I first began drinking it, the coffee flavor was very distinct. After a few weeks the coffee taste had softened considerably. I think time will just keep improving your beer. Enjoy!

NRS

rocketman768 said:

0.75 lb of roasted barley in an 11 lb batch will DEFINITELY give you a strong coffee flavor. Your grain bill is 6.8% roasted barley, and usually people use less than 5% when they specifically want a coffee flavor. Roasted barley is very strong, so if you want it to be more subtle, you should try around 2%.

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I respectfully disagree. A stout with 2% roasted barley isn't a stout, it's an amber ale. Stouts are usually dark brown to jet black, and that's going to require roasted barley in excess of 5%. I did a dry Irish stout for St. Pat's this year (for example) with 10% roasted barley. It was coffee-ish, but that's the definitive flavor of stout ale, and it was certainly not excessive. The OP should let it mellow for a bit in the bottle/keg and I'm sure he'll be very happy with the results. A good stout always tastes better after a good month of flavor-melding.

Here's the cream stout recipe that I've settled on, it uses 0.75 lbs roasted barley http://www.singingboysbrewing.com/sweet-stout.html

7.00 lb Munich Malt
2.00 lb Wheat Malt
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
0.75 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
0.50 oz Pacific Gem [15.00 %] (60 min)
1.00 lb Milk Sugar (Lactose)
Edinburgh Yeast

Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Final Gravity: 1.020
Alcohol by Vol: 3.9%
Bitterness: 34.4 IBU
Calories: 227 calories/pint
Color: 36.7 SRM
Mashed at 154 degrees, single infusion, batch sparge

Well it was kind of a false alarm. After I transfered to the secondary to add my vanilla soaked oak chips i noticed the taste was much better.

I must have had a layer of flavors in the primary. After the siphon mixed everything it was great. I guess I've never had the problem of the layer effect before.