Birthday Cake Ale Recipe Question

[thebrewski]

I am new to all grain brewing and was wondering if anyone could give me advise on my amounts and when to add the extras... I am trying to brew a beer that I sampled on a brewing tour that was called birthday cake ale which had honey, blood orange, coconut, and vanilla in it. I am planning on using:

9 lbs Rahr 2-row American Malt
2 lbs flaked oats
1 lb Briess Carapils Malt
0.5 lb lactose
2 lbs Minnesota Clover Honey
1 oz sweet orange peel
4 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
1 lb shredded coconut
1 oz US Liberty Hops
1 oz US Cascade Hops
Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast

The biggest question I have is if I need to place the orange peel and shredded coconut in a muslin bag to confine them. Or will they settle out prior to bottling... Don't want pieces of coconut and orange peel in my beer.

Also is the 0.5 lb of lactose a good idea to add a small amount of sweetness to the beer.

I plan on adding the hops and extras in the last 5 minutes of boil.

Thanks for any suggestions. :cheers:

 

[yellowthere]

First off I can't answer any of those questions. I'm sorry, I'm not nearly as adventurous as you are. Did you get the recipe basics during the tour, or are you adding the same ingredients and estimating?

More power to you, but with those ingredients together that could go bad pretty quickly.

The only advice I have for you is that You may want to some of the unusual ingredients through a tincture in secondary or keg. That way you can at least adjust it to taste.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[insanim8er]

I see nothing wrong with adding the lactose. You'll get a little bit of sweetness and body from it. Your grain bill looks like a 5 gal recipe. I generally add 1 lb of lactose to a 5 gal recipe (when doing a milk stout) I don't find it overly sweet, but the roastyness does add to the bitterness. So .5 may be good. You might have to experiment with this a bit. Add the lactose at the last 10/15min of the boil and you should be good.

The vanilla extract you can add whenever, at the end of the boil, in the fermenter or during bottling/kegging.

Yes the coconut and orange will settle out. I haven't worked with coconut, but I've had beers brewed with it. Very subtle if any flavor. Granted they were dark beers (like maui's coconut porter) so the flavor could shine through with a lighter beer. Did you ask if they used any type of flavoring extracts?

I did an Orange cream stout using vanilla and orange, but I made my own extracts and added at kegging. I find it easier to control the flavor and it keeps the flavors from going through the fermentation process that could alter their flavor profile.