Campfire Stout Cl...Oh.

[NoIguanaForZ]

So, I'm planning on doing some camping this summer, and I was searching for a clone recipe for High Water Brewing's Campfire Stout a few weeks ago. I found this, which was the most complete all-grain recipe that came up in my initial search results, and decided it sounded good (though it looked like it'd come out a bit higher OG than High Water's original, I didn't worry about that too much). I replaced the Black Patent, which my LHBS doesn't carry, with Carafa III (I believe the debittered), and the Columbus hops with 0.88oz of Apollo I have left over from a <1 gallon test batch of an all-original imperial stout recipe. I now have the grain, already milled, and mixed in an airtight container this morning. I had been hoping to be brewing it today, after having brewed (the stout I'm now mashing and brewing today) yesterday, but I had plans Saturday night and have a couple interviews next week and figured I should probably actually sleep this weekend. I also wound up needing another .18oz of the Apollo hops for that stout.

There is a slight problem with that recipe, in that while it estimates 5.7% ABV (based on the grain, I assume), the batch size, and probably an efficiency in the 70s somewhere, which is a bit low for my process....well, it turns out that if you enter my modified recipe into Beersmith, reduce the batch size to 5.50gal to fit my fermenter, and then add in the sucrose equivalent of the marshmallows and graham crackers (assuming 100% extraction of simple sugars and 80% of starches in the mashed crackers...sound reasonable?), that adds the equivalent of 2.1 lbs of table sugar to the recipe and it clocks in at 10.5% ABV. Which...isn't a terrible thing really, but 0.70oz Apollo isn't gonna cut it for flavor balance.

Since I can't really go back and edit the grain bill, having mixed the grains and all, I decided to, rather than trying to make a clone per se, take it and run with it as an imperial stout. Working title: "Bonfire Imperial Stout." Because it's bigger than a Campfire, you see...

I'm thinking I want to add a bit of smoke character, mostly as a background note, and a hint of pine/woody character, definitely as a background note, to the recipe. I want style-appropriate bitterness levels, but not a lot of bitterness. I'm thinking as follows:

Bonfire Imperial Stout
All grain
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Yeast: 2 packs S-04 for main fermentation, 1 pack CBC-1 to finish (if needed) and carb
Est IBUs: 55
Est OG: 1.101

Grain Bill:
-12lb Pale 2-Row
-1.5lb Brown Malt
-8oz Carafa III Special
-8oz Crystal 120L
-8oz Chocolate Malt (US, 350L)
-1lb Rauch malt
(Items in italics are already mixed in and not changeable)

Hops:
-1.5oz Chinook at 45min
-0.25oz Chinook at 20min
-0.25oz Chinook at Flameout

Other:
-16oz unsweetened cocoa powder at 15min
-Irish moss at 15min
-2.1lb Sucrose equivalent in mashed graham crackers (2x 14.4oz package) and marshmallow (26oz - because they come in 10oz, and 16oz, packages) boil additions

Does this recipe sound like it'll achieve my stated goals?

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

I guess most immediately I'm wondering if there are any suggestions for hop alternatives to Chinook (Simcoe maybe? It's described as "fruity" though, which I think would be distracting), and if 1lb of smoked malt is the right amount or if I'd likely want something more like 1.5lb.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Went for it. Racked to secondary a few days ago to have the bucket ready for another beer. Plastic fermenter (glass ones are all occupied) had a notably piney residual scent, so I'm hoping it'll come out well. I was too busy that day to re-clean my hydrometer testing stuff, but I should, in fact, take a sample this evening. Wound up with a lot of gunk on the bottom of the fermenter, like twice as much as a usual beer. Some of that, I'm sure, was the cocoa.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for keeping us updated on what you have done. I just have no words of advice at all, as I never made a beer with those ingredients.
It may be the best beer you've ever made, and it probably may be the most unusual as well! It never occurred to me to put marshmallows in wort.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

So, this is promising but the recipe needs tweaking. I'm mostly getting chocolatey, roasted grains, and a sort of sour-astringent flavor, with some hints of toasty and creamy, but other people have commented on being able to taste the marshmallows, etc. Pineyness isn't coming through, really, at all.

Anyone have any idea where the sour-astringent flavor might be coming from? Is that just brown malt needing more time to mellow, or what? S04, maybe? It seems like it'd be early for a souring infection to be showing up...