Sounds good. I am going to continue searching around for recipes before I commit to a brew day. I think stout recipes are pretty forgiving given the rich flavor, especially with imperials, so maybe I am overthinking it.
. I add a small amount (1 TBS) of Apex Toasted Coconut extract to the keg prior to racking. I've brewed it twice now with the coconut extract and once without. Turns out quite good either way. I also get that Mounds Bar taste that @Hoochin'Fool mentioned when using the Toasted Coconut flavoring.
To be honest, all I am looking for is the flavor and not the imperial ABV. I prefer lower ABV beers personally and make session beers pretty much exclusively -- when I hand out beers to buddies at work they ask "whats the ABV?" and I respond with 5.5 and they seem a little disappointed.I brew the Left Hand Milk Stout clone found here on HBT. I brew it a little stronger (~6.5% rather than the 5.25% the original shoots for, and 4-6% BJCP calls for), so it moves it to a "slightly" Imperial version of a Sweet Stout
I went back and looked at my BS3 file. Funny, I did increase the quantities a bit, including strike water, as I usually do, but actually followed the percentages pretty close with a couple differences. I used a slightly lesser percentage of flaked grains just because I was using what I had on hand of those. I also added 1 lb of GNO, to see what they bring to the finished beer. When I input the recipe Beersmith estimated mine coming in at 6.4%, 1.068/1.020, which I hit exactly dead on. The OP's recipe stated 1.062/1.022 which is around 5.25%, hence the difference. I ended up racking a full keg plus two 22 oz. bottles. I also used two pkgs of US-05 since I had quite a few and they were already a couple years old.
I've been on the site for a while, but was on a hiatus for a good portion of that time.
Sounds really good, it's a great recipe as is or to tweak. I think most any brewing software will allow you to set the desired abv and it will re-calculate the grain amounts to reach that abv.
Looks good. The only thing I personally would change is to up the ibu's a bit. The stronger beer can support a little higher ibu's to keep it from tasting too sweet. My most recent batch (6.4% abv), I upped it to 27 ibu's. At 9+% I would go to 32-35 ibu's to keep it from tasting like a dessert beer. Just a personal preference though.
I think what I am after is a dessert stout. I am not sure that a chocolate/coconut inspired beer would be good with bitterness, but I could be wrong.
I always keep my grains in separate bags for the off chance I decide to change something last minute. I wonder if I should just use a higher proportion of 2row and increase the amount of dark malts by a lesser amount, and mash all the full duration.
You can certainly do that. It'll be a little different beer obviously, but will probably still make a good beer, The result will also be a beer slightly lighter in color, and a little less roasty. Enough to make a difference compared to the original recipe? You won't know that if you've never brewed the original recipe as written. Remember, the more tweaks you make the further you get from what the actual recipe is supposed to taste like. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a different thing.
That's exactly what I do, too if I can. Except that I'm not going to order a sack of Crisp's maris otter if I've already got a sack of Muntons.
