First post, thought I'd share one of my early recipes. I've only been brewing since January and this is my sixth batch so go easy on me! It was originally supposed to be a clone of Southern Tier's Crème brûlée "imperial stout" but I just read a bunch of other clones and made something up. My goal was to make a dessert beer to be served almost like a Pedro Ximenez sherry, in very small quantities, and I achieved it.
I call it Vanilla Sun and it's something along the lines of an imperial oatmeal milk stout with vanilla and cardamom. I don't really consider it a normal stout since it's mainly just base malt and crystal, but Southern Tier calls it an imperial stout so I've gone with that.
I only brewed a 1-gallon batch of it so I am scaling up the recipe to 5 gallons/19 L as I imagine that's what most people brew? Hopefully I have done this correctly, going from 1 UK gallon in metric to 5 US gallons in imperial, assuming 72% efficiency. Let me know if anything is obviously wrong. It's a pretty OTT beer
12 lbs 7 oz Maris Otter
3 lbs 3 oz Crystal 150L
1 lb flaked oats
5 oz chocolate malt
1 lb 2 oz lactose, 10 min
2.4 oz Columbus 60 min
2.4 oz Bobek 30 min
Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale yeast
4 vanilla beans, dipped in vodka, split lengthwise, five days in secondary
2 fl oz of homemade vanilla extract (basically 22 vanilla beans aged in 750 ml vodka) five days in secondary
12 cardamom seeds, whole, 1 day in secondary
Primed with burnt muscovado (strong unrefined brown sugar). Cook it without water until it turns to dark thick syrup but doesn't quite smoke, then add water to get it into a thinner solution you can bottle with
OG ~1.098
Mashed 60 min at 152 F, mashed out over 10 minutes at 168 F
My OG was 1.096 and FG was fairly high, 1.023, I was shooting for 10% but this is supposed to be a dessert beer so I thought this was acceptable (8.4%). It came out dark brown with a thick brown head. I remember the ST beer being completely black, so I might consider some black patent next time.
I carbed to 2 volumes; debated this as I thought maybe the smoothness would be more desserty, but actually the foam is amazing, bit like a root beer float, if you let it warm up slightly from the fridge before serving. So don't be afraid to carb it. When putting it into the primary I thought I had way overdone it on the hops (96.5 IBUs is high even for an Imperial stout) but actually the malt and the vanilla totally overpower the bitterness.
Overall a good experiment, if I did it again I would consider using a different yeast that's perhaps a bit more attenuative and tolerant of higher ABV. But overall I think it came out well and it's gotten good feedback from friends, even people who are not normally beer drinkers, as a dessert beer. It's really sweet as should be obvious from the recipe, not for everyone but I like it.
I call it Vanilla Sun and it's something along the lines of an imperial oatmeal milk stout with vanilla and cardamom. I don't really consider it a normal stout since it's mainly just base malt and crystal, but Southern Tier calls it an imperial stout so I've gone with that.
I only brewed a 1-gallon batch of it so I am scaling up the recipe to 5 gallons/19 L as I imagine that's what most people brew? Hopefully I have done this correctly, going from 1 UK gallon in metric to 5 US gallons in imperial, assuming 72% efficiency. Let me know if anything is obviously wrong. It's a pretty OTT beer
12 lbs 7 oz Maris Otter
3 lbs 3 oz Crystal 150L
1 lb flaked oats
5 oz chocolate malt
1 lb 2 oz lactose, 10 min
2.4 oz Columbus 60 min
2.4 oz Bobek 30 min
Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale yeast
4 vanilla beans, dipped in vodka, split lengthwise, five days in secondary
2 fl oz of homemade vanilla extract (basically 22 vanilla beans aged in 750 ml vodka) five days in secondary
12 cardamom seeds, whole, 1 day in secondary
Primed with burnt muscovado (strong unrefined brown sugar). Cook it without water until it turns to dark thick syrup but doesn't quite smoke, then add water to get it into a thinner solution you can bottle with
OG ~1.098
Mashed 60 min at 152 F, mashed out over 10 minutes at 168 F
My OG was 1.096 and FG was fairly high, 1.023, I was shooting for 10% but this is supposed to be a dessert beer so I thought this was acceptable (8.4%). It came out dark brown with a thick brown head. I remember the ST beer being completely black, so I might consider some black patent next time.
I carbed to 2 volumes; debated this as I thought maybe the smoothness would be more desserty, but actually the foam is amazing, bit like a root beer float, if you let it warm up slightly from the fridge before serving. So don't be afraid to carb it. When putting it into the primary I thought I had way overdone it on the hops (96.5 IBUs is high even for an Imperial stout) but actually the malt and the vanilla totally overpower the bitterness.
Overall a good experiment, if I did it again I would consider using a different yeast that's perhaps a bit more attenuative and tolerant of higher ABV. But overall I think it came out well and it's gotten good feedback from friends, even people who are not normally beer drinkers, as a dessert beer. It's really sweet as should be obvious from the recipe, not for everyone but I like it.
