New Orleans Café au Lait Stout

[shawnbou]

My wife and I got the idea to make a coffee stout with New Orleans coffee and chicory. I decided to up the ante by adding lactose and making it a "café au lait" stout.

I appreciate feedback on the recipe. I guess if I had to pick a BJCP style, it's more of a Foreign Extra Stout than anything, but I'm not really going for a style so much as I am going for flavor. I would like thoughts on how you guys think this might turn out.

Before anyone says I'm crazy to use Saaz and Warrior in a stout, hear me out. I really want to try some noble hops to bring some earthy notes to the beer. I think that will work really well with the earthy flavor of the coffee and roasted barley ... and I have the Saaz on hand, figured why not. As for the Warrior, that's just been in my freezer a while and I want to get use it up in something where I won't taste it too much.

Thanks!

------------------

Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
Est OG: 1.066
Est FG: 1.015
Est ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 32

10.00 lb 2-Row (74.07%)
2.00 lb Coffee Malt (14.81%)
1.00 lb Roasted Barley (7.41%)

0.50 lb Lactose in boil

0.50 oz Warrior 15.0% AA @ 60 min
1.50 oz Saaz 4.0% AA @ 15 min

16 fl oz Cold-Brewed Coffee & Chicory in secondary (or keg)

Mash: single infusion, 60 minutes @ 152°F. Calcium chloride added to liquor. Batch sparge.
Boil: 60 minutes. 1 tsp Irish Moss in boil.
Yeast: S-04

 

[Copbrew133]

Intersting, just had a biere de cafe from a local brewpub last night and started thinking about a coffe stout to do next time around. I like the idea of the lactose. While i don't know about the hop selection i am intersted to see how this comes out for you. Keep us updated and good luck.

 

[SouthBay]

Sounds good. I think some pale chocolate malt has a place in there somewhere, too.

 

[1Mainebrew]

I think you should save the Saaz. Just the warrior at 60 should be good. Don't try to have too many things take center stage... it will taste muddied (not litterally, just not as easy to distinguish each special character in the beer that you are trying to incorporate). Just let the cafe au lait idea take center stage. Thats what I would do personally, but have at it and give updates.

 

[shawnbou]

Thanks. Maybe if I drop the Saaz and add the Chocolate Malt I'll get complexity in the right places (i.e., malt/sweet).

I appreciate the feedback. I'll report back when I settle on a final recipe and get this thing brewed. Thanks!

 

[BBFCreatureFM]

Subscribed. Geaux Saints.

 

[Copbrew133]

When is this getting brewed? Looking forward to how she comes out.

 

[1Mainebrew]

I vote for "Starbucks Stout"

 

[mmurray]

Also remember the Coffee, especially with chicory, has an inherent bitterness to it, so scaling back the hops is fine and you'll still have that bitter/sweet balance there.

I did a Starbucks porter using their caramel coffee,

and it came out great! The biggest thing was to cold press the coffee so that it's not overly bitter and what you end up with is more of a coffee extract!
I took the entire pound of coffee and put it in a container just large enough that the coffee filled it about 80% and then filled with cold water until it was full (have to fill, let absorb, fill, etc. to get a complete fill) Then I put it in my refrigerator for 3 days. Finally, I double strained it through a fine strainer into a coffee filter which then flowed into a cup. I ended up with 12oz. of thick coffee extract!

 

[Beer-lord]

Subscribed. Geaux Saints.

+1 (yep, I'm a homer)

Though I live in N.O.I rarely even drink coffee with chickory but it has always made me wonder what could be. Please update this thread if you are successful.
What about Kent Goldings? Just thinking about a small amount to possibly make it a tad bit dry.

 

[shawnbou]

Thanks, everyone. After doing some more work on this recipe, I've decided to cut the late hop addition entirely and use some fresh Nugget hops instead of the Warrior I've got on hand. I'm looking forward to this beer way too much to use old hops.

The grain bill is still a work in progress. I'm thinking about cutting each of the malts a little bit to make room for some Chocolate Malt and Crystal 90, and some more lactose. I'm gonna get some advice on the grain bill from the guys at AHS tomorrow when I go to get the grain. I am brewing this tomorrow, so will post an update ASAP.

P.S. Beer-lord I live in Austin now, but I'm a Metairie native. East Jefferson High School '93, baby. Go Warriors and Geaux Saints (and a shout out to the Loyola Wolf Pack)!

 

[rhamilton]

Please post the final product. I'm also a cajun transplant in Austin ( so is Swmbo) and a Cafe Au Lait stout and beignets sounds amazing!

 

[peaktopview]

i brew a left hand milk stout clone (the all-grain recipe here) and add cold brewed coffee at kegging (also add the lactose then so my gravity readings make a little more sense to me). i found that i prefer to cut back on the lactose about 25%, but that is just me. the recipe is a solid milk stout and could give you some ideas of where to head. i think i add about a pint of the coffee for 5 gallons (like mine pretty strong). might start with a cup and taste, then add more as needed. the coffee will also fade a touch as the beer ages.
b

 

[shawnbou]

Okay, I brewed this on Saturday. Here's the grain bill I settled on after talking to a guy at AHS:
- 9 lb 2-row
- 1.5 lb Coffee Malt
- .75 lb Roasted Barley
- .5 lb Crystal 90

I mashed at 152 for 60 minutes. In the boil I added:
- .75 oz Nugget @ 60 min
- 1 lb Lactose @ 20 min

No late hop additions. I pitched 14g of rehydrated S-04. OG was 1.064. There's very little hop bitterness, so I think there will be some room for the coffee & chicory to provide additional bitterness when I add that later after fermentation. Even without the coffee, between the roasted barley and the coffee malt, the kettle smelled like a Starbucks. I'm feeling good about this.

Will post more as it develops. Thanks everyone for feedback.

 

[1Mainebrew]

S-04 is super estery if fermented too warm. Try fermenting no higher than 60

 

[shawnbou]

Update ...

I took the first gravity reading on this beer yesterday with kraeusen falling, and it was 1.024. That's at the upper limit of the style for milk stouts, so I'll be happy if it finishes there. 5.1% ABV (by my calc) is fine for me, but please note if you want to get more alcohol out of this recipe, adjust the OG accordingly because it will have a lot of sugar in it at the end.

I'm planning to add the coffee & chicory at kegging. I did mix a little tiny bit of brewed coffee into the hydrometer sample and taste it. It's fantastic. I assume that any effect the coffee may have on the FG will be negligible, but that the added astringency should give the impression of balancing this beer out.

In another interesting note, a homebrew blogger in Canada read my post on my blog about this beer, and came up with the idea of adding some Cajun seasoning to this recipe in the future. I may try that on a future batch.

 

[1Mainebrew]

Updates?

 

[shawnbou]

I kegged on Monday. The FG of the beer before adding the brewed coffee was 1.020.

We cold brewed the coffee at a recipe of 9 cups of water to 1 lb coffee grounds (which yielded about 32-40 oz of brewed coffee) steeped overnight. I had originally planned to use about 24-32 oz of cold brewed coffee in the 5-gallon batch, but as we were doing tastings we decided 32 oz (a ratio of 1 part coffee to 20 parts stout) just didn't give us the kind of coffee flavor we wanted. We wanted café au lait in a pint glass!

So we ended up settling on 64 oz of brewed coffee. Mind you, that's coffee & chicory, which is smoother and lighter in flavor than traditional coffee and much lighter than anything you'll get at Starbucks. And it's cold brewed, so it is surprisingly not astringent at all. I just left the decision to my tastebuds, and they didn't steer me wrong. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

For anyone who wants to try this themselves, I would say to start with 32 oz of brewed coffee (using the method I used). You can always add more, but you can't take it out if you put too much.