Sierra Nevada Coffee Stout Clone

[rahmdog]

Okay so this is our first clone attempt and it was a little intimidating until we realized the end result will be beer that tastes good.

What we came up with is based on the grain, hops, and gravity/abv info from S.N.. This is our first stout as well, but we were too impatient to brew a baseline. We looked over some sweet stout/milk stout recipes and tried to use that as another guide.

Here is what we came up with: (We can only do extract+grains so far)

LME: 8lbs (64%)
American Dark Chocolate Malt (350) 1Lb (8%)
German Chocolate Wheat (~300) 1Lb (8%)
Crystal (80) 0.75Lb (6%)
UK Brown Malt (40) .75Lb (6%)
Lactose 1Lb (8%)

Hops:

Nuggett: 1oz 60 min
Nuggett: 0.5oz 10 min

Yeast:

WLP001



That gives the following stats:

OG (7.5 gal boil): 1.073 (17.8P)
FG (5.5 gal): 1.024 (6.0P)
ABV: 6.47%
IBU: 55.3
SRM: 40

S.N. Stats:
15.3-4.9P
6.2% abv
IBU 53

We were thinking to brew it a little bigger so there would not be much trouble with the dilution when we add the coffee at the end. The plan is to cold-brew about 3 liters of coffee, filter it, bring it to a boil, let it chill, and add it to the bottling bucket with the priming sugar.

Let us know what you think!

 

[Robotcrab]

That looks like a lot of lactose? I made something similar recently, but kept it too 5.5% alc. I only used two espresso in a twenty liter batch, which I dumped in the primary and it added more than enough flavour for my liking, but will see am laying it down for a month...


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[Sailingeric]

I did a coffee stout and used about a quarter cup of Trader Joe's coffee concentrate to a 5 gallon batch. Very yummy

 

[Calder]

Drop the lactose, it will be sweet enough as it is. The lactose may make it too sweet to enjoy.

Instead of adding brewed coffee, try adding 2 ozs of whole (not crushed) coffee beans to the beer 7 days before bottling. I think you will be amazed at how well it works. Keeping the beans whole makes racking easier. I've not found an issue not sanitizing the beans if they come out of a fresh bag.

 

[rahmdog]

Thanks for the suggestions, brewed fairly similar to the recipe I listed above. Sierra listed that they used lactose in their beer, and that they added cold brewed coffee, but that could mean they brewed the coffee in their cold fermenters. We shall see how it comes out!

Also, my ambient temperature in the apartment is 60 and has been for a few weeks. I had become accustomed to adjusting the brew temp by having my bucket in a cooler filled with water and adding ice bottles. I am not sure how to adjust now that it is cold. 60 will be too cold for wlp001? I thought I heard that SN brews pretty darn cold...

 

[bsad11]

I am also brewing a SN stout clone. the recipe is as follows:

yield: 3 gallons to fermentor
OG:1.064
FG: ~1.019 (using Wyeast 1056 attenuation %)
IBU:53.95
SRM: 35.66

Fermentables:
3.3 lb LME-light
1 lb DME-light
5oz maltodextrin (technically a non-fermentable sugar for yeast, adds mouthfeel and body)

steeping grains:
6 oz american carmel/crystal 60L
4.2 oz American roasted barley
3.6 oz american dark chocolate
3 oz american black malt

hops:
.52 oz magnum pellet AA:12.6 45 min
.36 oz east kent goldings pellet AA:5.7 15 min
.36 oz fuggles pellet AA:4.5 15 min
.15 oz east kent goldings pellet AA:5.7 5 min
.15 oz fuggles pellet AA:4.5 5 min

Fermentation schedule:
.25 gallon starter @1.040 OG, pitch at 70F, cool to 67F for 24 hours, move to room temp(72F) for remainder. fully ferment and decant liquid leaving enough to swirl into slurry. pitched into wort that was cooled to 67F.
Ferment at 67F for five days then gradually increase temperature to 69-70 over the course of the next 3-5 days. let condition for two weeks after final FG and then bottle to 2.5 volumes CO2.

Force fermentation test is nearing completion, will get back to on final read out.

 

[Robotcrab]

bsad11 I get the feeling HB is fairly serious business to you?


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[bsad11]

robotcrab,

sorry if I came off brash! no HB is something fun and obviously that I enjoy to do. I'd like to think we all do If you are referring to temperature schedule and brewing techniques, I would use the word consistent not serious. The more variables you can control with precision and accuracy, the more consistent beer you will have.

 

[rahmdog]

bsad11- thanks for sharing, being meticulous and precise is only going to result in better beer now and over time. I am the same way, I obsess over every detail of the recipe and process, always looking for ways to improve, and there is plenty of room for that! I will be bottling in the next few days so I will give a full update then. So far the beer came in at 1.073 versus calculated of 1.071, and after one week is down to 1.035, looking for 1.023ish. Will most likely split the bottling into coffee added and non coffee added batches because the favors are really there already.

 

[bsad11]

I'll be very interested to hear how to coffee/non-coffee comparison goes. Like you said your going to be flavor packed already. Do you believe the coffee flavors are coming from the dark chocolate malt, or were you referring to the overall taste of the beer? Since you don't have any roasted barley I would bet your batch with the added coffee will have a dramatically different flavor profile.

your FG, are you calculating based on the average yeast attenuation for WLP001? I've only used it twice, but both times climbing into low %80s for IPAs. I hope your heavy dose of lactose will keep the yeast from chomping your FG down too low.

My force fermentation test finished just the other day at 1.016, was aiming for 1.019. Due to shaking and swirling to incubate the fermentation, the "beer" was obviously somewhat oxidized. I decided to taste some of the sample and felt the beer was more of a heavy brown ale, versus a stout type thickness/consistency. Maybe this was due to the shaking so I'll have the final verdict when the main fermentation completes. Maybe add more dextrin on the next brew...

Some added literature if your into making/replicating recipes.
http://www.brewersassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014_BA_Beer_Style_Guidelines_FINAL.pdf

I use this document to start with a baseline for whatever style I'm making. Then once I have a good product I'll start making smaller changes in the recipe.

Don't forget to pray to the beer gods to keep infection away!