Advice on my stout recipe.

[eon]

Hey all, I came up with a stout recipe and would like to hear some opinions.

I'm pretty content with my grain bill, but would still like to hear opinions on that.

What I'm really wondering about is my coffee addition and addition of vanilla beans. Where is the best place to put these and how much? I'm also thinking about soaking some oak chips in bourbon and adding those to secondary too. What do you think?

Here is the recipe (Used Beer Calculus):


OG 1.057
FG 1.014

Color 38* SRM (BLACK)

38.5 IBU

5.7% ABV

3 gallon batch

3 gallon boil
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4 lbs. 8 oz. American two-row
7 oz. Caramel/Crystal 60L
5 oz. Roasted Barley
5 oz. Flaked oats
5 oz. chocolate Malt
3 oz. special B
3 oz. pale chocolate malt
2 oz. flaked barley
1 oz. black patent
2.4 oz. Intelligentsia coffee beans from Finca La Soledad, Itzamna Guatemala (cold brewed and added at bottling time.)
1 1/2 vanilla beans split open and emptied into secondary fermenter

0.5 oz. chinook @ 60 minutes

wyeast 1028

###Here is a description of the coffee I am using: Brown sugar, mango and fudge cool and expand into dried pineapple and honeyed notes. The mouthfeel is creamy yet buoyant with a clean, concise finish.###

 

[944play]

You have 9 items on your grainbill and two powerful flavorants. That's a lot of stuff going on, and I think you may find it hard to pin down which ingredients you need to tweak when you re-brew to refine. I'd leave out the Special B, Pale Chocolate, flaked barley, Patent, and vanilla for a first go.

 

[eon]

Hey, Thanks for the info. I sort of tweak the idea of this grain bill from a Three Floyd's Dark Lord recipe. If you are not familiar, Dark Lord is a HUGE 13% + Russian Imperial stout. I love the flavor and aroma of that beer, but did not want to brew something that big. What do you think? Could it work?

Do you think that is too much coffee for 3 gallons beer? Also, is it ok to add the coffee to the bottling bucket or should I just put whole coffee beans into secondary and rack the beer on top of that?

I'm totally fine with omitting the oak cubes and vanilla bean if that complicates things.

 

[eon]

Bueller, Bueller, Bueller...