agh. murphys law and strange [sample] taste

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Agh. Brewed my lactose free sweet stout..well.. an approximation since I lost my original recipe when my HD died last year.

12 days old and I tasted a sample out of the fermentor. Smells a bit burnt (though my dad says shoe leather) and tastes a bit like black malt (i didn't use any black malt!)

Aggggh. Didn't taste/smell burnt post sparge. This could be some overly ground Chocolate RYE malt I used. Don't ask, but I ended up with about a 100g (out fo 200g) ground like coffee, in the mash.

Not sweet either, though that could have been the recipe. Maybe some molassas added would help? Can't find lactose around here.

Supposed to bring some of this when it's ready to a guy who has a 6 BBL system in his garage!

Oh, so thats why the funny taste.. Murphy's law kicking in.

Mash was 154F. 10 Gallon batch

Amount Item Type % or IBU
7.00 kg Stout Malt (2.0 SRM) Grain 62.5 %
1.50 kg Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 13.4 %
0.50 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 4.5 %
0.50 kg Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.5 %
0.50 kg Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 4.5 %
0.50 kg Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 4.5 %
0.50 kg Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4.5 %
0.20 kg Chocolate Rye Malt (250.0 SRM) Grain 1.8 %
65.00 gm Northern Brewer [8.50%] (60 min) Hops 34.1 IBU
30.00 gm Williamette [5.50%] (15 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
2.11 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
180.00 gm Cocoa Powder (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale

Thoughts?

 

[boo boo]

I get a taste of RB and I think black malt. Don't know what the rye contributed to the taste, but I imagine it helped.

Let it mellow out. It's still fresh and not carb'd.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Yeah. It's the roast barley I think. Usually I make a sweet stout and don't use this much RB, but all the recipes I see seem to call for this much or more.

How long does it take for the roast barley to mellow out?

One thing I don't get though is how dry (not sweet) this tastes. The Sweet stout I lost the recipe for used rye, oats and all the other ingredients as well. I masshed at 154 and seem to have a fg of 1021.

I should have used more crystal malt, I guess. Damn I hate tring to remember lost recipes. Damn computers!

 

[boo boo]

You'll always get the roasty taste. I have had that taste in all my stouts and blamed it on the black patent, even though I only use a minimul amount. My last stout only had the RB and I still have the roast taste.
Now I know what I want from my stouts I can adjust to get it.

It takes a while to drink all the yummy mistakes we make, but it do mellow out in a few months. At least you bittered more than I did. That is going to change.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Hmm. yeah, it's the roast aroma thats the most pver powering. Might some cyrstal malt, heat up to 170f and add to the carboy for more sweetness/aroma.

Next time will bump up the crystal and lower the roast barley, nix the choco rye malt and perhaps bump up the choco malt.

Since I can;lt find ANY lactose aorund here (who the hell sells that stuff usually?) I might add some stevia.

 

[boo boo]

Since I can;lt find ANY lactose aorund here (who the hell sells that stuff usually?) quote]

Have you tried here ?http://www.paddockwood.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=lactose&x=6&y=8

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

yeah. might order some from them. Was hoping to be able to get it locally though. Not sure where else you can get it wothout mail ordering it.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

What I don't get, is why the roast is so strong. Using the above recipe with a 70% effciency (grinder gap needed to be reset a bit tighter), I should not have gotten such an over powering roast taste/aroma.

 

[jager]

whats the recommended amount of cocoa powder?



The rye malt didn't do anything. By grinding it up all you did was get better extraction of colour out of it, your not going to get off flavors from it.


I wouldn't add any molasses to it. Its going to ferment out and muddy up the flavor, IMO.



I'd just keg it and put it in the back of the frig for a couple months.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

well what I did is kegged about 3.5 gallons of it the next day, filtered it and (a week later) added some dark crystal runnings to it.

Took a sample of the original last night (still in carboy) and compared. Seems the original has now lost a fair bit of that OP roastyness. So I'll give it another week and keg that. Maybe bottle a bit of it two since there should be about 7 gallons of it and that wonlt all fit in a keg.

I tried filtering the stout as an experiment in how a polishing filter would effect the raost flavors. Didn't do all that much.

I am a little suprised that the beer left in the carboy is less roasty than the kegged beer (before adding the crystal). I fully understand green beer etc etc., but I would have thought that cold conditioning 12 day old beer for a week would reduce that more than beer left for another week in the primary.