avoiding coffee flavors in a stout

[Black Island Brewer]

Looking for your suggestions. In your experience, when brewing a stout, what grains seem to add the most coffee flavors and aromas? Spouse loves stouts of the English/Irish variety with no discernable or very muted coffee notes. Murphy's, Beemish, Guiness are ok in her book.

 

[Bob]

Those are all pretty similar Dry Irish Stouts.

Dry Irish Stout is dead simple if you're an all-grain brewer: 70/20/10% pale malt/flaked barley/roasted barley. Use any old 2-row pale malt, but ensure you use a good UK roasted barley, like Simpsons. Shoot for an OG ~1.040. Mash low and slow to ensure low attenuation and avoid excessive body from the flaked barley.

Bitter to ~40 IBU, and use NO flavor/aroma addition.

Ferment with a clean, well-attenuating ale yeast. Nottingham has given me excellent results in the past. Do not use any yeast called "Irish Ale". It is okay for Irish Reds, but is too under-attenuating for Dry Irish Stout.

Keep it simple. If she likes those examples, brew those examples! You'll be glad you did.



Bob

 

[stevedasleeve]

IMHO it's crystal malt that is the culprit. I too dislike coffee stouts. Here is my best stout recipe FWIW:

12 lbs MO
2 lbs flaked barley
12 oz roasted unmalted barley
8 oz malted wheat
4 oz carafa special
4 oz oat malt

1 oz Columbus 60 mins
1 oz Columbus 30 mins
2 oz Chinook 0 mins
1 oz Columbus 0 mins

I mash at 149, and add cane sugar (1Lb) to dry it out. 1.065, 80 IBUs.

I also put whole cone Columbus hops in the keg.

Aged 1 month it's perfect! If you want it a bit darker sub chocolate wheat for the wheat. If you want more body, sub more base malt for cane sugar and mash a bit higher. If you want less hop flavor pick another recipe.

Cheers!
Steve da sleeve

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Thanks, guys! Appreciate your time and input! It gives me a good direction to go. I'm thinking I'll go for the simpler recipe and then tweak it over time if I need to. I'm thinking fuggles, and I'll see if I can get the british roasted barley & flaked barley. WLP001 should be clean enough, and I'll have some of that slanted by then. I've got plenty of TF&S Maris Otter on hand.

 

[eltorrente]

Ferment with a clean, well-attenuating ale yeast. Nottingham has given me excellent results in the past. Do not use any yeast called "Irish Ale". It is okay for Irish Reds, but is too under-attenuating for Dry Irish Stout.

I will second this recommendation!

I just made a Dry Stout and decided to use this yeast for the first time. I didn't really look into it - I just figured it would be a good yeast to try. Wow, big mistake.

I made a starter and pitched and fermented at 66degrees, and it fermented strongly for 24 hours, then the krauesen dropped by only 36 hours.

OG was 1.051, and FG 1.022 (!!) - 3.8% ABV. I was shooting for around 4.5-5.0%. It turned my Dry Stout into a Sweet Stout. It's not TOO bad, but it's very disappointing when a beer turns out with a completely different character than you are shooting for.

Never again. I should have researched it instead of just impulse buying at the LHBS.

 

[tennesseean_87]

I'm not sure, because I've never used it myself, but I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend that you never use FB Kiln Coffee malt! :fro:

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I'm not sure, because I've never used it myself, but I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend that you never use FB Kiln Coffee malt! :fro:

Muahahaha!

 

[Beernik]

Carafa II and III are good substitutes for roasted barley if you are trying to keep the coffee/espresso flavors lot.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Carafa II and III are good substitutes for roasted barley if you are trying to keep the coffee/espresso flavors lot.

You know, when she said she didn't like coffee flavors, but said she likes Guiness, Murphy's and Beemish, I kinda went "huh?". The carafa could be steeped in vodka to extract color, and maybe I could call it a Black Ale, or, as would be appropriate for the debate based on my geography, a Cascadian Dark something-or-other.

All kidding aside, I may just play around with carafa if she doesn't like the basic recipe. I'm just thrilled she loves beer!

 

[RonPopeil]

just skip the dark crystal stuff and black patent. sam smith's oatmeal isn't very roasty and they just use 2row, roasted barley and oats. if you want a stout without the ashy burnt flavors just use enough roasted barley to get the color right.

 

[eltorrente]

Just remember that Stouts use Roasted Barley, and that is their characteristic flavor. Dry Stouts especially. Carafa II and III are not replacements for Roasted.

I typically use 1 pound of Roasted in my Dry Stouts (for 5 gallons). Sometimes I throw in a few ounces of Black Patent for an extra oomph, but really all you need is Roasted - plenty of flavor and color with that alone.

Dry Stouts are quite easy to make. I suggest you try the simple recipe that Bob mentioned above: 70/20/10% pale malt/flaked barley/roasted barley, and around 40ibu's. The only difference I would suggest is to shoot for 1.050(ish) instead of 1.040, but that is just personal preference.

Don't forget to use at least 1/2 lb of Rice Hulls in your mash so you don't get a stuck sparge if fly-sparging.

 

[Bob]

[tangent]

I don't understand the homebrewer's urge to put rice hulls in anything that has non-hulled grain in it. If you have a good crush and dough in properly rice hulls are simply unnecessary, no matter how you sparge. I dough in with 1 qt per pound and don't even need rice hulls in 50/50% wheat beer mashes.

I understand that rice hulls help ensure a free-running sparge, but for unhulled grain in the proportion of Dry Irish Stout they're really an unnecessary takeup of mash liquor.

[/tangent]

Bob

 

[eltorrente]

[tangent]

I don't understand the homebrewer's urge to put rice hulls in anything that has non-hulled grain in it. If you have a good crush and dough in properly rice hulls are simply unnecessary, no matter how you sparge. I dough in with 1 qt per pound and don't even need rice hulls in 50/50% wheat beer mashes.

I understand that rice hulls help ensure a free-running sparge, but for unhulled grain in the proportion of Dry Irish Stout they're really an unnecessary takeup of mash liquor.

[/tangent]

Bob

I've only had 3 stuck sparges in 18 years of brewing, and twice it was with 1-2lbs of Flaked Barley. Most of the times I've brewed with it, it went smoothly - but those two times sucked and I don't want it to happen again.

Flaked Barley can gum things up if your unlucky, so no harm adding 1/2 lb of rice hulls for a little insurance.

It's nice that you have had great success without it, but using hulls doesn't hurt anything and helps to ensure that all goes nice and smoothly.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I've only had 3 stuck sparges in 18 years of brewing, and twice it was with 1-2lbs of Flaked Barley. Most of the times I've brewed with it, it went smoothly - but those two times sucked and I don't want it to happen again.

Flaked Barley can gum things up if your unlucky, so no harm adding 1/2 lb of rice hulls for a little insurance.

It's nice that you have had great success without it, but using hulls doesn't hurt anything and helps to ensure that all goes nice and smoothly.

I always add rice hulls when my wheat or rye bill gets above 30ish%, and this may need them too, but part of my process right now is to see how much I can get away with in my new mashtun, so I'm going to risk a stuck sparge for this batch. But fortunately if I get stuck, I can pump spargewater under the false bottom, and stir in rice hulls. This will be my 3rd batch in this mashtun. I'm also using a smaller crush, .032. Still working on dialing in my system.

 

[Beernik]

Just remember that Stouts use Roasted Barley, and that is their characteristic flavor. Dry Stouts especially. Carafa II and III are not replacements for Roasted.

I typically use 1 pound of Roasted in my Dry Stouts (for 5 gallons). Sometimes I throw in a few ounces of Black Patent for an extra oomph, but really all you need is Roasted - plenty of flavor and color with that alone.

If you didn't notice, less oomph was the stated goal, not extra. I use roasted barley, special B, and chocolate malt in my sweet stout. I love the espresso flavor of roasted barley and no mash smells quite as delicious as one with it.

Carafa III still gives a mild coffee/espresso flavor, but not nearly as much as Roasted Barley. I used 4oz each Carafa II and Carafa III in my black bock and it was slightly more roasty than I wanted. I'll probably cut it back to 3oz each next time around.

 

[eltorrente]

If you didn't notice, less oomph was the stated goal, not extra.

Yes, I noticed. I never told him to use black patent, I just said that I did sometimes for the extra oomph - and I said to just use Roasted for Dry Stouts because that's all that is required.

He is looking for a Dry Stout recipe like Guiness, so he should do what they do - Roasted only.

 

[Bob]

I've only had 3 stuck sparges in 18 years of brewing, and twice it was with 1-2lbs of Flaked Barley. Most of the times I've brewed with it, it went smoothly - but those two times sucked and I don't want it to happen again.

Flaked Barley can gum things up if your unlucky, so no harm adding 1/2 lb of rice hulls for a little insurance.

It's nice that you have had great success without it, but using hulls doesn't hurt anything and helps to ensure that all goes nice and smoothly.

Three? You've indeed been lucky! I've had many more. Luckily I learned early how to underlet the mash to fix it. The only luck I've ever had is catching the stick during my vorlauf. I've only ever had one stick in the runoff, and underletting fixed it lickety-split. And that was a 15bbl mash.

If you've had mashes stick with flaked grains, I think you need to look more to technique than additives to fix the technical flaw. A mash that sticks with 20% flaked grains screams "there was a doughing-in/mash-mixing problem," not "flaked grains are Teh Ebul."

It pains me to point it out, but that's what we used to call (when I wore a uniform) "operator headspace". Addressing it with additives is like blaming the hammer when you bash yourself on the thumb. Yeah, you can put on a medieval gauntlet. That'll protect your hand and prevent the pain. But the thing you should really do is correct the technique of actually hitting the nail.

That's not phrased very diplomatically. Please know I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm not saying you're a bad brewer or anything. [sigh] I'm more than a little hung over from a local Oktoberfest celebration last night and I'm afraid I'm not communicating very well. So I'm sorry if I'm being a little brash. You see what I'm getting at, though, right?

Bob

 

[eltorrente]

Three? You've indeed been lucky! I've had many more. Luckily I learned early how to underlet the mash to fix it. The only luck I've ever had is catching the stick during my vorlauf. I've only ever had one stick in the runoff, and underletting fixed it lickety-split. And that was a 15bbl mash.

If you've had mashes stick with flaked grains, I think you need to look more to technique than additives to fix the technical flaw. A mash that sticks with 20% flaked grains screams "there was a doughing-in/mash-mixing problem," not "flaked grains are Teh Ebul."

It pains me to point it out, but that's what we used to call (when I wore a uniform) "operator headspace". Addressing it with additives is like blaming the hammer when you bash yourself on the thumb. Yeah, you can put on a medieval gauntlet. That'll protect your hand and prevent the pain. But the thing you should really do is correct the technique of actually hitting the nail.

That's not phrased very diplomatically. Please know I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm not saying you're a bad brewer or anything. [sigh] I'm more than a little hung over from a local Oktoberfest celebration last night and I'm afraid I'm not communicating very well. So I'm sorry if I'm being a little brash. You see what I'm getting at, though, right?

Bob

I don't know why it happened. I don't think I'm a master brewer, either - but I never thought I was doughing in improperly or somehow in a "bad" way - never actually thought twice about it. I'm always up for learning what I could do better though.

When I dough in with Flaked, I crush my grains then simply pour in the Flaked with the rest of it in the bucket, then pour everything in at once and stir it all up. Maybe I could add them after the crushed and minimize the amount that is toward the bottom or something like that. Maybe I'm when I'm stirring some flaked gets lodged in the false bottom. Not sure what technique I should be doing. I stir the crap out of my grains though during the first 5 minutes.

That being said, it happened twice in about 20 Flaked batches (10% or so, which is too much) before I started using Rice Hulls. My other stuck sparge was just a "normal" batch of grains, and I have no idea what happened there - but the vast majority of the time sparging has always been nice and smooth for me.

 

[Beezer94]

It's chocolate malt that gives strong coffee flavor. Use 10% or less roasted barley for the nice dry stout flavor.
Here's a classic:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/ode-arthur-irish-stout-guinness-clone-28239/



/RAGE Rice hulls cost pennies per homebrewed batch. They can let you crush all your batches the same whether rye or wheat or whatever and not worry about stuck sparges. /RAGEOFF