Chocolate Coffee Oatmeal Stout-Recipe Critique Wanted

[eschmehl]

Hi everyone! Long time browser, first time poster here. I appreciate all of the great insight and information on the forum.

So I am brewing up a recipe for a home brew club competition and wanted to see what people thought. The catch to the competition is that coffee is a required ingredient. My first thought was a nice thick stout could be a good way to showcase this ingredient. So here's the recipe. Some of the amounts of grain are a little random due to what's on hand. Efficiency assumed is 72% for a 5.5 gallon batch.

OG: 1.057
FG: 1.014
IBU: 39
ABV: 5.7%

8# Maris Otter
2# Flaked Oats
7 oz Roasted Barley
12 oz Chocolate Malt
4 oz Caramunich II
6 oz Crystal 60L
4 oz Brown Malt
1 oz Target for bittering
Safale US 05

-Mash a little high to retain some body (around 158)
-After primary, rack to secondary on top of 4 oz cacao nibs and 12 oz cold brewed coffee using 2 oz coarsely ground coffee beans

Any input on grain bill or chocolate/coffee additions would be much appreciated. I've not used cacao nibs or coffee before so those amounts are just based on a couple of recipes I've seen.

Cheers!
Eric

 

[m00ps]

158 may be a bit high even for a stout. I usually shoot for 155

I think the recipe loks solid but a bit needlessly overcomplicated. The brown malt for instance, isnt really bringing anything to the table. Its just lying in between the roasted malts and the base malts. Id take it out and just replace with maris otter. Vanilla beans will also help round out the chocolate flavor

I usually do 4oz nibs and 3-4oz coffee beans when I add stuff like that. I dont do the cold pressing though so the combo should get a prevalent coffee character

 

[hanuswalrus]

I agree with m00ps on taking out the brown malt. For stouts, I like to mash around 154.

As for the cacao and coffee.. I've used coffee in 1 brew before that I thought turned out well. I used 4 oz of coarsely ground coffee (in a 3 gallon batch) that I cold steeped in 2 cups of water for a couple days. Added to secondary for 2 days before bottling. The coffee was there, but not as much as I'd liked it to have been, but I love a lot of coffee flavor in a stout. Just my taste and experience on the subject.

As for nibs, the one time I used those, I made a tincture with bourbon and the beer ended up having an awful soapy taste/smell. I might have made other mistakes on that brew somewhere along the way as it was only my 4th or 5th brew, but I've had other people tell me they got a soapy flavor from adding nibs.

I've read that it's recommended to crush and toast the nibs prior to adding them to a tincture or to the beer itself so I'm going to try that on my next stout.

 

[eschmehl]

Thanks m00ps! I was thinking 158 since I normally get pretty high attenuation with S 05. I don't make a ton of stouts though so I will shoot for closer to 154.

As for the brown malt, I've never used it but saw some nice results with it. Probably true that there's a bit too much going on and it may just get lost in the shuffle.

I hadn't considered vanilla beans. I used them before in a bourbon ale that turned out nice. More things to contemplate!

And thanks hanuswalrus for the coffee/nibs input! It sounds like the amounts I'm planning are in the ballpark.