Cold Steeping attempt to rescue a beer

[Riverevir]

I definitely made mistakes. The 5% stout I wanted is not the 5% stout I have for a few reasons. It’s not the right color, and it’s a touch more bitter (hops bitter - not astringency) than I’d like — I know I made mistakes during the brew day that caused this.

Curious for some feedback from anyone who has cold steeped grains in the past if I can fix my beer with this method. I would look to boil it after cold steeping and add either some lactose or some cocoa powder to try and backsweeten it a bit. The nose is decent, but anyone have this happen and fix their beer?

My other option would be blending but this could be a bit more difficult in my opinion.

 

[wilserbrewer]

How old is the beer?
Have you been properly patient?
Hop bitterness will mellow w age...

 

[Riverevir]

It’s still young for sure (3.5 weeks) but the issues I don’t see changing are:

1.) Very poor grain crush on specialty grains

2.) Lower than expected sugars leading to the beer being overhopped by a little.

The second will fade with time, I agree. The bigger issue is the poor yield from the specialty grains leaves it a lousy brown color. The flavor sadly mirrors the color in that it’s just not terribly exciting. I could go and call it a dark mild, but even that is a stretch, IMO.

I’m certainly willing to give it more time as I’m in no rush, but would love some ideas on how some others have been able to tinker missing on stout flavors to see if I could steer it closer to my goal.