Creamy stout

[ed31]

Hello!

I'm pretty new to brewing but i'm already hooked on it, made 2 batches of beer before, one APA and one ale after recipes from my local brewing store.

After looking around a bit i've decided to try to make my own recipe, I want some feedback on it so far.

I'm thinking about a stout with nice round body with sweet tones.

Grains:
Vienna 4,25 kg
Caramel 40L 0,65 kg
Chocolate malt 0,40 kg
Flaked oats 0,65 kg

Hops:
70 g EKG at 6,4% at 60 min

Yeast
Safale s-04

I'm thinking about adding some vanilla pods, and maybe a lil cinnamon at fermentation as well

I'm aware that there will be some (or a LOT) of mistakes in this recipe but i'd like to improve in my beermaking journey

OG 1,103
FG 1,023
IBU 65,7

 

[Steveruch]

A lot of people think you have to use roast barley to make a stout. I recommend using some blackprinz malt which gives a more mellow roast and would work better for what you want.
And maybe maris otter instead of vienna.

 

[Yooper]

It depends on what you want, but I don't find chocolate malt roasty enough to make a stout. I'd try Black barley or roasted barley to give it that distinctive "stout" flavor.

 

[ed31]

Hmm, yeah i suppose you need more of the roasty tones to get into the proper stoutiness. I think that the burned flavor can be overpowering in some stouts, maybe i should add some black barely to get the base for it. But i really wanna bring forward the "milky" side of it but still have the deep thick complexity of a stout. Regarding the vienna, i've heard that it gives big body and carmelly tones. Maris otter seems to also be thick but not so caramelly, maybe it's better to go with maris otter then and go stronger on the caramel malts for that dimension?

 

[carloslavin]

You mention trying to milk the "milky" side of it. I think a good approach, specially since you're starting out, would be to read a few of the sweet stout recipes from the Recipes section here and maybe get inspired by that (in case you want the recipe to be yours yours and not just someone else's).

A good one I've made and a lot of people also have is the Left Hand Milk Stout clone. The Black Pearl Porter (more of a sweet porter) is also very good.

I often don't see all base malt being Vienna in recipes here. Maybe it's just not worth it, since a lot of subtleties get lost by the roasted malts?

 

[C.N. Brewer]

I say do a little research on stouts to help design your recipe. Learn a little bit about the history and it’s origins. It might help you a little bit. I’m doing that right now with a pale ale recipe I’ve been working on and it’s actually helping me quite a bit. And it’s super interesting! Best of luck to you friend!

 

[ed31]

Ahh, yeah that'd probably be a good idea, do you have any resources for inf othat you'd recommend?

 

[Miraculix]

Hello!

I'm pretty new to brewing but i'm already hooked on it, made 2 batches of beer before, one APA and one ale after recipes from my local brewing store.

After looking around a bit i've decided to try to make my own recipe, I want some feedback on it so far.

I'm thinking about a stout with nice round body with sweet tones.

Grains:
Vienna 4,25 kg
Caramel 40L 0,65 kg
Chocolate malt 0,40 kg
Flaked oats 0,65 kg

Hops:
70 g EKG at 6,4% at 60 min

Yeast
Safale s-04

I'm thinking about adding some vanilla pods, and maybe a lil cinnamon at fermentation as well

I'm aware that there will be some (or a LOT) of mistakes in this recipe but i'd like to improve in my beermaking journey

OG 1,103
FG 1,023
IBU 65,7

I would really recommend doing the following. Do a smash with Vienna and do a smash with mo. Do not put lots of hops in it , just aim for maybe 20-30ibu. Bittering addition only, nothing covering the malt. Then you will learn the difference.

Next, do the same smash again with mo or another pale malt plus ten% chocolate and another one with ten % roast barley instead. That will tell you the difference of those two. Reading is good but no book can really give you the accurate sensation of tasting it yourself.

And if you start with mixes of everything, you won't be able to distinguish which part did contribute which flavour, so it would still be a guessing game.

From there you can go on by either doing additional smashs with one variable being changed at a time or you can take your favorite ingredients from the previous tests and combine them plus add another variable, but just one at the time.

This is how you learn the fastest, do one gallon batches, doesn't have to be much or high gravity, just enough to tell you the story. I always shoot for 1.045 to 1.05 for my experiments. I got to know the main ingredients and adjuncts this way, so no more guessing game. This really helps.

 

[dmtaylor]

I like the original recipe, Vienna malt and all. I would just be sure to add roasted barley. Or black malt. Or both. It won't be a stout without blackness.

 

[Miraculix]

I like the original recipe, Vienna malt and all. I would just be sure to add roasted barley. Or black malt. Or both. It won't be a stout without blackness.

This has been debated over and over again. There is no historic resource proving this claim. In fact, stout used to be a term for strong. There actually were stout porters.

 

[dmtaylor]

*It wouldn't score well in a 21st-century competition without blackness.

I recognize and agree that historically, porter and stout were essentially one and the same.

 

[Miraculix]

*It wouldn't score well in a 21st-century competition without blackness.

I recognize and agree that historically, porter and stout were essentially one and the same.

Yes, that might be true. Don't know much about competition guidelines.

What I found out during my experiment, is that I surprisingly prefer the all roast barley to the all chocolate malt stout I made for comparison.

Chocolate malt somehow brings something like a licorice type flavour I am not so fond of, but that might be just my taste.

Roast barley was nicer and somehow even almost a bit fruity, according to my own taste. Was quite interesting.

 

[dmtaylor]

I find roasted barley to have a consistent coffee-like flavor no matter where you get it. Chocolate malt is extremely inconsistent depending which maltster you get it from, which can be great if you know what you're going to get but can be super frustrating if you do not know what to expect from a specific product. Chocolate can mean very different things to different people.

 

[Miraculix]

I find roasted barley to have a consistent coffee-like flavor no matter where you get it. Chocolate malt is extremely inconsistent depending which maltster you get it from, which can be great if you know what you're going to get but can be super frustrating if you do not know what to expect from a specific product. Chocolate can mean very different things to different people.

Haven't thought about this, but surely sounds reasonable. I actually don't know where my chocolate malt is coming from. I bought two kg a long time ago when I was not aware of the typical quantity it is used at and haven't managed to finish it up until now

 

[Northern_Brewer]

*It wouldn't score well in a 21st-century competition without blackness.

...in a US competition, if entered as an Irish stout 15B. If you're not entering a US competition in 15B, then it's not compulsory. In the words of Ron Pattinson :
"Roasted barley. That’s the usual explanation of what separates porter and stout. Unfortunately that story is total bollocks."
(a more recent, less sweary article saying similar things is here)

It's also worth noting that even the BJCP say that roast barley is just a Dublin thing, the Cork style is closer to the old English style of stout - and if the OP is interested in a sweeter style, then it's worth looking up recipes for London stout see eg here.

It's also interesting that recent Brewlab analyses have seen stouts averaging 4.9% and porters 5.0%, but I suspect that that's skewed a bit by some brewers trying to tap the Guinness market even though modern draught Guinness is not really stout in historical terms. I've a few other issues with that Brewlab analysis in terms of what's typical on the bar versus what goes through their lab, but that's for another time.

 

[dmtaylor]

I totally agree with all of what's being said here. I hence formally withdraw my original statement.

Cheers.

 

[ed31]

I would really recommend doing the following. Do a smash with Vienna and do a smash with mo. Do not put lots of hops in it , just aim for maybe 20-30ibu. Bittering addition only, nothing covering the malt. Then you will learn the difference.

Next, do the same smash again with mo or another pale malt plus ten% chocolate and another one with ten % roast barley instead. That will tell you the difference of those two. Reading is good but no book can really give you the accurate sensation of tasting it yourself.

And if you start with mixes of everything, you won't be able to distinguish which part did contribute which flavour, so it would still be a guessing game.

From there you can go on by either doing additional smashs with one variable being changed at a time or you can take your favorite ingredients from the previous tests and combine them plus add another variable, but just one at the time.

This is how you learn the fastest, do one gallon batches, doesn't have to be much or high gravity, just enough to tell you the story. I always shoot for 1.045 to 1.05 for my experiments. I got to know the main ingredients and adjuncts this way, so no more guessing game. This really helps.

This seems like a good way to learn the different malts and hops, it will certainly be a great experiment for the summer! How small batches can you make? can you go down to around 1-2 liters without screwing something up?

I think i will start with making this stout (with some changes from the original recipe) and then move on to more analytic brews to understand the resources i have to work with.

 

[ed31]

I've been looking around a bit and i see that some sweet stouts call for lactose.
My understanding is that oats also contributes with body and sweetness, can i use both lactose and oats or should i stick to one?

 

[Miraculix]

This seems like a good way to learn the different malts and hops, it will certainly be a great experiment for the summer! How small batches can you make? can you go down to around 1-2 liters without screwing something up?

I think i will start with making this stout (with some changes from the original recipe) and then move on to more analytic brews to understand the resources i have to work with.

I used to do 2l batches in water bottles, that worked five. But it takes just a little bit more time to do a full gallon, so I stick to those now as the test beers are usually also quite delicious

 

[Miraculix]

I've been looking around a bit and i see that some sweet stouts call for lactose.
My understanding is that oats also contributes with body and sweetness, can i use both lactose and oats or should i stick to one?

They contribute two different things imo. Lactose is sweet and oats give body. Meaning the latter are not sweet tasting.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I've been looking around a bit and i see that some sweet stouts call for lactose.
My understanding is that oats also contributes with body and sweetness, can i use both lactose and oats or should i stick to one?

In traditional British classification, adding lactose makes it a milk stout, which is expected to be obviously sweet in complete contrast to Guinness or even London stouts - Mackeson is the original and defining example. Ron has covered the history in detail here. Adding oats makes it an oatmeal stout, which again is a slightly different thing. I like oatmeal stouts, but there's no big-name example that comes to mind. They're not as weirdly different to normal stout as milk stouts, but they are a different beast. Lactose adds sugar-sweetness, whereas oats are more about absorbing some of the bitterness/roastiness.

If I was you I'd aim for a straight London stout for now, which will still seem rather different to Guinness, and then start messing about with adjuncts at a later date.

As for small batches - going to smaller fermentations is never ideal, as you're increasing the surface area to volume. But for this kind of thing it's plenty good enough, you want vessels with enough room for krausen without too much headspace and that can be sanitised well enough (which may be just for one use if it's something like fizzy pop bottles).

One tip if you're trying to keep things simple would be to use either hop tea or commercial alpha extract for bittering, which means you don't have to worry about hop residues and saves you some boil time, you might even go the raw beer route and skip the boil altogether if you're not planning to keep them long.

 

[dmtaylor]

I've been looking around a bit and i see that some sweet stouts call for lactose.
My understanding is that oats also contributes with body and sweetness, can i use both lactose and oats or should i stick to one?

You can do both. Or do as I do, and use a poorly attenuating yeast, and rye malt.

 

[troglodytes]

NCBeernut's Deceptions Cream Stout (the extract version) is the best an creamiest stout I've ever made. I would highly recommend using that recipe as a basis for research.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/deception-cream-stout.141483/

 

[ed31]

Okay!

I've update my recipe to add a lil toastiness with some black malt and lower the chocolate malts a bit to not get to dark in taste and color, also added a bit of lactose

Grains:
4.00 kg Vienna Malt
0.65 kg Caramel 50 L
0.40 kg Flaked Oats
0.40 kg Lactose (add at last 10 min of boil)
0.25 kg Chocolate Malt
0.15 kg Black Malt

Hops:
70 g EKG

Yeast:
SafAle S-04

I'm still going with my vanilla pod at ferment

 

[bleme]

You will get a lot more vanilla out of your pod if you add it when fermentation is complete (or nearly). Earlier and a lot of the aroma gets blown out the airlock.

 

[Miraculix]

And maybe soak it in vodka before to get it disinfected.