Critique my Sweet Stout Recipe

[maltoftheearth]

Brewing a sweet stout this weekend and have not used roasted barley. I have read a lot of disagreement on whether it is necessary or not in a stout but it sounds like a traditional sweet stout would include it. Thoughts?

8lbs Pale Malt
1lb Carafa I
1lb Roasted Barley
8oz Crystal 60L
8oz Chocolate Malt
8oz flaked oats

.5oz Nugget @ 60 minutes
.5oz Nugget @ 0 minutes

Wyeast 1028

 

[hiphopaim5]

sounds good to me

 

[cluckk]

If you're brewing to style the BJCP guidelines for sweet stout mention roasted barley as part of the profile in aroma and flavor. Your recipe looks good. Mine is pretty similar except for the Carafa and I use a different hop. What are your IBUs calculated at?

 

[maltoftheearth]

IBU's are at 27. The man behind the counter at the LHBS scowled at one pound of roasted barley.

We did BIAB, added all dark drains to the last 10 minutes of mash and then did a dunk sparge. Smelled good going into the carboy!

 

[sconnie]

Sweet/milk stout usually has some lactose for sweetness (beer yeast cannot ferment lactose). I would guess that this won't finish particularly sweet with only half a pound of crystal and no lactose. Also, between the carafa, roasted barley and chocolate you have 2.5 lbs of roasted malt in a moderate gravity beer. Unless that's carafa special you are using, the de-bittered kind used mostly for color, you might find this beer to be pretty astringent. I'd say loose the carafa and you'll have a great stout, and consider adding .5 lb of lactose if you want a traditional sweet/milk stout flavor.

 

[BigFloyd]

Sweet/milk stout usually has some lactose for sweetness (beer yeast cannot ferment lactose). I would guess that this won't finish particularly sweet with only half a pound of crystal and no lactose. Also, between the carafa, roasted barley and chocolate you have 2.5 lbs of roasted malt in a moderate gravity beer. Unless that's carafa special you are using, the de-bittered kind used mostly for color, you might find this beer to be pretty astringent. I'd say loose the carafa and you'll have a great stout, and consider adding .5 lb of lactose if you want a traditional sweet/milk stout flavor.

This ^^^^^^^. :rockin:

 

[peterj]

Yeah sweet stout = milk stout. I believe they called the style sweet stout because until relatively recently it was against the law to put "milk stout" on commercial bottles.

Edit: oh yeah the recipe looks pretty good, though maybe a little heavy on roasted malt. I bet it will be delicious though. Especially with the late add roasted. Some lactose would help balance the roast for sure.