Crituqe my stout recipe based off of Trillium PM Dawn.

[Barrelagedvinyl]

Pm Dawn is one of the best stouts i've ever had. Luckily for me, Trillium lists all (or seemingly all) of the ingredients for this beer on their website. For the first iteration, i plan to leave out the Cold brew.

The grain bill for this seems to be a little over built, no doubt it took them dozens of iterations to get right and of course, the differences in maltster could make all the difference. However, i'm mainly wondering if this build is a good enough starting point for a stout.

I did sacrifice half a can of Pm dawn last time i had it. after purging the Co2, the Fg read about 1.023, Going by that, a 9% beer would start at about 1.090-91. That was a Coconut variant, not sure if that would affect the FG.

• 78.3% - Pale ale malt
• 5.2% - Caramel 60
• 5.2% - Chocolate malt (Bairds)
• 3.9% - Special B
• 2.6% - Crystal 120
• 2.6% - Caramunich (not entirely sure which version, assuming Cm1)
• 2.1% - Roasted barley (planning to do a cold steep to avoid astringency)
  
  "No Ibu" is listed everywhere for this beer but Columbus is listed in the ingredients
• Going with 45 ibu Columbus @60m
  
• Fermenting with a 1L starter of Imperial A18 Joystick because i have it on hand

If anything, what would you change? I've thought about lowering the base malt by about 5% and slightly increasing the adjuncts, but i'm not sure about that. Obviously it will be a while until i'll know if this is anywhere close to a 'clone', but at the very least, i'd hope to have a nice stout.

 

[BrewMan13]

I'm of the opinion that stouts need roast, especially an imperial. I aim for a minimum of 10% dark grains, not steeped. If your process and water chemistry are fine, you won't get astringency.
Also I think the amount of specialty grains vs base malt is fine, and I don't think there's too much going on; a big stout can take it. But if you're looking to trim it down, maybe consolidate the special B and C120 into 1 or the other.

 

[TallDan]

Largely agreeing with @BrewMan13, I'd consider upping the roasted barley and not cold steeping. I'd also add some more bitterness with hops, style guidelines say 50-90IBU, and you're going to want bitterness to balance the FG. When you make it with coffee, you might consider bringing the roasted grains and hops back down, since the coffee (depending on the coffee and how you use it) often brings roast flavors and bitterness to the party.

 

[Barrelagedvinyl]

Ok, i took that feedback and upped the Roast barley to a full lb. The Caramel malts total about 15%

• 75.6% - Pale ale malt
• 5.0% - Caramel 60
• 5.0% - Chocolate malt (Bairds)
• 5.0% - Roasted barley
  
• 3.8% - Special B
• 3.0% - Crystal 120
• 2.5% - Caramunich
  
• Upped the IBU to 60

The water profile i planned on was a 2:1 Chloride to Sulfate ratio.

Ca:45
Mg:13
So4:52
Na:18
Cl:106

 

[Dgallo]

Ok, i took that feedback and upped the Roast barley to a full lb. The Caramel malts total about 15%

• 75.6% - Pale ale malt
• 5.0% - Caramel 60
• 5.0% - Chocolate malt (Bairds)
• 5.0% - Roasted barley
  
• 3.8% - Special B
• 3.0% - Crystal 120
• 2.5% - Caramunich
  
• Upped the IBU to 60

The water profile i planned on was a 2:1 Chloride to Sulfate ratio.

Ca:45
Mg:13
So4:52
Na:18
Cl:106

I always say up your sodium for a stout. Really helps enhance the flavor

 

[BrewMan13]

Using baking soda helps buffer the pH and adds Na for flavor/mouthfeel = win/win.

 

[Barrelagedvinyl]

I always say up your sodium for a stout. Really helps enhance the flavor

What ppm range would you recommend?

 

[Dgallo]

What ppm range would you recommend?

Depends on what you’re using to adjust your time ph. Like @BrewMan13 if you’re using baking soda it will bring your sodium up already. Once you decide on your grain bill you’ll be able to plug it in to bru’n water or similar program to see where you’re at. I would say 80-100 ppm is fine for a stout.

 

[secretlevel]

What ppm range would you recommend?

Any luck brewing this? Would love to try my hand at cloning this as well.

 

[Barrelagedvinyl]

Any luck brewing this? Would love to try my hand at cloning this as well.

I did! It came out to be a respectable stout and is aging gracefully. but it's definitely NOT a Pm dawn clone.

The caramel note is a little too strong, verging on cloying. Now that i look back on the recipe, it's about 14.5% total caramel malt, which is too much. i'd probably bring that down to at most 10%, maybe even 8% and see how that turns out. I'd also probably lean towards sparging or cold steeping the roasted barley next time or at least using a bit less.
I also wasn't able to do a side by side with an actual pm dawn to see what was close and what should change..and to steal some yeast dregs.

I will say, the 80-100ppm sodium tip and not being afraid of higher bicarb levels was a game changer for my stout game.

 

[secretlevel]

I did! It came out to be a respectable stout and is aging gracefully. but it's definitely NOT a Pm dawn clone.

The caramel note is a little too strong, verging on cloying. Now that i look back on the recipe, it's about 14.5% total caramel malt, which is too much. i'd probably bring that down to at most 10%, maybe even 8% and see how that turns out. I'd also probably lean towards sparging or cold steeping the roasted barley next time or at least using a bit less.
I also wasn't able to do a side by side with an actual pm dawn to see what was close and what should change..and to steal some yeast dregs.

I will say, the 80-100ppm sodium tip and not being afraid of higher bicarb levels was a game changer for my stout game.

That's great to hear and good notes! I'm not sure what it is, but sometimes the community is a little too encouraging on roasted grains and IBUs in stouts. When I first started brewing, I made 5 various oatmeal stout/american stout recipes and they were all super bitter and borderline astringent. Since then I've really scaled down to using only up to 3-5% roasted grains unless the stout is 10-11%+ ABV and will have a higher FG to offset the roast.

You also have to think about coffee's bitter nature, that's going to add some roastiness as well.

Going to try to make this soon with 3% Chocolate and 2% roasted barley, and probably tone down the crystal malts. Now if I could just get a can of PM Dawn again in Chicago

 

[Dgallo]

That's great to hear and good notes! I'm not sure what it is, but sometimes the community is a little too encouraging on roasted grains and IBUs in stouts. When I first started brewing, I made 5 various oatmeal stout/american stout recipes and they were all super bitter and borderline astringent. Since then I've really scaled down to using only up to 3-5% roasted grains unless the stout is 10-11%+ ABV and will have a higher FG to offset the roast.

You also have to think about coffee's bitter nature, that's going to add some roastiness as well.

It’s all about the roasted grains and your ph at mashing. Dehusked/debittered roasted grains helps a lot.

 

[thehaze]

Roasted grains will not give off bitterness and astringency, if your brewing process is in order. You might also be sensitive to whatever you perceive as bitterness and astringency. My latest Milk Stout was a mere 6.7% ABV, with 23.5% roasted malts and 11.75% crystal malts and the rest was base malts. I added lactose and some other things. OG was 1.103 and FG landed on 1.052. Not a touch of astringency or unwanted bitterness. But I knew how it would turn out, so the IBUs were around 50. Which might sound like a lot, but it wasn't. Your mash pH should be around 5.4 ( +-0.1 will still be fine ). Roasted Rye, Roasted Wheat, Roasted Spelt help, but so does Balck malt and Roasted Barley, two malts I would never go without in a Stout.

 

[secretlevel]

Well, with enough sugar I think you can offset a whole 55lb bag of roasted barley. The real question is how we can balance the sweetness and roasted malts while letting the coffee shine through at 1.023 FG with no lactose.

As for my process, I've been targeting 5.5 pH but recently moving toward 5.3 in the mash. I did end up getting 42 points for a milk stout at the last local homebrew comp in the winter. I had about 8% roasted grains, 0.5 lb lactose and 25 ibu.

 

[couchsending]

No way the FG was 1.023

I’ve degassed a bunch of their dark beers (and Treehouse) and they’re all over 1.040. I believe the PM dawn I degassed was 1.046 but it’s been a while. You have to get close to that in order to get the mouthfeel of all those beers.

 

[secretlevel]

No way the FG was 1.023

I’ve degassed a bunch of their dark beers (and Treehouse) and they’re all over 1.040. I believe the PM dawn I degassed was 1.046 but it’s been a while. You have to get close to that in order to get the mouthfeel of all those beers.

Very interesting, I'm curious if OP's sample wasn't fully degassed or maybe too warm. I know Trillium usually disclose Lactose if they use it, so it's not likely that it's present here. I should be able to get to 1.035 with an English Ale yeast and mashing at around 160F, then make up the rest with maltodextrin?