Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Founder's Breakfast Stout clone (2011 HBT Competition Category 21 winner)

[mikeho]

Yeah, I guess I did that. The original recipe did not say to add a liter of water, instead it says to add the 2 oz of coffee (dry) in the secondary. You could take that liter out of your original water measurement, or boil off a bit more, since you know you'll be adding back a little water, or you could add 2 oz of coffee to the secondary. There are probably lots of ways to add coffee, try one and see how it goes, then post back.

 

[Jtd6628]

Here are some sources that I am drawing my info from http://www.byo.com/stories/issue/ar.../1911-founders-brewings-breakfast-stout-clone
also this page suggest not ever adding chocolate and coffee to the boil. http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/formulating-and-brewing-winning-chocolate-porter
The original recipe calls for 2oz of ground coffee, 2.5 oz bittersweet bakers chocolate, and 1.5 oz unsweetened chocolate baking nibs at flame out.
Because of the info from the second source. I plan on adding the 4 oz of coffee the recipe calls for to 2ndry by cold steeping it. Is this a terrible idea, will it be to much coffee with too little time to mellow out? I also plan on changing the ingredients of the bittersweet bakers chocolate, and unsweetened chocolate baking nibs to just unsweetened cocoa powder, because that is what I already have, also adding this to 2ndry instead of flameout.
Can anyone help with the amount of cocoa powder , which will be put in 2ndry, I should use to replace the 2.5 oz of bittersweet bakers chocolate and the 1.5 oz of unsweetened chocolate baking nibs to get a nice strong chocolate taste that FBS has?

Sent from my iPad2 using HB Talk

 

[mikeho]

Cold steeping coffee will extract different flavors than brewing coffee in 200F water. Adding at flameout could mean waiting a few minutes after you start your chiller, so you are no longer at 212F. For reference, another coffee oatmeal stout uses about 2.5 ounces in secondary
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/ca...-n-bake-coffee-oatmeal-imperial-stout-218372/
so I think 4 ounces would be fine.

Cocoa powder is more processed than cocoa nibs, but less processed than Baker's chocolate. I would think you could go with 4 oz of cocoa, and if it comes out too strong or too weak, adjust accordingly for your next batch. Cocoa may even work out better, since it is lower in fat content (cocoa butter) which may affect head retention.

 

[agentEhrman]

For the chocolate and coffee in the bag at flame out, do I remove the bag before racking to primary? Or should I leave it in for fermentation? I'm getting ready to start my mash soon, help is greatly appreciated!

 

[mikeho]

I removed the bag before racking to primary. I don't know if there's much flavor left in the coffee at that point, but not sure about the cocoa nibs. Anyway, that's how I did it.

 

[MilwaukeeBrewGuy]

How long do you suppose this needs to condition for?

 

[mikeho]

Looks like I did 25 days at 64 degrees, but 4 weeks should be plenty.

 

[agentEhrman]

Thanks for the recipe btw! Mine came out just a bit strong on the coffee, but I don't have a french press and I think that's why. I intended to steep the 2nd addition and before I knew it, it was boiling. It still tastes absolutely fantastic, but the side by side comparison left me wanting to buy a french press and brew again to see just how close I can get it.

Tasty recipe here!

 

[MikeRoBrew1]

So you added grounds at flameout and actually made coffee for the keg?

I see many people using Bakers Chocolate of Chocolate Chips, but according to this:

Do not use milk, semi-sweet or baker's chocolate. These chocolates contain cocoa butter and other lipids that can harm the beer's head and lead to staling as the fats go rancid with age and oxygen exposure. Even distribution of the cacao solids in wort or beer requires melting the chocolate and stirring. There is no good way to do this without releasing the fats.

http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/formulating-and-brewing-winning-chocolate-porter

It seems like cocoa powder is the easier and more effective way to give a beer chocolate flavor. Any thoughts? Thanks for posting.

I use 6-8 oz. cacao nibs in 5 gallons, or 1-2 oz. cocoa powder in 5 gallons.

 

[mikeho]

I have made this beer three times now, and have not seen an effect of fats on head retention. However, I'm sure the info on the maltose falcons site is good. I have also aged this beer for 10 months, and have not detected any off flavors due to the fats going rancid. Maybe the amounts are too small to be detected, or I just don't have a very sensitive palate. I may go with cocoa powder next time just to see if it makes any difference.

 

[MikeRoBrew1]

Mikeho thanks for the reply. I don't mean to say I think your method is bad at all, just it seems that cocoa powder may be more effective.

I'm going to follow the lead of Jtd6628 on this small variation I think:

I plan on adding the 4 oz of coffee the recipe calls for to 2ndry by cold steeping it. Is this a terrible idea, will it be to much coffee with too little time to mellow out?

2oz of cocoa powder sounds about right for starters.

I use 6-8 oz. cacao nibs in 5 gallons, or 1-2 oz. cocoa powder in 5 gallons. Don't overdo it! The idea is to leave the base beer qualities evident while enhancing the chocolate character.

I have heard some people say 60ibu's is great for this beer but I think I will follow your example Mikeho and use about 30 ibu's this time. I am going to shoot for about 7.5%abv in this one, using 11lbs of base grain. I will report back.

Use less bittering hops than you think are necessary for the base beer style. Cacao and cocoa powder contribute considerable bitterness, albeit of a somewhat different character than hop bitterness.

Thanks again

 

[wdchandlersmith]

Just wondering, exactly what kind of DME did you use for this? I'm looking at doing this myself, and I'm leaning towards a plain old Breiss Dark DME. Should I reconsider? This will be my first all grain brew, so I'm new to this whole ingredients thing.

 

[mikeho]

I would say it doesn't matter if you use light or dark DME, as this is a stout. However, you say this is your first all grain, why are you using DME? To reach your gravity since you can't fit all the grain in your mash tun? That's what I did for my first few "all-grain" batches. I guess it really wasn't "all" grain.

 

[wdchandlersmith]

I was just going to stick to the recipe to get things right the first time around? Is there an easier way to do this?

 

[mikeho]

Sorry, I had forgotten what I had written, thought I wrote it for all grain. The original recipe http://www.byo.com/stories/issue/ar.../1911-founders-brewings-breakfast-stout-clone says you can make an all grain version by using 13.2 lbs 2-row pale malt. That would be easier. That's what I have done since the first time making this. So just replace the 9 lbs 2-row plus 1 lb DME with 13.2 lbs 2-row.

 

[wdchandlersmith]

Aaaah, okay. Thanks a lot for that clarification. I'm unreasonably excited to get this cookin'. Thanks a ton for the recipe!

 

[bduane]

I brewed this recipe, but i use the "no-chill" method. I think i may have screwed up. I didn't put the coffee in a bag or anything like that, i just put it after i transferred the wort to my cube, when the wort was probably around 200F.

Well, the next day i go to rack it to my primary and pitch the yeast, the coffee smell is overwhelming, and has an almost burnt coffee odor.

I'm guessing this is because of the no chill, so the coffee "brewed" longer than it would normally if you cooled the wort quickly.

Is it normal for the scent/flavor to be so strong, and will it mellow out?

 

[mikeho]

I'm not sure, I know you can definitely smell the coffee with the regular chill method. I guess I would say just let it ride, maybe the flavors will mellow with time.

 

[bduane]

I'm not sure, I know you can definitely smell the coffee with the regular chill method. I guess I would say just let it ride, maybe the flavors will mellow with time.

7-8 days fermenting at 65F and it has been very slow the last few days.

Tasted a sample from my hydrometer, tastes great! The coffee aroma and flavor mellowed out considerably, and the chocolate flavor is really coming through (used cocoa powder instead of nibs).

Checked my gravity, 1.027. I took it out of my swamp cooler to room temp and swirled it a bit to try to get the yeast going again a bit, hopefully i can get it down closer to 1.020.

I think i want to adjust the process for adding coffee, avoiding "brewing" the coffee in boiling temperatures, and remove the coffee from the wort after a set amount of time. Basically treat it like im brewing a batch of coffee, you don't want the temperature too high and you don't want to leave hot coffee hot for too long. On the "Wake and Bake" episode of the can you brew it Jamil show all coffee additions were done near the end of fermentation, i'll have to give that a try next time!

 

[arnie7781]

Brewed the original byo all-grain version with pacman yeast last night. Really excited about this one! I used 2 ounces of powder at 0 min and threw in 2 ounces of dunkin donuts coffee when the wort was around 185. I used a paint strainer to keep the junk out rather than siphon.

My plan is to dry hop with the nibs and some cold brewed coffee when I rack to a secondary in 10 days. Will report back with results.

Thanks to everyone who posted their various methods. Very helpful.

 

[agentEhrman]

Brewed this in mid december, kegged it about the 7th of jan, and drank most of it by the end of jan.. It was DELICIOUS. I saved a bit of it and I can say that as good as it was "green," it's amazing with proper aging! Thanks again for sharing the recipe, mikeho!

 

[Burgs]

What do you guys think of adding a small portion of Briess cherrywood smoked malt to this to approximate the best part of breakfast - bacon!?

 

[mikeho]

Never tried smoked malt, but you can probably find a few other threads where people have tried this. Sounds like Briess cherrywood is recommended, or someone else said hickory smoked.

 

[agentEhrman]

Brewing this recipe up again today, wish it was already brewed so I could have a drink right now! This one is going into a keg when ready, but I want to bottle another batch so I can keep it around longer. Too much to brew, not enough time!

 

[MorningGloryBrew]

Has anybody noticed any head retention problems from having chocolate in the boil? I brewed this last weekend with 2 oz. of bittersweet baking chocolate and was just curious. Gonna put it in secondary (with some cold-brewed coffee) so that less of the separated fat from the chocolate ends up in the bottle. Looking forward to this beer unlike few others that I've brewed...

 

[agentEhrman]

I could tell a little bit in the head retention of my first batch. It wasn't anything too major but it was noticable. The beer was absolutely fantastic anyways!

 

[mikeho]

I haven't noticed any head retention problems. Here is some more info on different types of chocolate and when to add them.

 

[MorningGloryBrew]

Thanks for the link—I actually came across that a couple of hours after plugging the airlock into my fermenter, having put 2 oz. of cacao and 2 oz. of bittersweet into the boil.

I may brew this recipe again in a few weeks without putting any cacao/chocolate in the boil, then soaking a few oz. of cacao in vodka and adding that (along with cold pressed coffee) to secondary. Should fix any head retention problems and it'd be interesting to taste side-by-side with the version with chocolate in the boil...

 

[hop_head76]

Has anyone brewed this all grain using the recipe provided by byo? I perused this thread and did not see any mention of over shooting the target og. Based on my ibrewmaster calculations the recipe as is with 13.2 lbs of 2-row and all the other grains at 75% efficiency would yield an og of 1.090. I know with big beers lower than usual efficiencies are to be expected but I routinely get 85%+ on my setup so I think that 75% would be reasonable.in order to hit the og listed in the recipe I would have to expect an efficiency of 65% (a 20% drop). My question to those of you that have brewed the all grain option or similar sized grain bills...Did you follow the recipe as listed? What was your og? What is your typical efficiency?

Would not be the first recipe that byo had mistakes in but they have corrected the ones I've noticed and I have found no corrections on this. Thanks for the help!

 

[mikeho]

I hit 1.084 using about 0.5 lb less 2-row, but all the other grains. The byo OG seems to be just a bit off, it is supposed to be 8.3% ABV, not 7.5% like they say.