Clone Beer Founder's Breakfast Stout Clone

[batty]

After reading about RO water, distilled water, spring water, etc from various threads for the last hour, I've come to the consensus that there is no clear consensus on water.


I'll stick with my 7gals of RO water for this brew.

Definitely recommend checking out a water calculator.. Getting your salts at least in the ballpark will make a big difference in your beers.

 

[sweetcell]

After reading about RO water, distilled water, spring water, etc from various threads for the last hour, I've come to the consensus that there is no clear consensus on water.

ha!

i would love to read opinions that state that RO water is acceptable. i have never heard of any brewery (or even homebrewers) that use RO without building it back up. yeast need minerals for everything from flocculation to general health.

Here's a very simple "primer" on how to treat soft / RO water: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460

Basically it says to add 1 teaspoon of CaCl to each 5 gallons of water treated.

great, so sounds like CraigKing could put in 1.2-1.25 teaspoons of gypsum and be in the ballpark for CA, at least.

 

[CraigKing]

Basically it says to add 1 teaspoon of CaCl to each 5 gallons of water treated.

great, so sounds like CraigKing could put in 1.2-1.25 teaspoons of gypsum and be in the ballpark for CA, at least.

Thanks. Will do.

 

[CraigKing]

Ok, I was able to find StarBucks Sumatra ground coffee. It was the most expensive coffee on the shelf.

I've also been tracking temperature in my basement and it's hovering around 63-63 degrees, so I shouldn't have to worry about needing to use a swamp cooler. I'm gearing up to finally brew this beer.

I'm glad I went with the actual recommended coffee, but it comes in 12oz packages. I'll only use 4oz. What is the preferred method to store coffee after it's opened?

 

[hanuswalrus]

Similar to how you would store hops I believe. Except I don't think you want to store coffee in the freezer.. Vacuum sealed, in a cool, dry place is the best storage for coffee.

I think you made the right choice on going with the better coffee.. when it comes to beer, I'm always willing to spend a few extra dollars for better ingredients.. and 63 sounds like a good ferm temp to me. Sounds like your're gonna have some good beer in a couple months

 

[CraigKing]

Brew day today!

Things are going well so far. I just added the 60min addition of Nugget hops into the boil. My house a wonderful aroma of chocolate stout right now. I mashed with 6gals of water and added 1.25tsp of Gypsum. The only issue I've had so far is a possible stuck sparge. After the 6gal mash and sparging with an additional 1gal, it only yielded 5.5gals of wort. I'm not too worried though. My pre-boil OG is pretty close.

Either way, I'm sure this is going to be a great beer!

 

[CraigKing]

Brew day done! I collected 4.5gals of wort. It's sitting in my basement at 1.080OG and vented with a blow-off tube so I don't find any surprises tomorrow morning.

 

[rideincircles]

I finally kegged my Burning Man batch last night. I ended up using the base recipe with a little chocolate in the boil but no coffee and finished at 1.112, well above target. I let it sit for a month in primary where it stopped at 1.033, then racked it over onto 4 oz of nibs, 2 vanilla beans,and 1/2 oz of bourbon soaked oak chips where it sat for 3 months until yesterday. Then I dry hopped it with 2 oz of sumatra for 3 weeks and kegged it last night.

It seemed like you could get notes of all the flavors added and it is thick like motor oil and you can barely see thru it. The coffee flavor is pretty intense, but chocolate was highly prevalent also. I got a little over 4.5 gallons and I will probably save a bottle or 2 for the house, but the rest will be going to Burning Man.

Hopefully I can keep it cool out in the desert, I am planning on having a beer cart and may save this one for when the man burns.

Also, the partigyle I did for this was dry hopped with coffee and also was awesome for a basic coffee stout. That is what I will be drinking until then.

 

[Helly]

7 weeks in primary fermenter including the "dry bean" addition. Not sure how long those were in there. The only other thing that got added was priming sugar to the keg, and that was boiled prior to addition. It tasted great when I put it in the keg. So I'm thinking it's likely infection from the coffee, priming sugar, or dirty equipment. So strange. I'll let it sit a bit and see if it improves. Either way looks like I'll be doing some serious cleaning and tearing that keg apart to make sure there's nothing Hiding in there.

Taste has neither improved nor declined. I'm gonna set it aside for a month or two and see, but it's probably destined to be dumped. I'll start a new batch first chance I get.

 

[christyle]

Stopped by a new homebrew shop the other day and got the ingredients, although I'm not quite sure I got the right amount of grain. Their scale setup was a little wonky, so I may not have gotten the measurements right, namely the chocolate malt. They also didn't have S04 so I went with Notty because I didn't want to wait and make a starter. I remembered I had some harvested WLP013 from a past stout, so I let it warm up while I brewed. I forgot my oats until about 10 minutes left in the mash, so I may have missed some conversion there, oh well. Swapped out the nugget for some Columbus, and couldnt get any cacao nibs. Finished up, cooled and pitched the harvested yeast. Only got 1.08, not sure if it was due to the oats, the scale, or just my first big stout inefficiencies.

Checked the beer the next morning to no activity, which was alarming as the harvested slurry was pretty substanbtial, and should have taken right off. Came home after work to still no activity, so I rehydrated and pitched the 2 packets of Notty I had bought. It was starting to bubble this morning, so we'll see....

I'll probably make up for the lack of nibs with some cocoa powder in secondary. I also plan to split off a gallon for bourbon oak chips, maybe some vanilla...

 

[Lakehub]

I like to use Cocoa powder as well.

 

[bolus14]

Looking at this being one of my next few brews, but have a coupe questions.

1. I know a few pages back states to use the recipe on the 1st page, have any corrections been made to the IBU's?

2. Has anybody tried using WY1450, Denny's Favorite? I have Yooper's Oatmeal Stout fermenting with it right now and using the yeast cake for this would be perfect timing.

3. From the last 10 -15 pages it sounds like the ideal coffee addition is to use whole beans in secondary. For how long and has anybody experienced issues with different brands of Sumatran or Kona? I have a local coffee shop and grocery store that I can get both from.

 

[christyle]

I just brewed mine so I can't say much for your questions bolus, but a question of my own has come up, and I don't know if it was answered in the last 100 or so pages. Is anyone having head retention problems due to the chocolate addition?My beer was bubbling away in primary but there wasn't any big krausen, so I'm wondering if that's due to the chocolate...it seems to have a film. Have people cold crashed and scraped or just left it or...

 

[TwistedHops]

I just brewed mine so I can't say much for your questions bolus, but a question of my own has come up, and I don't know if it was answered in the last 100 or so pages. Is anyone having head retention problems due to the chocolate addition?My beer was bubbling away in primary but there wasn't any big krausen, so I'm wondering if that's due to the chocolate...it seems to have a film. Have people cold crashed and scraped or just left it or...

I didn't have any problem with head on this beast and I even did the stupid thing of throwing the coffee grinds at flame out (terrible idea, worse than a stuck mash). I just left it and bottled it like the norm

Cheers

 

[christyle]

I'd like to know what others did for hops as well. I just sampled mine, down just below 1.03 and its far too bitter for my tastes. I went with 60 IBUs and will never do it again. I don't know what the original beer was like, but this is pretty resinous.

What was the issue with grounds at flame out? I tossed them into my hop spider.

 

[ultravista]

Any updates to this recipe?

 

[cantrell00]

I'd like to know what others did for hops as well. I just sampled mine, down just below 1.03 and its far too bitter for my tastes. I went with 60 IBUs and will never do it again. I don't know what the original beer was like, but this is pretty resinous.

What was the issue with grounds at flame out? I tossed them into my hop spider.

I'll never put coffee in a brew kettle again.

Astringent from hell

 

[alazar]

Soak nibs in smallamountof liquor and add to secondary. All will be well ☺

 

[alazar]

Elijah Craig is my go to😉

 

[sweetcell]

Any updates to this recipe?

nope. OP pretty much nailed it right outta the gate.

people have differing opinions on the amount of coffee to use, but they are just that - opinions. for those, and a thousand and one other small tweaks, you'll have to read through this thread to get them

 

[christyle]

So the 60 IBUs wasn't a needed change people were saying?

 

[bolus14]

I'm guessing that at some point Founder's updated their site to say 60IBU's, but somehow they calculated the IBU's contributed from coffee and chocolate, possibly? Just a guess but it may better represent the bitterness rather than putting it as 20IBU's.

 

[Hoppity]

Any early tastes of this recipe are going to differ wildly from the finished product after it ages. Have some patience, it is a delicious brew.

 

[ultravista]

So ... go with the original recipe at the start of this thread?

 

[Hoppity]

It's a long thread and I don't remember the middles, but I've brewed page 1 3x w/great results. The cool thing about this hobby is making slight changes to recipes based on inventory substitutions or intentional modifications, THEN seeing if you can taste the difference.

There will be future beers...fear not!

 

[ultravista]

Do you have your recipe in a Beersmith file?

 

[bolus14]

Brewed this today, went well for the most part. I thought i had bittersweet chocolate in the cupboard but it ended up being Ghirardelli Sweet Chocolate Powder and Cocoa, it was all I had s I went with it.

I had to sub the hops due to LHBS stock, went with Magnum for the 60 min and Northern Brewer for 30 and 2 min additions. The 2 min hops ended up being flameout additions because I forgot about them until I started to chill and noticed them on the table.

And to top it off my OG was low at 1.073 due to not boiling off enough. I planned for 4.5 gal since I do BIAB and ended up with 5 gal. I think I've finally got my boil off/ chill evaporation/ and trub loss figured out though.

Last thing is I'm thinking of trying to make a couple of gallons into KBS by adding some JD at bottling, I like how Denny Conn's BVIP turns out with adding the bourbon at bottling instead of aging on it. Any thoughts?

 

[christyle]

Just sampled mine, brewed a few weeks ago. The bitterness has really melded into the beer well, 60IBUs may not be the end of the world. I split off a gallon to do with .3oz oak in 1/4 makers mark, put some cocoa in both of them and attempted to purge my headspace with my kegging c02 line for the main batch. Can't wait!

 

[bolus14]

Checked the gravity on my batch this morning, since airlock bubbling as slowed to about 1 per min. After 6 days it's down to 1.014 so a little lower than the OP, but this has been my general experience with WY1450. I've also never been disappointed with the finished product feeling thin, seems to be a quality of this yeast to provide a smooth mouthfeel even at lower FG's as long as you don't over-carbonate.

My question at this point is when is the ideal point to add the coffee, vanilla and cacao nibs? I don't think the FG is going to drop anymore, I moved to a room that's about 5 degrees warmer than my basement to ensure it finishes, but I think the yeats is more or less in "clean up" stage at this point.

Should I add all three at the same time? Maybe do cacao nibs and vanilla first, then beans for only 3 -7 days? I haven't had a lot of luck wiht getting vanilla to be as strong as I want in beers so I don't min that being on the beer longer than most do, but this will be my first time adding nibs and coffee so I'm not sure what's ideal there.

 

[christyle]

I've always added coffee at bottling for mine. I added cocoa powder in secondary.

Jealous of your FG, mine only got down to around 1.024 or so with Notty.

I have some bourbon and oak I'm thinking of putting in, but not sure how much to add. I have .3oz oak soaking in 1/4C of bourbon, but I'm thinking that's way too much for the gallon batch I split off.