Help on milk stout

[kgella]

I'm new to brewing - this is my 3rd all grain.

What you all think for a christmas dessert milk stout:
7lbs american 2 row
3lbs german dark munich
1.5lb black malt
1.5lb flaked barley
1.5lb american chocolate
1.5lb american crystal 80L
1lb oats
.5lb roasted barley

60 min mash at 153

Boil:
Glacier pellets to get to 28.5IBU
1lb lactose last 15 mins
cinnamon
lil nutmeg and allspice

bourbon soaked vanilla beans to primary

Danstar Nottingham yeast

primary for 30 days
bottle condition with just under cup of molasses for around 6 months.

 

[Jonas217]

I would scale the dark roasted malts back for 2 reasons. First because the beer would have too much of a burnt flavor. Second because the amount you have is too much for the enzimes in the 2-row and the munich to convert. I'm not sure about the amount of the flaked barley, i have not used it. My last stout had the following specialty grains and it had a similar og to your recipe

1 lb crystal 80l
12 oz chocolate malt
8 oz Black Patent
8 oz roasted barley

It received rave reviews at a large family gathering

 

[frazier]

^^ I agree with Jonas. I'm also a bit skeptical about priming with molasses - in my experience, it leaves a very woody, bitter character to the beer, which I don't like but if you do, that's OK.

 

[BigFloyd]

Agreed--- priming with molasses will leave a sort of nasty bitter flavor in the beer. Not good. Priming sugars are yeast food for carbonation. Don't try to tweek flavor with them.

What kind of "black malt" are you using? If it's Black Patent, 1.5 lbs will overpower the taste and it will taste really burnt. You have an excess of roasted malts in there generally as well.

Here's the Lefty's clone from the HBT recipe section. Compare this grain bill to yours:

7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (3.0 SRM) Grain 56.57 %
1 lbs Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 8.08 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.06 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6.06 %
12.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 6.06 %
10.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 5.05 %
8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 4.04 %
0.35 oz Magnum [12.10 %] (60 min) Hops 18.4 IBU
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min) Hops 4.3 IBU
1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 8.08 %

Can you keep your fermenter temp consistently below 68*F? If not, you may want to reconsider using Nottingham. I really like it, but it gives some funky off-flavors if you let it get above 68*.

Here's another Stout (milk chocolate). I put this one in the bottles 5 days ago.

8 lb United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale
1 lb Flaked Barley
12 oz United Kingdom - Chocolate
8 oz United Kingdom - Brown
6 oz United Kingdom - Roasted Barley
4 oz United Kingdom - Extra Dark Crystal 160L
1 lb Lactose (Milk Sugar)
11.88 lb Total
Hops
Amount Variety Time AA IBU Type Use
1 oz East Kent Goldings 60 min 5.8 21.54 Pellet Boil
0.5 oz Fuggles 60 min 4 7.43 Pellet Boil
8oz Unsweetened Cocoa powder and 1 lb Lactose combined together in a slurry at 10 min

 

[Pie_Man]

You asked, so I will give my two cents. I've learned that if you're going to make a spiced or specialty beer that it really helps to have an excellent base recipe to build off of. I would personally brew a milk stout first and if you're happy with your milk stout recipe, then brew it again and see how the spices take to it. You still have plenty of time before Christmas.

Regarding the Milk Stout base, I feel that each ingredient should serve a purpose in the recipe, and for my liking, there's a little too much going on with this recipe. Having black malt, dark munich, crystal, roasted barley, oats, flaked barley, lactose, and chocolate malt is a lot in my opinion. Not to say it may not make a good beer, but a lot of times simpler is better. I would probably drop the black malt as it's more of a coloring agent and will add an acrid burnt taste to the beer. I would also drop the dark munich, I just don't think it's necessary with all the character grains. I would consider replacing the american two row with an English pale malt like Maris Otter or Golden Promise. The crystal is optional in my opinion, it's not bad to include in a milk stout, but it will reduce the fermentabilty of the wort and with the lactose which is already unfermentable, that's something I try to avoid.

Regarding the spices/specialty aspect of the recipe, I'm not really an expert in this area, but it's certainly ambitious to have cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice, vanilla beans soaked in bourbon, and molasses. When I bottle, I always just use priming sugar. If you want a molasses character in the beer, I would use molasses elsewhere although I'd probably drop it all together in this case. The spices with the vanilla make sense to me, but not the molasses.

I hope this help. I don't mean to overly critique your recipe, just trying to help based on my own experiences. For the record, here's a milk stout recipe that I just brewed for the second time:
- Maris Otter - 75%
- 350L Chocolate - 12.5%
- Roasted Barley - 4.5%
- Lactose - 8%
- OG - 1.058
- Bitter to 25-26 IBUs with one 60 min addition of Fuggles (or other english hop)
- WLP004 - Irish ale yeast
The beer was well received the first time I brewed it and quite roasty with the dark chocolate and roasted barley grains, which I like. I'll probably add flaked barley for the next iteration to improve head retention.

 

[kwingert]

You got a lot going on there. I think you may end up with a muddle puddle of flavors with all the spices your adding; vanilla, bourbon, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, molasses, that's quite a lot. Think of this: take a piece of pumpkin pie, cover it with molasses, vanilla, bourbon, espresso and eat it. That's what your beer would taste like.

It looks like you want to make a milk stout, so think of flavors that go with that sweet coffee chocolate flavor of a milk stout. Then add that flavor to your beer.

As someone mentioned early, you need a good base beer before you start adding flavors. I would suggest you work an making a great milk stout and when you have what you want, make you specialty beer from that.