i need help with 2 recipes

[wedraper]

hey guys. i'm planning on making a stout and a slightly bitter belgian wit. take a look at the recipes below and give me some feedback please. these are recipes that I have cobbled together from multiple recipes I found here (and elsewhere). these are using extract and steeping grains.


chocolate stout:
OG: 1.054, FG: 1.011, ABV: 5.5%, IBU: 28
1lb crystal 60L
1lb choc malt
8.0oz roasted barley
4.0oz black patent malt
8.0oz caramunich
1lb dark DME 60min
4lb light DME 60min
1oz centennial 60min
0.25tsp irish moss 10min
8.0oz malto-dextrine 5min
irish ale yeast (WLP004)

for the chocolate i'm trying to decide on the following: bakers chocolate + lactose in boil OR chocloate extract in keg OR lactose in boil and cocoa nibs in secondary. i'm leaning towards the last one. i want this beer for an end of the day sipper.



bitter belgian wit:
OG: 1.047, FG 1.011, ABV: 4.7%, IBU: 30
2lb wheat, flaked
1lb oats, flaked
1lb extra light DME 60min
1lb wheat DME 60min
1oz cascade 30min
2lb extra light DME 15min
1lb wheat DME 15min
1oz cascade 5min
1oz centennial 5min
0.5oz crushed coriander seed
1oz bitter orange peel
belgian wit yeast (WLP400)
dry hop 5 days: 1oz each cascade, centennial, citra

looking for citrusy, floral hop aroma from late hop additions (any recommendations will be welcomed). this is designed to be a hot-day, yardwork, easy drinker.


thanks,
bill

 

[dcp27]

you defintely dont need malto dextrine if you plan to add lactose in the stout. you should also add some of your extract later in the boil. fyi, your FG definitely won't get as low as 1.011, both lactose & malto-dextrine are unfermentable and will bring that up.

flaked oats & flaked wheat will just add starch to your wit, they need to be mashed.

 

[sptaylor70]

Wit
You have flaked grains, so you need to add some pale malt to provide the necessary enzymes to mash them. To have enough enzymes, you'll need about 2 lbs. of pale malt. To compensate your OG for the addition, you'd need to back down your light DME to 1.5 lbs. or so.

What boil volume are you using? I can only get up to 30 IBU if I assume a boil volume of 5 gallons.


Stout
Lactose and cocoa nibs would work better, I would think.

You're pretty high on the percentage for crystal malt, especially considering that you're adding lactose and maltodextrin.* You might consider cutting the total crystal down to 1 lb. Also, C40L and CaraMunich are pretty close in flavor. You might get a better depth of flavor by either

1. Swapping out the CaraMunich for C80L or C120L, or
2. Swapping out the C40L for either C20L or C120L.

*You might opt to only use lactose, and only 8 oz.

Also, with the chocolate, roasted barley, and black patent, you don't really need dark DME. The addition of dark DME might prove too roasty, pushing your flavor excessively bitter. You could go entirely with light DME (maybe 5.5 lbs. total, if you cut back on the crystal malt) and still be plenty dark and roasty.

Using Centennial for bittering a chocolate milk stout is a little nontraditional. Are you trying for an orange-chocolate flavor? Not that Centennial wouldn't make a good stout, but most milk stout recipes that I've seen use something more English and/or earthy, like Fuggles, Willamette, or even CTZ.

 

[wedraper]

thanks for the input. the flaked grains were based on recommendations from BM on his Blue Moon clone. is there another way to give an extract recipe the mouthfeel/chewyness that i'm looking for? any other recommendations with regards to the hops for the wit (i'm looking for a good, sharp citrus aroma)?

i don't remember where i got the recommendation for centennial hops for the stout. thanks for the tip on lactose/maltodextrin and using light DME.

both recipes are for 5 gallons.

 

[helibrewer]

For the Wit I would just use all wheat DME, it is usually 50/50 barley and wheat. If you want it citrusy, try some late addition Citra hops (5 min or less) and or fresh citrus zest...I usually use a combination of orange, lime, and tangerine zest.

I'm doing a citrus APA now with Citra, Mosaic, and Amarillo hops...

 

[sptaylor70]

Five gallons for the recipe was a given, based on the OG. But that doesn't imply a five-gallon boil volume.

Without the flaked grain and resulting protein-cloudiness, it's not a wit (white). If you want a wit, you're into partial mash. You can, however, brew a hefeweizen, and that will be white as long as you use a non- or poorly-flocculent yeast (like Koelsch, Wyeast 1010, or Wyeast 3068) because of yeast. And you can get chewiness with lactose and/or mashing at a higher temperature (say, 154-156 degF). But it won't be the same as what you get from flaked grain.

 

[wedraper]

sorry about that. i do a 3.5 gallon boil, leaving ~3 gallons of wort and add 2 gallons of cool water to bring the volume up to 5 gallons. looks like i'm going to fool around with a partial mash situation with the flaked wheat. how much base malt would i need at a minimum to convert the wheat/oats?

bill

 

[sptaylor70]

To have enough enzymes to mash your 3 lbs. of flaked malt, you'll need about 1.5 lbs. of pale malt.* To compensate your OG for the addition, you'll need back down your light DME to 1-1.5 lbs.

* You could get by with 1 lb., but that gives you an approximate resulting diastatic power of just 35 deg Lintner, which is the minimum that will mash. 1.5 lbs. of pale gives you 47 deg Lintner, which is comfortably over the minimum.

To get your IBU to 30 (if that's important to you), you can boost the 30-minute Cascade addition to 1.25 oz. It's only a little bit short of 30 IBU (25, calculated on a 3 gallon final boil volume) as-is, however, and you might not notice.

 

[dcp27]

depends on what malster you plan on using. Briess 2row for instance has a diastatic power of 140, you only need about 30 DP for conversion, so 1# would be fine. wheat malt also has a similar DP if you'd prefer to use that.

 

[wedraper]

thanks a lot guys.

bill