Killing Four Recipes with One Mash
Monday, October 3, 2011 7:44 PM
Finding time to brew has been challenging lately. You all know how it is, so many beer ideas, never enough time to brew them all. To counter this I decided I was going to kill four birds with one stone. I put together a recipe for 10 gallons of milk stout, which is essentially a stout with the addition of lactose during the boil. Lactose is a milk sugar and is mostly unfermentable by yeast resulting in a finished beer that is sweeter.
After primary fermentation, I will divide up the 10 gallons to create four different beers. My rum oak barrel has been sitting empty (I keep at little rum in there to keep the wood moist) for a couple months so five gallons will age in there. The remaining will be split into a chocolate milk stout, a mochaccino (chocolate coffee) stout, and a neapolitan (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry) stout. Almost the same effort as brewing one beer, but I get to try several different recipes.
The brewing process went very smoothly as a whole. Earlier in the week I started building a yeast population for the 10 gallons. I thawed out some English yeast that I had banked and pitched it in a starter on the homemade stir plate (I am going to make a separate post that will be linkable in the equipment section to show how I put this together).
I didn't realize how large the grain bill was until I started to mill the grains. The milled grain catcher almost reached maximum capacity for this batch. We were targeting around 6% alcohol, however due to an efficient mash, this beer will more likely be around 7%.
In about a week the batches will be divided up and the adjuncts such as chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and strawberries will be added. We are very excited to give all these combinations a shot.
OG: 1.067
FG: 1.014
IBUs: 40.5
ABV: 7.1%
Monday, October 3, 2011 7:44 PM
Finding time to brew has been challenging lately. You all know how it is, so many beer ideas, never enough time to brew them all. To counter this I decided I was going to kill four birds with one stone. I put together a recipe for 10 gallons of milk stout, which is essentially a stout with the addition of lactose during the boil. Lactose is a milk sugar and is mostly unfermentable by yeast resulting in a finished beer that is sweeter.
After primary fermentation, I will divide up the 10 gallons to create four different beers. My rum oak barrel has been sitting empty (I keep at little rum in there to keep the wood moist) for a couple months so five gallons will age in there. The remaining will be split into a chocolate milk stout, a mochaccino (chocolate coffee) stout, and a neapolitan (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry) stout. Almost the same effort as brewing one beer, but I get to try several different recipes.
The brewing process went very smoothly as a whole. Earlier in the week I started building a yeast population for the 10 gallons. I thawed out some English yeast that I had banked and pitched it in a starter on the homemade stir plate (I am going to make a separate post that will be linkable in the equipment section to show how I put this together).
I didn't realize how large the grain bill was until I started to mill the grains. The milled grain catcher almost reached maximum capacity for this batch. We were targeting around 6% alcohol, however due to an efficient mash, this beer will more likely be around 7%.
In about a week the batches will be divided up and the adjuncts such as chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and strawberries will be added. We are very excited to give all these combinations a shot.
OG: 1.067
FG: 1.014
IBUs: 40.5
ABV: 7.1%
