Sweet Stout Left Hand Milk Stout Clone

[Zubius]

Put this on nitro today and it's really good! However, to us it seems just a bit too sweet and is lacking slightly on the barley. ~We have a few real Left Hand Nitros for a side-by-side tasting...

Brewing again tomorrow with 14oz roasted barley (from 12oz) and reducing the lactose to 14 (from 16oz).

Thanks OP for the great recipe!

 

[brewski09]

Put this on nitro today and it's really good! However, to us it seems just a bit too sweet and is lacking slightly on the barley. ~We have a few real Left Hand Nitros for a side-by-side tasting...

Brewing again tomorrow with 14oz roasted barley (from 12oz) and reducing the lactose to 14 (from 16oz).

Thanks OP for the great recipe!

I've had some beers on nitro and CO2 draft before and I have to say that the nitro beers are softer to me and seem less bitter even though they are the same beer otherwise. I would say that your correction is appropriate for a nitro draft system. You could even probably up the IBU a little and be fine too.

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[IMNOTL8]

Just made this yesterday in the hopes for a St Patrick's Day tapping! Mine came out at about 1.060. Was just reading through (most of) the posts and reading about the history of Milk Stouts, etc. and found this quote from the Brewmaster at Left Hand Brewery.

“(Milk stouts) are typically not very bitter, so you need to put in a portion of roasted barley, but make sure the portion of chocolate malt is twice as big,” he explains. “The roast will be subtle and you’ll get plenty of color. If you go heavy on the barley, it will actually be bittersweet. It is better to have more chocolate malt and just a nuance of roasted barley. I also think it works out really well when there is a decent amount of caramel in the beer which is probably going to lead you to this style anyway.”

Thought it was interesting that he essentially said to use twice the chocolate malt to roasted barley. Any thoughts about this?

 

[brewski09]

Yum

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[crjpilot]

Interesting. I didn't do twice as much, but I did switch it up and do 1# chocolate malt and 12oz Roasted Barley in the batch before last and it's probably the closest to LH I've come. The owner of one of our LHBS said it "tastes just like Left Hand." I do agree that more chocolate then RB is appropriate, but the proportions could still be tweaked to personal taste.

On another note, the last batch I did, I got distracted during the boil and forgot the lactose. So, while it was chilling, I boiled the pound of lactose in some water to dissolve it. I had it boiling pretty hard and, while it didn't caramelize, I did get it down to a thin syrup. At kegging, I had a taste and the milk/lactose sweetness was HUGE, though not in a bad way. It didn't have a cloying sweetness, it was more of a creamy note that went well. It's faded just a touch now that it's carbonated and it's really good now. Somewhat smoother and richer than the previous batch with the lactose in the boil.


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[nolabrew85]

Just made this yesterday in the hopes for a St Patrick's Day tapping! Mine came out at about 1.060. Was just reading through (most of) the posts and reading about the history of Milk Stouts, etc. and found this quote from the Brewmaster at Left Hand Brewery.

“(Milk stouts) are typically not very bitter, so you need to put in a portion of roasted barley, but make sure the portion of chocolate malt is twice as big,” he explains. “The roast will be subtle and you’ll get plenty of color. If you go heavy on the barley, it will actually be bittersweet. It is better to have more chocolate malt and just a nuance of roasted barley. I also think it works out really well when there is a decent amount of caramel in the beer which is probably going to lead you to this style anyway.”

Thought it was interesting that he essentially said to use twice the chocolate malt to roasted barley. Any thoughts about this?

I want to try that.


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[Sbarnard80]

Love this thread. Brewing the recipe this weekend. Will post updates.

 

[mufflerbearing]

Brewing today!!! Can't wait!!!


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[Sbarnard80]

mufflerbearing - good luck today!

Finally made it through all the posts and WOW a lot of really great information. Seems like you guys have explored all areas of this one. I'm going to stick pretty closely to the original recipe based on how many people really love this one and since I think LHMS is one of the best out there.

Brewing this coming Friday - a couple of things I'll likely do differently and feel free to comment:

• 
  Only 8-12 oz of roasted barley to create a little better sweet/bitter balance per some of the others' comments here.
  4.5 priming sugar for a little less carb - I bottle (maybe even 4.25)
  154 mash to retain some of that sweetness
  Am going to stick with 1lb of lactose at 10 min. I did an experiment a while back with a milk stout ramping up the lactose at different levels because I like sweet beers. Even at regular levels, I could start to detect the "lactose flavor" - because it DOES have one, and I'm not a big fan of it. Will keep 1lb and hoping since others have not mentioned this flavor being too much, I'll find the same.
  I happen to have 4oz of dark chocolate covered cocoa cocoa nibs in the pantry so am going to toss those at about 10min to help dissolve the chocolate and steep the cocoa cocoa flavor out of the nibs. Speaking of, I still wonder about getting the flavor out of a nib if only added after the temp is brought down - as I see many people adding it in the primary or secondary. Thinking in terms of hot water to make coffee because it extracts the flavor FAR better than cold, wouldnt you want to put the nibs in at least at flame out?

Very excited about this one.

 

[landes80]

I did this recipe two months ago as my first all grain batch with my new 5 gallon setup and it turned out awesome. I handed about a case worth out to people and everyone loved it. We even tasted against the LHMS with a group of about six of us and did it blindly and 5 of the 6 picked this beer. I just made another and am thinking of splitting it after primary fermentation and adding some cocoa nibs to about two gallons and see how that comes out.


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[mufflerbearing]

Mashed around 154-56 about to sparge


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[insanim8er]

Mashed around 154-56 about to sparge


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Lol you're super excited I can see... I need to make more. I'm at my last 5 min in the boil of centennial blonde.

 

[mufflerbearing]

Now we wait.


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[D_Nyholm]

View attachment 183374

Now we wait.


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Looks awesome. Let's hope you didn't forget the special blinker fluid too. Adds that little bit of extra oomph

 

[mufflerbearing]

It's bubbling away but not too much. It is holding a steady 68-70 on the sticker. It should be fine right?


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[brewski09]

Yeah, that's fine. I personally like to keep mine a tiny bit cooler, but I don't see any problems with that.

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[joeys]

I got all the ingredients today to make the mini-mash from earlier in the thread listed below... wish me luck!!

Here's what I did... as a partial mash (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/). It was really easy and didn't require any more equipment.

1 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US
3.6 lbs Light DME (3 lbs of it was late addition)
1 lbs Roasted Barley
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt
12.0 oz Munich Malt
10.0 oz Barley, Flaked
8.0 oz Oats, Flaked
0.30 oz Magnum [14.10 %] (60 min) Hops
0.80 oz Goldings, East Kent [6.10 %] (10 min) Hops
1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose)
1 Pkgs SafAle S-04

I partial mashed the pale malt and all the other grains in ~2 gals of water (1.5 qt/lb of grain) at 152-154 degrees (used my oven at 175 with mash in the pot to keep the mash at that temp), "Teabag" sparged into another pot with ~1 gal of water. Added everything together in the brew kettle, boiled as above with the lactose at 10 mins. Ice bath cooled, topped off to 5 gals with an OG of 1.064 and its actively fermenting at 64 degrees. BrewR estimated my OG at 1.065, IBU 25 and 42 SRM. So I don't think I'm too far off from the original recipe.

Just follow the directions in the partial mash tutorial above. Not too much more difficult than just extract with steeping grains (this is only my 6th or 7th brew BTW).

 

[mufflerbearing]

I wish you luck and I am also wondering where my FG should land.


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[insanim8er]

I wish you luck and I am also wondering where my FG should land.


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I generally get to 1.018 but anywhere near 1.020 is good

 

[insanim8er]

I wish you luck and I am also wondering where my FG should land.


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I generally get to 1.018 but the recipe is 1.022. This changes depending on your numbers of course. So obviously you want to make sure it's done (take a couple readings spareated by a couple days apart. If the same, it's good) before you bottle.

 

[kurds_2408]

Gonna order the ingredients to make this BIAB. Living just a few miles from Left Hand I'm really excited. Read through most of the post but just in case I missed something wanna make sure: Is the original recipe still the standard? And are there any tricks I need to know?

 

[mufflerbearing]

I followed the recipe and checking FG tomorrow. Should be a great beer! Very excited. How long do you guys keg condition?


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[Yirg]

I brewed this beer recently and stayed true to most of the recipe but I had to use flaked wheat because I could find flaked barley. The beer tastes good, but has practically no head. Carbonation is deliberately low (I used 70 gram corn sugar for a 5 gallon batch) which I'm perfectly fine with, but the lack of a head is disappointing. Any idea what went wrong? In a previous oatmeal stout I brewed I aimed for the same (low) carbonation and the beer head a very decent head, more stable than most commercial beer.

Thanks!

 

[insanim8er]

I brewed this beer recently and stayed true to most of the recipe but I had to use flaked wheat because I could find flaked barley. The beer tastes good, but has practically no head. Carbonation is deliberately low (I used 70 gram lactose for a 5 gallon batch) which I'm perfectly fine with, but the lack of a head is disappointing. Any idea what went wrong? In a previous oatmeal stout I brewed I aimed for the same (low) carbonation and the beer head a very decent head, more stable than most commercial beer.

Thanks!

Wait, you added 70 grams of lactose to carbonate the beer?

If that's the case, that's the problem. You have no carbonation because lactose doesn't get processed by yeast to create co2. I carb mine at 1.8vol and creates a great cascade and head. It does die down to a nice lacing after a few minutes but freshly poured, it's pretty.

 

[Yirg]

insanim8er, that was a typo. I used 70 gram of corn sugar for priming, not lactose. Thanks for replying.

 

[mufflerbearing]

How long has it been in the bottle?

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[insanim8er]

insanim8er, that was a typo. I used 70 gram of corn sugar for priming, not lactose. Thanks for replying.

Ok good... You never know with this site. I saw a forum where the guy put a packet of no rinse sanitizer in his beer thinking it was priming sugar.

I've seen posts where a guy put 2.5 gallons of squirt soda (for a grapefruit hef) to prime his beer—he had bombs.

Anyway, what's your temp at, and as asked above how long has it been?

General rule is

1 - week primary
2 - weeks secondary (if you actually use it)
3 - weeks bottle (at 68-70f)

I haven't done the calculation as to what volume 70 grams will give you for 5 gallons, but you really want to be around 1.8vol for this beer. (IMO)

 

[Yirg]

Ok good... You never know with this site. I saw a forum where the guy put a packet of no rinse sanitizer in his beer thinking it was priming sugar.

I've seen posts where a guy put 2.5 gallons of squirt soda (for a grapefruit hef) to prime his beer—he had bombs.

Wow! That's some Extreme Homebrewing

Anyway, what's your temp at, and as asked above how long has it been?

General rule is

1 - week primary
2 - weeks secondary (if you actually use it)
3 - weeks bottle (at 68-70f)

I didn't use secondary. The rest is as you describe, though temperature is not regulated and may be a bit higher during the day (I live in sunny Israel, and it's already spring time here). It's been two week since I bottled the beer.

I haven't done the calculation as to what volume 70 grams will give you for 5 gallons, but you really want to be around 1.8vol for this beer. (IMO)

Yes, this is what I was aiming for. I used Beersmith and referred to the standard carbonation for a Sweet Stout. I like the level of resulting carbonation and don't need more. It's only the missing head that bothers me...

BTW, the beer is not really sweet. I wonder if I should have put more than a pound per gallon to get a more distinctive sweet taste?

 

[crjpilot]

Gonna order the ingredients to make this BIAB. Living just a few miles from Left Hand I'm really excited. Read through most of the post but just in case I missed something wanna make sure: Is the original recipe still the standard? And are there any tricks I need to know?

I've brewed it a few different ways and to me, I'd say switch the amounts of roasted barley and chocolate. I used 1lb chocolate and 12oz roasted barley in the batch that I would consider the closest.

 

[crjpilot]

Wow! That's some Extreme Homebrewing

BTW, the beer is not really sweet. I wonder if I should have put more than a pound per gallon to get a more distinctive sweet taste?

I don't really consider LHMS to have a sweet taste. Too me, I'd describe it as a very light roast with some creaminess, but not really sweetness. I think a pound is about right. If you want a little more sweetness, a trick I use is to boil down the lactose separately until it's a thin syrup and then add it after the boil. It seems to concentrate the flavor a bit. I'm not sure why, but it made a noteable difference to me.