left hand milk stout

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Nice! I brewed this one back in late September and I was holding off on trying it until I got my nitro setup up and going. Looking forward to trying this out.
 
I love that beer! The nitro version gives more chocolate flavor to me. I need to get around to brewing this one.
 
I just finished a glass of this again.. I think it may be my new favorite beer..
 
OHIOSTEVE said:
made a clone recipe of this a few weeks back( I got it off of here).. kegged it and left it on gas for a couple weeks.. tapped it last night and DAMN it is good....so good I poured some over vanilla ice cream and it was delicious.!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/left-hand-milk-stout-clone-139820/
Click to expand...

This is one of my favorite beers I brew. If not my favorite. It's the best stout I've had and this has been told to me by about everyone who tried it.

I brew it for every winter. I also tried it on ice cream when I first made it. This beer made me want to brew 10 gal batches, so I upgraded to being able to do 15 finished. I also bought a nitro set up just for it.

As a matter of fact I bought everything to brew 10gal for winter, but haven't found the time to brew yet. I gotta get on it!

Oh, add some drops of orange extract and vanilla in a pint... I make it with vodka and peels and split beans. Man, it's like one of those orange chocolate balls you get on the holidays.
 
It's a great beer. I have about 12 left from when I brewed it last winter. I had a couple last night and it made me realize that I need to brew it again asap. Very good stuff.
 
I love those orange flavored & shaped chocolate things! They even break open & look like orange sections. That does sound like an interesting idea. 2oz orange zest & 2 vanilla beans might do it. Mmmm....:rockin::mug:
 
how would you do that uniondr? would you split the beans and scrape em and soak in vodka? zest orange peel? I do a blue moon clone and use Mccormicks valencia orange peel....sounds interesting.
 
OHIOSTEVE said:
how would you do that uniondr? would you split the beans and scrape em and soak in vodka? zest orange peel? I do a blue moon clone and use Mccormicks valencia orange peel....sounds interesting.
Click to expand...

I simply buy two good sized oranges, use a potato peeler to shave the Orange zest off leaving no white. I cut them in smaller shapes to fit compactly and put them in a mason jar and pour vodka on it until the peels are at least covered.

For vanilla I split two beans and scrap them and put that in the jar then I cut them in about half to fit the jar easier and do the same thing as above... The longer it sits, the better it gets. It does take some time though, so I always make more when my other jars are running low.

When I add it, I just do a few drops at a time until I feel it's balanced. I don't over whelm it by any means. I also go heavier on the vanilla than orange.

Adding vanilla alone to this beer is really good. It gives the dark chocolate/coffee notes more of a milk chocolate flavor. In other words, it smooths it out.
 
OHIOSTEVE said:
made a clone recipe of this a few weeks back( I got it off of here).. kegged it and left it on gas for a couple weeks.. tapped it last night and DAMN it is good....so good I poured some over vanilla ice cream and it was delicious.!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/left-hand-milk-stout-clone-139820/
Click to expand...


OhioSteve,
did you use the exact recipe from that link you posted? I'm going to attempt my first All Grain using BIAB with this one. Just wanted to know if you changed things like many other people did there.
 
I just ordered the ingredients yesterday to do a partial mash based off this recipe. Only thing I changed was the ratio of chocolate malt to roasted barley. I upped the chocolate and dropped the roasted barley so that there's twice as much chocolate as roasted barley. Did that based off of an article in BYO I found online (sorry, no link handy now on my phone) where the Left Hand brewer said it should be 2:1 chocolate to roasted barley. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out as Milk Stout is my favorite stout. If only I could bottle with Nitro like Left Hand does...


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grizzly2378 said:
I just ordered the ingredients yesterday to do a partial mash based off this recipe. Only thing I changed was the ratio of chocolate malt to roasted barley. I upped the chocolate and dropped the roasted barley so that there's twice as much chocolate as roasted barley. Did that based off of an article in BYO I found online (sorry, no link handy now on my phone) where the Left Hand brewer said it should be 2:1 chocolate to roasted barley. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out as Milk Stout is my favorite stout. If only I could bottle with Nitro like Left Hand does...
Click to expand...

I've read it before and heard pod casts about ratios too...

But, you should have just done it as is, then modify it if it didn't blow your mind. You may have found out it is better... I think the recipe is perfect as is personally.
 
Silentdrinker said:
I've read it before and heard pod casts about ratios too...



But, you should have just done it as is, then modify it if it didn't blow your mind. You may have found out it is better... I think the recipe is perfect as is personally.
Click to expand...


Yeah, well, experimentation is half the fun! I have some real Milk Stout on hand that I can try side by side with my iteration to compare. I'll post my results when the time comes. If it doesn't turn out, I can always do the recipe as posted here later on. At worst, I'll have two batches of decent to awesome stout on hand to drink. There are worse problems to have!


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grizzly may be onto something.. had one last night and after a short time on gas there is a bitterness that is coming through.. not bad but noticable...may be the roasted barley?
 
Well, there's only one way to find out of I'm on to something. Plan on brewing my version Thanksgiving weekend. I'll post results when I can, January sometime, probably.


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For anyone who is interested, here's the link to the BYO article I referenced above:

https://byo.com/stories/item/1155-milk-stout-it-does-a-body-good

From the article:

“(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."

For the record, I'm not saying the recipe that is posted in this thread is bad or wrong or that my version will be better. For all I know, my version will suck, in which case I'll start over and brew the version posted here. Just trying to dig deeper into how Left Hand brews up their milk stout. I did send them an email several weeks ago searching for clues, but never got a response.

Oh, and you'll notice that the article is pretty old, from 2004. It's entirely possible that Left Hand has tweaked the milk stout recipe since then, but I haven't been able to find anything more recent.
 
I just made that same recipe a moth or so ago I like it a lot I get a lot of chocolate flavor in this stout.

I would probably like it a bit more roast though and maybe a bit more alcohol mine came in around 4.75%ABV

So I'm thinking next time I might add a # more 2-Row and a bit more roasted barley
 
I'm gonna have to try a PM version of one of those recipes once I actually read it. Wish I could brew that one & my new PM version of the Burton ale I did a couple of years ago. Wanna put'em in my 2nd home brewing book, " Tippy Tippy Tappy II:Historic Styles & Struggles". Good thing I didn't put Mein Kampf in there!...
 
Just got done brewing my version. Brew day went very well. Nailed my OG at 1.070. My "partial mash" was actually pretty big: 9 lbs of grains and only 3 lbs of DME. That's about the max I can do mash-wise with the gear I have. It's in my ferm chamber now, set for 65. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!


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Me too! The most I've mashed in my 5 gallon MT/BK is about 7lbs. I typically use 3 pounds of DME or 3.3lbs of LME.
 
unionrdr said:
Me too! The most I've mashed in my 5 gallon MT/BK is about 7lbs. I typically use 3 pounds of DME or 3.3lbs of LME.
Click to expand...


I use a 5 gallon igloo cooler to mash in and then just dump the wort into my kettle. I mash in a bag so i can easily get the grain out. After the mash, I do a second 10 minute "mash/sparge" and use that wort to get up to my boil volume. I assume 65% efficiency and nailed that yesterday. Extract is so much more expensive than grain, I try to minimize it as much as possible.

My stout is bubbling away today...in fact, it was bubbling strong last night within a few hours of pitching.


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That's pretty much what I do. 10 minute dunk sparge to stir grains in bag. Use that to get to boil volume. My efficiency is so high, I usually get higher OG's as a result.
 
Okay, so I've had a few bottles of my version of this over the last couple of weeks. Tried it side by side with the real Left Hand Milk Stout, but the only bottles I have of that are the Nitro version and mine is just bottle-carbed so maybe not an exact apples to apples comparison. Regardless, it came out very close. Close enough that I'm not sure exactly what I would change about the recipe. As for the recipe I used, I did what's technically a partial mash, but I used as much grain as I possibly could with my setup. Also had to do it as a partial boil due to my setup limitations.

Batch Size: 5 gal (fermentor)
Boil Size: 2.75 gal
Efficiency: 60% (I've found this to be pretty accurate with my partial mash setup)

Target OG: 1.071
Target FG: 1.024
ABV: 6.1%
IBU: 25
SRM: 40

4.5 lb - 2-row
0.5 lb - Roasted Barley
1 lb - Chocolate Malt
1 lb - Caramel 60
1 lb - Munich 10
0.5 lb - Flaked Barley
0.5 lb - Flaked Oats
3 lb - Amber DME
1 lb - Lactose (late addition @10 min.)

Mashed the grains at 155 for 60 min, poured off the wort and did another dunk sparge/2nd mash for 10 minutes to get up to my boil volume.

0.66 oz - Magnum @ 60
1 oz - US Goldings @ 10

Pitched a 3L starter of Wyeast 1056 at 68 degrees.
Fermented in the 62-65 range for a few days and then at 68 for the remainder. Left in primary for a month (plus a few days) before bottling.

Actual SG was 1.070
Actual FG was 1.024

:mug:
 
I re-did the recipe for my whiskely stout in BS2 in an attempt to get more chocolate flavor. I'll have to compare my grain bill with yours...
 
OHIOSTEVE said:
made a clone recipe of this a few weeks back( I got it off of here).. kegged it and left it on gas for a couple weeks.. tapped it last night and DAMN it is good....so good I poured some over vanilla ice cream and it was delicious.!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/left-hand-milk-stout-clone-139820/
Click to expand...

I would love to make this but have some newb ?s I would like to do this in a one gallon batch to see how it turns out before moving to a 5gal batch. Would i be able to do this and do it BIAB? I have beer smith 2 but I am not good with the software yet so I was wondering how i can calculate for the 5 down to 1 gal batch. Please educate me and If I need to post this elsewhere please tell me, Im not trying to steal the post....Thanks

Edit...I have actually figured out the scale recipe but the bigger issues I'm having is the equipment selection and efficiency...everything come out pretty close to the 5gal batch except OG and ABV...1gal seemed to be a lot higher
 

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