Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout Recipe Critique

[danielofthedale]

So my girlfriend wants to brew a beer with me and after talking with her about some ideas I thought a Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout would be pretty cool. I have only brewed extract before but since you can't just steep the oats I will be moving up to brew in a bag for the first time. So any advice on the recipe or technique would be use full.

Recipe Type: Partial Mash BIAB
Yeast: Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.062
Final Gravity: 1.017
IBU: 37
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 40L

6.5# Marris Otter LME 65%
1.0# American 2-Row 11%
1.0# Flaked Oats 11%
0.5# Dark Chocolate Malt 5%
0.5# Black Malt 5%
0.25# Roasted Barley 3%
1.250z Northdown Pellets 8.5%AA 60min

2 Jars PB2 Powder 5mins
2oz Cocoa Nibs in Secondary

Mash: 2-Row, Oats, Dark Chocolate Malt, Black Malt, and Roasted Barely at 152* for 60 mins in 5qts of water. Bring temp up to 170* for an additional 10 mins.

Heat top up water to 170* and pour over grain bag to sparge.

Bring to boil and add Northdown Hops

15mins add the Marris Otter LME

5 Mins add 2 Jars PB2 Powder (6.5oz each)

The goal is to have a creamy smooth Oatmeal Stout with Chocolate and Peanut Butter flavors shining through and trying to avoid any coffee, caramel, toffee type flavors.

So feel homebrewers, will my recipe achieve this? Do I need to add anything? Does my brew schedule and methods look sound? Thanks for any feed back.

 

[ColoHox]

This will be a hard beer to have taste like you are picturing it tasting. It is difficult to get the peanut butter/chocolate flavor right on the first go. I had such high hopes for my first few attempts. Go for it though!

My $0.02 would be to use debittered black (or additional chocolate) instead of black patent (you didnt specify which, just guessing here). Also, roasted barley imparts a roasty, coffee like flavor, but also some sweetness. If that is not what you are looking for, maybe replace it with honey malt, additional chocolate malt, or maybe some crystal 120L.

I would also mash higher, 158 or so, and add a little extra base malt to compensate for the reduced fermentability. The body you get from the higher mash temp will contribute to the creamyness you are looking for.

 

[Jayslay]

Suprised nobody has spoken up on the recipe yet. If you want a bit of nutty-ness for the "peanut-butter" part of it, be sure to throw in some Victory malt or Biscuit malt. Maybe even up to a pound. I would cut back the black malt a little as that seems like it will come out a little bitter.

Oh wait, what is PB 2 powder? That is foreign to me...some sort of peanut butter flavor? I would avoid adding actual nut powder/butters to beer... just doesnt seem right. Fats and legume proteins might not ferment properly.. actually who knows. I did some reading and a few people have tried this... I just think it might be going at it in a weird way haha. Experiement!


Have you BIAB before? Make sure you have a big pot and a second pot to tea-bag dunk your bag for rinsing then add that back in.

 

[ColoHox]

Oh wait, what is PB 2 powder? That is foreign to me...some sort of peanut butter flavor? I would avoid adding actual nut powder/butters to beer... just doesnt seem right. Fats and legume proteins might not ferment properly.. actually who knows. I did some reading and a few people have tried this... I just think it might be going at it in a weird way haha. Experiement!.

It is powdered peanut butter, with the oil removed. After boiling in water and adding to secondary, it provides tons of peanut butter flavor.
It has been used a lot, here is a huge thread. The only downside I have noticed is reduced head retention.

OP, the same company also has a choco-peanut powder you might try, I havent yet.

 

[bethebrew]

How about just making a nice oatmeal stout, and chew on a Reeses cup while drinking it?

I know, I know, then it just wouldn't be the same.

Personally, I think I would go for more of a Cracker Jack beer.

 

[rgauthier20420]

OP,

I've made a chocolate peanut butter porter and used the PB2 in it. However, I used 4 jars! 2 were in the boil and 2 went into the secondary. I also used 4 oz of bakers cocoa at 5 minutes left in the boil. This gives me a nice bitter chocolate flavor. As for the peanut butter, if I were to do it again I'd through it all into the secondary. It takes up way too much space as trub in the primary and depending on how you chill your wort you could have other issues here.

To sum up, add 4 jars (not 2) to the secondary, add 4oz cocoa at 5 minutes left, and I second removing the black malts. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[danielofthedale]

Thanks for all the response and suggestions! I greatly appreciate it.

Here are the changes to the mashabe grains:
Change the American 2-Row to TF Marris Otter and up it to 1.5#
Up the Dark Chocolate Malt to 0.75#
Add 0.5#Victory Malt
Remove the Black Patent Malt
Up mash temp from 152* to 158*

How does it look now? Should I bump up the Dark Chocolate or Victory more?

 

[rgauthier20420]

Thanks for all the response and suggestions! I greatly appreciate it.

Here are the changes to the mashabe grains:
Change the American 2-Row to TF Marris Otter and up it to 1.5#
Up the Dark Chocolate Malt to 0.75#
Add 0.5#Victory Malt
Remove the Black Patent Malt
Up mash temp from 152* to 158*

How does it look now? Should I bump up the Dark Chocolate or Victory more?

Personally, this beer is going to have so many other flavors going on I think your perfectly fine using all 2-row instead of the Marris Otter. Would be much cheaper too. I know it wasn't questioned, but it's just my though.

Don't forget, more PB2

 

[danielofthedale]

Personally, this beer is going to have so many other flavors going on I think your perfectly fine using all 2-row instead of the Marris Otter. Would be much cheaper too. I know it wasn't questioned, but it's just my though.

Don't forget, more PB2

I thought that the nutty flavor of the Marris Otter would be a good complement to the PB2. But would adding more PB2, to 4 jars, increase the flavor enough that the PB2 would be able to carry all the peanut flavor through thus being able to cut the MO and go all 2-row?

 

[rgauthier20420]

I used Pale Malts when I made my Peanut Butter and Choco porter. A fellow brewer makes a PB&J Porter and he uses 5 jars. The peanut butter flavor, if you use enough jars, is pretty prominent and really good! When I brewed I added 2 in the boil and tasted after primary was done. It was no were near peanut butter tasty enough. It had the aroma, but that was it. Since it's powdered, you need a good bit to actually get the flavor out of it. I might suggest a bit of lacto or shoot for a more malty/sweet final product also. This could help bring the peanut butter flavors to the front. That's also why I suggested a bit of cocoa powder in the boil. I've never use the nibs before so I don't know how much flavor they bring.

 

[bethebrew]

I thought that the nutty flavor of the Marris Otter would be a good complement to the PB2. But would adding more PB2, to 4 jars, increase the flavor enough that the PB2 would be able to carry all the peanut flavor through thus being able to cut the MO and go all 2-row?

Say What?

4 jars of PB2 in your beer?

What's next?

 

[danielofthedale]

I had a talk with the head brewer at one of the local breweries and he recommended the us of cocoa nibs starting with about 2oz. That is the reason I am using them, but I might just use the Chocolate PB2 for half of the PB2 addition and regular PB2 for the other half.

 

[rgauthier20420]

I had a talk with the head brewer at one of the local breweries and he recommended the us of cocoa nibs starting with about 2oz. That is the reason I am using them, but I might just use the Chocolate PB2 for half of the PB2 addition and regular PB2 for the other half.

Don't do this....do what you want but :rockin:

If it's peanut butter you want, use the peanut butter. The mixed version of this powder doesn't have nearly the amount of peanut butter flavor as you need....again in my opinion.

Whichever you do, let us know

 

[bethebrew]

Don't do this....do what you want but :rockin:

If it's peanut butter you want, use the peanut butter. The mixed version of this powder doesn't have nearly the amount of peanut butter flavor as you need....again in my opinion.

Whichever you do, let us know

Exactly. More peanut, more cowbell. You can never have too much.

:rockin: