Should I trust the wort?

[redwing_al]

I brewed what I thought was going to be a sweet, coffee, vanilla stout. I may have over done it on the coffee, but whatever. Some beers are heavier on the coffee than others, so I'll go with it.

tonight I took a wort sample to taste. It had a very bitter back-end. More like a coffee bitter back end... It wasn't sweet although I added close to a pound of lacotose. I have not added Vanilla yet, perhaps tomorrow.. In any case, the wort isn't as good as I had hoped it would be, but perhaps I need to still give it time. Its been in fermenter for 7 days.

I was going to put this in a fresh bourbon barrel that I have, but I'm not sure I want to harsh my barrel if it's not going to be good. Any suggestions on if I should go with it or brew a new batch? Should I trust the wort or should I wait for the outcome?

 

[iijakii]

I'd let it go a bit more and see. I bet the coffee flavor mellows over time. As do other harsh flavors generally.

 

[day_trippr]

Seven days for nearly any beer is a bit early to predict characters at maturity, and that goes double for a big stout, ime...

Cheers!

 

[pdxal]

What iijakii and day trippr said. Plus, it's not wort if you have already pitched yeast.
1 week is a short time. Also, vanilla tends to mellow a lot of the coffee/chocolate flavors in stouts. Lactose should sweeten/decrease the bitterness in it quite a bit when it is finished fermenting.
Plus, I'd assign that to be a stout only barrel in the future, unless you want some of that character in another style of beer.

 

[MindenMan]

I once made a 5G batch of coffee stout, and at bottling I added 8 ounces of cold pressed espresso. The coffee flavor was too overpowering to enjoy, but 5 months later it had greatly mellowed the coffee down. Around 10 or 11 months later I found a bottle of it, and it was nothing short of amazing. It is of course all gone, and I am not sure if I even still have the recipe. In my experience the coffee flavors mellow out after long bottle conditioning, but the chocolate ones move out front and add a lot of interest and depth to the overall flavor.

 

[unionrdr]

I used 9ozs of English chocolate malt, & got a black coffee sort of flavor to my latest batch of dry stout I made into Whiskely (as it was called in colonial times). The coffee bitterness & the American white oak mellowed out since it was bottled 6/29/15.
So I must agree that it's too early to tell with regard to the level of bitterness you'll wind up with. It'll need a little aging time.

 

[ArcLight]

I brewed what I thought was going to be a sweet, coffee, vanilla stout. I may have over done it on the coffee, but whatever. Some beers are heavier on the coffee than others, so I'll go with it.

tonight I took a wort sample to taste. It had a very bitter back-end. More like a coffee bitter back end... It wasn't sweet although I added close to a pound of lacotose. I have not added Vanilla yet, perhaps tomorrow.. In any case, the wort isn't as good as I had hoped it would be, but perhaps I need to still give it time. Its been in fermenter for 7 days.

I've brewed stouts that were mediocre, that when I left them on the shelf, were really good 6 months later. Probably the Vanilla would fade though, so you may want to age the stout for 6 months, then add the vanilla.

 

[m00ps]

nothing is going to taste good at 7 days. Especially a stout. Just give it time.

Im more surprised by the fact that youve got a logo and a barrel aging program and still dont have the patience to let things ferment out...

 

[pvpeacock]

I made a coffee stout that was way too bitter coffee-wise when I first put it in the keg. I let it sit for a year and it mellowed quite a bit and tasted great. Give it some time.

 

[redwing_al]

nothing is going to taste good at 7 days. Especially a stout. Just give it time.

Im more surprised by the fact that youve got a logo and a barrel aging program and still dont have the patience to let things ferment out...

I have a logo because I took the time to make one up. I have a "barell aging program" because I took the time to go out an buy one. I am not an expert brewer, I'm a home brewer. That's why I asked the dumb question. I'm surprised you took the time to reply since you seem to know it all.