Stout Brewing Questions

[b_rak]

I am going to attempt to brew a chocolate peanut stout this week. I found a recipe with very limited directions. I was looking up the steeping time for stouts and have found many recipes that range of 150-158 degrees which seems to be pretty consistent but the times have ranged from 20 min to 60 min.

The link to the recipe is below.

My plan was to boil 2.5 gallons of water, steep all of the grains for X number of minutes. Add the LME and return to a boil then add the remaining ingredients at the designated times in the recipe.

If anyone feels this path forward is incorrect please let me know and also if anyone has any suggestions about steeping time for the grains as well.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/extract-peanut-butter-stout-229770/

Thank you

Brian

 

[freisste]

I am going to attempt to brew a chocolate peanut stout this week. I found a recipe with very limited directions. I was looking up the steeping time for stouts and have found many recipes that range of 150-158 degrees which seems to be pretty consistent but the times have ranged from 20 min to 60 min.

The link to the recipe is below.

My plan was to boil 2.5 gallons of water, steep all of the grains for X number of minutes. Add the LME and return to a boil then add the remaining ingredients at the designated times in the recipe.

If anyone feels this path forward is incorrect please let me know and also if anyone has any suggestions about steeping time for the grains as well.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/extract-peanut-butter-stout-229770/

Thank you

Brian

Since you are steeping, the time and temp aren't particularly critical. If you want to practice mashing (which you will need to do if you go AG - it's not hard, just more involved) you could hold it at a specific temp for an hour. If you want to save time and effort, throw all your grains in a muslin sack, put it into your pot, and turn on the heat. When it gets to maybe 175, take the grains out and rinse them with a bit of water, then discard. When it gets to a boil, start your timer and add your additions. Personally, I would add some of your LME (maybe 1/4-1/3) and save the rest for flameout or maybe 5 min remaining. You can add it all in the beginning, but that will increase darkening (not an issue on this brew, but could be an issue on future, lighter brews) and may increase the "extract twang" taste.

Edit: is this a 2.5 gallon brew? I didn't see the volume in the recipe.

 

[wfowlks]

First thing is you boil after you steep the gains. I would steep the gains for 45 min at 158F. Then boil

 

[freisste]

First thing is you boil after you steep the gains. I would steep the gains for 45 min at 158F. Then boil

Good call. I didn't catch that in OP's description.

DO NOT boil grains.

 

[BigFloyd]

With steeping, you can actually add the grains (in the muslin sack) into the water as you begin to heat it.

Let it get to around 158-160*F then turn the heat off and cover it with a lid. Wait 30 minutes. Remove the bag and sparge it in some sort of strainer over the pot with some 165*F water.

 

[twistr25]

I would even recommend adding all or most of your LME at flameout as opposed to the beginning of your boil. IME, it turns out a little bit better.

 

[b_rak]

Thanks everyone for pointing out my mistake. Yes, i did mean to say that I will bring my 2.5 gallons of water to 158 degrees, steep then boil. After the boil and addition of all of my materials, i will add the remaining 2.5 gallons of water as i chill the wort to 71 degrees before yeast.

 

[BigFloyd]

Thanks everyone for pointing out my mistake. Yes, i did mean to say that I will bring my 2.5 gallons of water to 158 degrees, steep then boil. After the boil and addition of all of my materials, i will add the remaining 2.5 gallons of water as i chill the wort to 71 degrees before yeast.

Assuming that you are using an ale yeast of the sort normally used in a stout, try to get your wort chilled to around 62*F before pitching. Let it come up to around 63-64*F (beer temp, not air) to begin fermenting and hold it there the first 4-5 days.

 

[Queequeg]

(Sorry replied to the wrong thread, but can't seem to delete this post)
Edit: used this space to make a relevant post

Out of interest what speciality grains are you using? I want to do a stout before christmas, most call for roast barley but all I seem to find in the UK is roasted black barley with a SRM above 600.

Just for comparison here is the stout recipe I have been working on earlier tonight. I have adapted it from Bill.S' LH milk stout clone Beersmith all grain recipe (using beersmith). It has been adjusted to partial mash and for my batch & boiler sizes. Its also on batch sparge, I swapped out American 2 row for Pilsner malt (actually bohemian pilsner, so I upped SRM)

I made changes to Bill. S' specific gravity, IBU and SRM to match LH's offical ABV, IBU and SRM.

Amber ale extract is a subistute for Briess Munich malt extract and I have changed the SRM's of some of the grains to match the grains avalible to me, such as the chocolate and roasted malt, although this want account for fermentable sugar content or flavour differences I can only use what I can get.

Here is the recipe with Bill.S' original for comparison. My changes are rev 2

I am also contemplating putting some high% coco solid coco powder in at flameout as well, since LH describe the ingrediants as chocolate as opposed to chocolate malt, but list everything else as malt.

Edit: for some reason BS2 wants to upload the wrong attachment. Below in the actually what I intended.

 

[BigFloyd]

(Sorry replied to the wrong thread, but can't seem to delete this post)
Edit: used this space to make a relevant post

Out of interest what speciality grains are you using? I want to do a stout before christmas, most call for roast barley but all I seem to find in the UK is roasted black barley with a SRM above 600.

Just for comparison here is the stout recipe I have been working on earlier tonight. I have adapted it from Bill.S' LH milk stout clone Beersmith all grain recipe (using beersmith). It has been adjusted to partial mash and for my batch & boiler sizes. Its also on batch sparge, I swapped out American 2 row for Pilsner malt (actually bohemian pilsner, so I upped SRM)

I made changes to Bill. S' specific gravity, IBU and SRM to match LH's offical ABV, IBU and SRM.

Amber ale extract is a subistute for Briess Munich malt extract and I have changed the SRM's of some of the grains to match the grains avalible to me, such as the chocolate and roasted malt, although this want account for fermentable sugar content or flavour differences I can only use what I can get.

Here is the recipe with Bill.S' original for comparison. My changes are rev 2

I am also contemplating putting some high% coco solid coco powder in at flameout as well, since LH describe the ingrediants as chocolate as opposed to chocolate malt, but list everything else as malt.

If you're going to add cocoa powder (which I have done and it turned out nicely), mix it dry with twice as much lactose (to balance the bitterness), blend in some warm water to make a slurry and add it at 10 min.

 

[Queequeg]

Thanks for the tip Bigfloyd, how much cocoa would you put in a 6US gallon batch? I just want to enhance the chocolate flavours as opposed to make it the center of attention.

O.K here is the recipe in plain text as BS2 seems to upload the wrong file

1 lbs 10.4 oz Bohemian Pilsner (3.5 SRM) Grain
15.2 oz Black Barley (Stout) (650.0 SRM) Grain
11.4 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -(70.0 SRM) Grain
11.4 oz Chocolate Malt (550.0 SRM) Grain
7.5 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain
7.5 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain
4 lbs 0.7 oz Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract
11.1 oz Briess Munich Malt extract (12.5 SRM) Extract
0.72 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop
1.44 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop
1 lbs 1.5 oz Milk Sugar (Lactose) [Boil for 10 min](0.0 SRM) Sugar
1.2 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast

 

[BigFloyd]

I added 8oz of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder in a 5.25 gallon batch. You can taste the chocolate, but it's not overpowering.

Looking at your recipe, it seems like you have a pretty large percentage of black barley and chocolate malt.

Here's the grain bill from my last batch (done in Feb):

8 lb United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale
1 lb Flaked Barley
12 oz United Kingdom - Chocolate
8 oz United Kingdom - Brown
6 oz United Kingdom - Roasted Barley
4 oz United Kingdom - Extra Dark Crystal 160L
1 lb Lactose (Milk Sugar)
8 oz unsweetened cocoa powder

Hops

1 oz East Kent Goldings 60 min 5.8 21.54 Pellet/Boil
0.5 oz Fuggles 60 min 4 7.43 Pellet/Boil

Also, may I suggest that you consider using S-04 instead of US-05 for this stout? Pitch and ferment at 64*F the first 4-5 days then let it slowly rise to 68*F to finish. Bottle conditioning is going to take about 3 months for this batch. Drinking it before then will be a waste of good brew.