Stout/porter recipe critique and suggestions?

[Pyg]

I am looking for a coconut-stout/porter recipe to drink all winter. I have 2 recipes that I am going to tweak, just can figure out which is better.
1st - going to sub fuggle for hop addition (rather an earthy hop than floral -citrus of EKG)
2nd hop addition at 60 & flame out (1.5 oz and .5, respectively)
3- reduce lactose to 1/2# (never had good results brewing with lactose)
4- flakes barely or flakes oats?
5- Yeast? British ale yeast? Notty?

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Recipe 1
7# Maris Otter Malt
1# Flaked Barely
12 OZ Caramel 80L
8 Oz Carafa Type II
8 Oz Chocolare Malt
1# Lactose (boil)

4 Oz Cocoa nibs (secondary)
1# Toasted Coconut (Secondary)
1 Oz East Kent Golding (60 min)
Yeast- British ale yeast, (Nottingham)


Recipe 2
MALTS
5.5 lb. Maris Otter malt
2 lb. Munich malt 10° L
1 lb. flaked oats
1 lb. crystal malt 120° L
8 oz. chocolate malt 350° L
HOPS
1 oz. East Kent Goldings @ 60 min
0.5 oz. East Kent Goldings @ 20 min
0.5 oz. East Kent Goldings @ 5 min

YEAST
White Labs WLP005 British Ale Yeast
ADDITIONAL ITEMS
1 lb. unsweetened organic coconut (secondary)
2 oz. cacao nibs (Secondary)
1 Madagascar vanilla bean

 

[magno]

Personally, I like the looks of the second recipe better. They both look like porters to me, as opposed to stouts. IMHO a stout should have some roasted barley, and porters get their color from darker crystal, etc.

The cacao nibs with vanilla bean combo has been a proven favorite of mine.

I prefer less aroma hops in my darker beers, and would probably adjust the last two hops additions to 30 min and 15 (possibly 10) min.

If it were me, I would probably use Windsor yeast, but the WLP005 is a suitable choice as well.

Lastly, I have not been a huge fan of the super-dark crystal malts, and would consider perhaps 80L.

This is all just my $0.02, YMMV. They both look like fairly reasonable porter recipes.

 

[mattdee1]

I also like recipe 2 a lot more, as written. If it were me though, I'd tweak as follows:

- ditch the Munich and replace with more MO; I don't see what the former brings to the table in this recipe
- 10% of 120L crystal is a lot; I'd cut that in half and replace with brown malt for some more chocolatey complexity
- bittering hops only, to target IBU
- Chico yeast (personal preference)

 

[Pyg]

I also like recipe 2 a lot more, as written. If it were me though, I'd tweak as follows:

- ditch the Munich and replace with more MO; I don't see what the former brings to the table in this recipe
- 10% of 120L crystal is a lot; I'd cut that in half and replace with brown malt for some more chocolatey complexity
- bittering hops only, to target IBU
- Chico yeast (personal preference)

I like your proposed tweaks.
Couple of noob questions:
Is there a specific Brown malt? Is that special B? And how much 8 oz?

What is Chico yeast?

 

[bradleypariah]

What is Chico yeast?

Wyeast 1056, WLP001, US-05, and BRY-97 are in the Chico family.

This web page explains it pretty well:
https://theapthomebrewer.com/2016/0...native-yeast-strains-to-the-chico-ale-strain/

 

[kevin58]

As stated recipe 2 looks best. If you want a more traditional take on the recipe lose or greatly reduce the crystal. Using chocolate or black in small amounts is OK. I assume you are using those to get the desired color.

In the 1800's brewers often used something called caramel for coloring. Not to be confused with caramel malt or sugar. It was used exclusively to color their beers and added no flavor and not OG points. Difficult to get but not impossible. (I just placed an order for some from the UK)

The other option for making your beer darker is to use what UK brewers called "invert sugar". Much more difficult to get but easy to make. To get stout or porter colors you would want Invert #3 or #4 which are the darkest of the invert sugars. I've made invert #3 and used it in a milk stout and really like it. It just takes a LONG time to get the darker color.

The Goldings hops is 100% authentic for traditional stouts and porters. I wouldn't change that one bit.

If you have an interest in authentic recipes and the history of this type of beer visit: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/

Good luck!

 

[65C]

I know very little, but 2 looks much better than 1, in fact I might even try 2 without the coconut as it looks like a nice porter - fairly close to one I regularly brew - I've been wondering why I put Munich in, but there is some validation there

 

[Pyg]

I think I have nailed down a recipe that I am going to give a go:

9# maris otter
2# flaked Barley
1# roasted Barley
.75 # Chocolate
.5 Crystal 60

2 oz fuggles (60 min)
1 # toasted coconut (secondary)
2 oz coca nibs
1 vanilla bean

yeast- Imperial A10 The darkness

I will let you know how it turns out

 

[Pyg]

2 things I learned from this brew
1- will never use coconut gain. Left oily layer over beer & carboy
2-cocoa nibs add a dry chocolate flavor, next time will use lactose or something to add sweetness

Otherwise it tasted like a dark-chocolatey stout