Stout Recipe: Less coffee, more chocolate

[MrHadack]

Hi everyone,
I'm working on a stout recipe. I want it to have more milder chocolate notes than coffee / bitter roasted notes. I also had the idea to add some Belgian candi syrup at the end of the boil to give it some of those dark fruit notes found in a quad. This is the recipe I came up with and I'm looking for any feedback on it:

GRAIN:

• 14# American 2 Row
• 2# Crystal 60
• 8 oz Black Patent Malt **
• 8 oz Roasted Barley **
• 1# Chocolate Malt
• 1# D-180 Belgian Candi Surup

HOPS:
2oz Northern Brewer, 60 min
1oz Goldings, East Kent, 30 min
1oz Fuggles, 20 min
1oz Fuggles, 5 min

Yeast: WLP007 (Dry English Ale)

** Would swapping out either the black patent or the roasted barley for Carafa III help because it might be milder? I don't want to eliminate the roasted coffee like flavors, just tone them down in comparison to the milder and perhaps sweeter chocolate notes.

 

[buzzerj]

I'd ditch both the black malt and roasted barley if you don't want coffee flavors. Add 24 oz. Munich malt 10L and back off the chocolate malt to only 8 oz. I'd substitute the 2 row for a floor malted British Pale. I use a Warminster Floor-Malted Maris Otter.

 

[wolfman_48442]

I still haven't found a better base stout recipe than BierMuncher's Ode to Arthur.
If you want a dry stout, use WLP007, it'll pull any sweetness out.
If you want something a little sweeter, use WLP004.
If you want really sweet, ditch any acid malt and add some lactose.
If you want less bite in your dark grains, add them at vorlauf, or cold steep them the night before and add that to the end of the boil.

My favorite iteration of Ode to Arthur used WLP004, dark grains at vorlauf, and I pressure fermented it in a corny at 7psi until it was done.
It was amazing, and had so many more subtle tones of caramel, toffee, chocolate and espresso, with no bitterness than when I fermented normally.

p.s. A stout without roasted barley is a porter.

 

[kingwood-kid]

I'd drop the total amount of roasted barley and black patent, probably by about half. you can drop one or the other or a little of each. If you can find pale chocolate malt or chocolate rye, use it in place of some or all of the chocolate malt.