Stout with brown sugar?

[K10]

Hoping to brew a batch of coopers stout this weekend. Just wondering if using 500g of brown sugar along with 500g of dark DME will turn out alright. Anybody use brown sugar in their stouts? If so, how does it turn out?

 

[lowtones84]

I definitely wouldn't use the same amount of brown sugar as you do DME if you want a "traditional" tasting beer. A smaller amount, however can certainly be nice in my opinion. Charlie Papazian recommends 5-10% brown sugar of the total weight of your fermentable sugar and I haven't been disappointed in the couple of dark beers I've used it in.

Cheers!

 

[K10]

Perhaps if I tried 500g DME with 250g brown sugar and 250g dextrose. I usually like to avoid dextrose altogether but DME is expensive around here.

 

[lowtones84]

First of all, how big of a batch size are you planning? Second of all, I still wouldn't use a 50/50 split of DME and any kind of sugar really. I'm not saying it's not doable, but I really wouldn't expect it to taste like a stout that you're used to, or even beer that you're used to in general.

Have you looked into partial mash methods? Try a search for "easy partial mash" method or something like that and look for a thread started by Deathbrewer. If you have the equipment necessary for that, or only need to buy a large bag for grains, it's well worth it and cheaper than buying a bunch of DME.

 

[Darkshadows16]

I recently started an imperial stout using brown sugar. I made some modifications to the midwest imperial stout recipe. I did a partial boil due to using an older electric stove and less than ideal sized brew kettle. Using brewtarget to plan this out, my recipe was this:

2 gal filtered water for boil
steeped:
8 oz chocolate malt
8 oz roasted barley
4 oz caramel 120L
boil:
6 lbs dark liquid extract
1 lbs dark brown sugar
1 oz Glacier @75 min (would have been another oz of northern brewer if i had bothered to double check what hops i was going to use before ordering)
3 oz Norther brewer @75 min
1 tsp Irish moss @15 min
5 tsp yeast nutrient @15 min
2 oz Willamette @2 min
late addition:
6 lbs amber liquid extract
1 lbs dark brown sugar

Once i was sure that the late additions were completely dissolved and mixed in i topped up to 5 gal in my primary with semi frozen filtered water which also brought everything down to (slightly high) pitching temp for me. I came out with an og of 1.113 (right on the head for brewtarget) and pitched a well rehydrated packet of safale s-04 and hoped that the sugar wouldn't just over power the yeast or something. It smelled awesome, somewhat like a caramel espresso or something like that. I drank the hydro sample and considered licking the brew kettle, but i had other places to be that night (11/20) so had to skip that.

By the next morning i heard a strange whistling coming from the closet. When i looked in i found the airlock whistling and spraying foam out with the lid of the alepail bowed out. I quickly fit it with a blowoff tube and my closet sounded like i was boiling water in there for the next 16 hours before it slowed enough to put the airlock back on. By the end of the 2nd day all airlock activity had stopped (which means nothing really i know).

I plan to check the sg this saturday and transfer to secondary while pitching the champagne yeast (as instructed by the origional midwest kit "to reach a drinkable attenuation"), and i'll definately be tasting it then to see how it's coming. Og 1.113, expected Fg 1.028, 11 abv, 50 ibu, 42.7 srm if all goes as planned.

 

[jmprdood]

K10:

I've brewed several stouts with small additions of brown sugar - never more than a pound and had good results.

Cheers!

 

[K10]

I settled on brewing a muntons mountmellick Irish stout with 1kg kit enhancer and 250g of chocolate grains steeped.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Stouts tend to have a thicker mouthfeel. Brown sugar, which is table sugar covered in molasses, will thin out your beer. If you are trying to get that brown sugar flavor without thinning out your beer, just add a small amount of molasses.