Successful Peanut Butter Stout

[reed1911]

Not real sure what is going on with it. I have pretty tolerant taste buds and can drink just about anything. I'll try to brett and see what develops and go from there, Maybe some funk will make it drinkable.

 

[Kmcogar]

I brewed a peanut butter porter months ago. Actually late last summer. It took 2nd place in the specialty beer category. It had decent head then dissipated a little after. I was surprised how well it turned out. I added the peanut butter extract to the secondary for a week. The peanut butter flavor was there but not extremely strong. It had a great peanut butter scent though. I've been away for the last 8 months now. I have a couple bottles sitting at home. I can't wait to see how they taste now. 2 more days!

 

[Wine2Beer]

OK, so I finally tried this recipe from the OP on the first page. I gave it a taste on bottling day, and was a little worried about how weird it tasted, and hoped that it would improve with carbonation and some time. Today was two weeks later, and it needs a little more time to bottle carb some more, but the taste is very good. It is still pretty weird, hey, it's peanut butter flavored beer for cryin' out loud, but it tastes good and I think will only get better in a few more weeks. Very glad that I gave this a try.

Looking forward to sharing this with my brother, who loves him some peanut butter...

 

[reed1911]

So I emptied 8 bottles and added some brett to the mix to see if I could clear that odd taste. Turns out it formed a pellicle. seems my brew was infected hence the taste. Brett won't make the pellicle but pedio will I'll let her ride and see what brews.

 

[TheCorporation]

I judged Specialty beers at the San Diego fair last year and we had a Penut butter stout win the category. I judged it with a brewer at Coronado brewing company, he said he thinks the best way to get a good penut butter taste is to use penut butter captain crunch cereal in the mash.

You guys/girls finally got me to register, I've been lurking for years and stumbled on this post! I actually brewed the stout Bsquared is talking about with a friend. I provided the recipe, he chose the yeast and cereal and we brewed it on his equipment. Felt pretty awesome to snag that blue ribbon at the fair!

Recipe below:

5 gallons All Grain

Grain
17 lbs 2-row
12 oz US Chocolate
10 oz Roasted barley
8 oz Black Malt
1 lb Crystal 80
8 oz Victory

Hops
2 oz Clusters 7.6% @ 60 min
.5 oz Centennial 10.3% @ 45 min
.5 oz Northern brewer 9.6% @ 45 min
1 oz Liberty 4.3% @ 2 min

Yeast used was WLP022 Essex Ale (Platinum Strain)

I didn't keep very good notes on the mash temp but I believe it was 149-150 for 60 mins and I believe the boil was 60 min.

After 14 days in the primary it was racked to secondary and an entire box of peanut butter toast crunch was added and left to sit for 5 days. After sampling the beer we weren't happy with the peanut butter flavor so we added an entire box of Reeses peanut butter cup cereal for another 5 days which did the trick.

The funny thing is that I've had people taste this beer and tell me they get absolutely no peanut butter flavor from it while others love it and can definitely taste it.

I brewed it again this weekend but added 2 lbs of flaked oats and I used WLP001 CA Ale yeast since Essex isn't available. I'll post how it came out in a month or so when it's ready.

 

[Bsquared]

TheCorporation,

Glad to hear you had success with this strategy! I've been wanting to try it for a long time now, but I'm working on a few other recipes and have not had a chance to try it. I might have to try and move this one it to the rotation sooner than later.

 

[TheCorporation]

I got the idea from Alex Tweet at Modern Times formerly of Ballast Point, the guy who did the Victory at Cereal with Captain Crunch. Picked his brain about the process and went for it.

Funny thing is that I found out about Coronado doing their peanut butter stout from one of their reps. He was talking about it to someone at Stone and I overheard so I introduced myself and told him about my beer. I didn't realize that one of the guys from Coronado actually judged my beer, pretty damn cool. Hopefully it was an inspiration for theirs which sadly I never got to try.

 

[Bsquared]

I have to tell you, that was an awesome beer, I did not judge it, but got to taste it after the mini best of show. The brewer from coronado is Ryan, he judges a lot of home brew contests and is a really cool guy, and brews at there Knoxville location. Modern times is doing some awesome stuff, really excited to see what comes out of there brewery in the next few years. Exciting times here in SD.

 

[sfrisby]

TheCorp,

Any attempt to sanitize the cereal? Not sure how you would do that without turning it into mush. Maybe bake in the oven, low and slow.

 

[TheCorporation]

TheCorp,

Any attempt to sanitize the cereal? Not sure how you would do that without turning it into mush. Maybe bake in the oven, low and slow.

No, I didn't bother with trying to sanitize it all though I'd imagine that the vodka would taste delicious since all the sugar (if that's really what it is) would dissolve into it rather quickly. Problem is that you'd need a lot of vodka to sanitize an entire box of cereal.

You would also be surprised about your assumption that it would turn to mush, it likely would survive a just fine with a good vodka soak. After 5-7 days in the secondary and a serious cold crash the round puffs still had their shape and were floating at the top of the beer. Kinda makes you wonder WTF we put in our bodies as kids. I'm convinced that the stuff is 100% man made and no kind of infection would waste it's time on it, it's likely sterile inside the box or close to it.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

TheCorp,

Any attempt to sanitize the cereal? Not sure how you would do that without turning it into mush. Maybe bake in the oven, low and slow.

Shelve stable groceries do not need to be sanitized.
They have enough preservatives to end the world!!

Plus, from what I understand, anything with that little moisture content cannot really carry bugs/infections.

 

[Warrior]

Great thread! I'm resaerching ideas for making a Peanut butter stout and your cereal idea sounds great. I think I might try crushing the Reese's P.B. cereal in a blender and then using the randall to infuse the cereal from one keg to another. Will try this recipe sometime in the next several weeks. Thanks for an intriging idea!

 

[TheCorporation]

Not sure if crushing it is a good idea, you may end up with a lot of particles in the beer. Yesterday I took about a cup of the cereal and put it in my French press with two bottles of Narwhal and let it sit for a few hours. It was a pretty good approximation of what the beer tasted like and it showed me that maybe 5 days on the cereal is unnecessary.

Edit: Also, the flavor is all on the outside of the cereal, I don't think the puffs themselves have much flavor. I could be wrong though.

Double edit: I just rinsed one off and tasted it, it was horrible. Definitely don't crush them, the flavor is all on the outside.

 

[Warrior]

Thanks for the info, I'll try one keg with the randall full of the whole cereal and see how it tastes. With the randall, I think it'll strip the coating off without hopefully disintigrating the puff. I'll make sure to use a low pressure when forcing it from the 1st to the 2nd keg. This is done naturally before carbing the beer.

 

[reed1911]

So a quick update on my PBS, after infecting it with brett and letting it sit for a couple of months it has both gotten rid of the chemical taste and added a very nice slight sour background. I only did a 1gal infection and I'll re-taste the bottles, but it looks like I'll infect the remainder of the batch and re-bottle once the brett has done the work. Glad to know I can save this batch rather than pour it down the drain.

 

[VarganStober]

I brewed this a couple of weeks ago and had a taste last night after one week of bottle conditioning. The beer came out great and there is a prominent peanut butter flavor and aroma. I followed the recipe included in the original post, so cheers and thanks for sharing.

 

[PGHcableguy]

Thoughts on adding Lactose and/or also Cocao Nibs?

 

[MatchstickBrewingCo.]

I was at GABF this year and drank a peanut butter brown ale. I started with the Northern Brewer Clone kit for Surly Bender and did the same thing you did with the PB2 and Lorann Oil and it turned out exceptional.

Interesting that we both wound up with the same process, there might be something to this....

JLo, did you add the same amount of PB2 and Peanut Butter Oil and at the same times (secondary for 7 days and oil at bottling) as BDS3?

A Surly Peanut Butter Brown sounds delicious so I just wanted to make sure I'm doing everything right on this one.

Cheers!

 

[jpeebs]

commenting to save this to my "to-brew" list.

 

[mhandransmith]

This sounds nice...

 

[rawdanny]

Any way to get a grape or strawberry jelly flavor??

 

[sfrisby]

Van gough pj and j flavored vodka?

 

[rawdanny]

im not sure, maybe just some grape extract in the secondary?

 

[SupervisingChildren]

I did a peanut butter porter and mixed it in a glass with a strawberry blonde. Tasted pretty good, bur my pb porter was weak on the pb as I only did pb2 and not the extract too

 

[PGHcableguy]

Brewed something close to the original recipe last night but got crazy and added 1/2 box of Captain Crunch peanut butter cereal to the grains while steeping. I also added 4oz of Lactose and a pound of Dark DME and 6 pounds of dark LME. I was going to add 8oz of lactose but I do not know if the cereal is going to add to the sweetness so I cut it back. Going to let it rest a week or two then take some readings. I will rack it over the 16oz of PB2 in the carboy for the secondary.
Also my wife was in Lancaster for a meeting so I sent her with a growler to get a refill of the Spring House Big Grusome. It does taste like a liquid peanut butter cup:rockin:

 

[bds3]

Brewed something close to the original recipe last night but got crazy and added 1/2 box of Captain Crunch peanut butter cereal to the grains while steeping. I also added 4oz of Lactose and a pound of Dark DME and 6 pounds of dark LME. I was going to add 8oz of lactose but I do not know if the cereal is going to add to the sweetness so I cut it back. Going to let it rest a week or two then take some readings. I will rack it over the 16oz of PB2 in the carboy for the secondary.
Also my wife was in Lancaster for a meeting so I sent her with a growler to get a refill of the Spring House Big Grusome. It does taste like a liquid peanut butter cup:rockin:

I'm interested to hear how this turns out. I've considered adding a little lactose to this the next time I brew, and I've been curious about how the addition of cereal might change things as well. Please keep us posted.

 

[PGHcableguy]

My PB Stout is all done. I am calling this one Captain P.B. Stout. I used the original receipe posted , but put my own twist on it.

Steep
8 oz chocolate malt
8 oz roasted barley
4 oz flaked barley
4 oz crystal 40L
half box Capt. Crunch PB cereal

Boil
1 oz nugget hops 60 min
6 lbs dark liquid extract
1 lb dark DME
4oz Lactose
Safale 05

Ferment
1 week in primary,
rack onto 2 6.5-oz jars of PB2 for ten days in carboy
after the first 5 days add 4oz. cocao nibs for last 5 days

OG was 1.062
FG was 1.020 (was 1.020 after primary and did not move at all in secondary)

I sampled it before going into a keg and man was the PB flavor over powering. I was worried, but now after being in the keg for a few days it has mellowed alittle. I only used 4oz of lactose because I did not know how much the cereal would sweeten it. I think next batch I will only add 1/4 box of Captain Crunch.

 

[Beersnob16]

Any pics??

 

[PGHcableguy]

Any pics??

Not of the process , but I can take one of the final product

 

[Beersnob16]

I would live to see a pint of this.