What Would You Do With It?

[rodwha]

I brewed up an oatmeal coffee stout back in Nov. I had gone to the hospital just after fermentation began and so SWMBO had to take care of the swamp cooler for me. Needless to say it wasn't watched as well, and the temps had gone into the low 70's. I instructed her to add additional frozen bottles, and obviously what happened was it REALLY dropped the temp as both batches in that tub stalled out.

I added a bit of brown sugar and gently stirred up the trub after allowing it to get to about 70* again, and it did begin to ferment, but refused to get any lower in gravity.

I gave it nearly 5 weeks and bottled it, and put them into boxes in case they exploded.

This was supposed to be 1.060/1.011, but came out 1.054 and stopped at 1.018.

These are overly sweet and have a strange taste that I believe is due to my going a little overboard with the oatmeal (used 2 1/4 lbs in 6 gal batch).

I've tried mixing it with commercial stouts (Deschutes and Sierra Nevada), but it just makes a good beer blah. I've been contemplating mixing it with a commercial beer and making strong coffee, cooling, and trying that too, but it just seems a bit weird.

I hate wasting stuff, but this is just a very poor beer. I don't see how time could smooth out the sweetness or what I think of as a bit too much oatmeal. Would you just dump it?

 

[Nightstrife]

I wouldn't dump,
Sounds like you got a experimental brew... Meaning you have room to mess around... If it were me I think I would do the coffee thing you suggested and try to bitter it up with the coffee. I think I would also try to mix with a good IPA or IIPA to balance the sweet that way.... Homebrew black and tans I think would be awesome

 

[BadBeagleBrew]

Plug your nose and let your liver deal with it, in the mean time get another batch brewing.

 

[Gar]

I've heard so many people saying dump on this forum it kind of weirds me out. bottles are pretty cheap i can understand if you live in a 200 sq ft apt but if you don't your options are massive hell the #2 and #3 post are good plans if you ask me. i've told people before to put all bad batches in a 15 gallon dimijon and put the souring bugs to it and let it sit for as long as you can. some will tell you this does not turn out well i'm here to tell you they are wrong ive got a sour thats better then 3 years old and there are alot of different styles in this beer and it is very good. age it experiment on it chug it or boxing it up and sending it to me(jk) all sounds like a hell of alot better then just dumping it and having no more options.

 

[rodwha]

I must admit to being a bit afraid of sours. I can't say I'd jump into it.

Moving, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of room to hang on to them. And plenty of bottles!

I do hate the idea of just wasting it. I doubt aging can help it any though. It does seem like trying more stuff might prove useful. Hadn't thought of a black n tan idea, and coffee seems like it may help with the sweetness. Guess I'll just have to try it, though it almost seems ridiculous to me.

I've certainly got more brewing! I have what I call a hard hoppy honey wheat. It's 5.9% and 30 IBU's, as well as what I call a strong dark hybrid that's 6.4%, 37 IBU's, and 38 SRMs. These will be our moving beers. No time to chill and drink them...

 

[rodwha]

What IPA/IIPA's would you consider a good tan to compliment the sweet "stout"? Considering how most IPA's are much more hop flavored than what I think of as bitter, my first thought was New Belgium's Rampant, but I'm not sure the flavors would go well.

 

[Nightstrife]

I think you would need something with a decently high ibu like Ballast Point's India Pale Lager called Fathom or their IIPA called Dorado, I would try a a couple of these types or something similar and if I found something I liked I would make a clone...

 

[sloanfamilydsm]

Plug your nose and let your liver deal with it, in the mean time get another batch brewing.

Words to live by brother....

Cheers

 

[Gar]

I would say use it in mixed drinks but we tried that with some coronas it didnt come out well

 

[rodwha]

I'm going to have to try strong coffee. It seems reasonable, and certainly ought to take that sweet bite off of it.

I bought some Black Butte to mix with it also.

 

[rodwha]

So 2 oz of coffee, my stout, and a Black Butte did the trick. Ahhh…

Glad I don't have to dump them! 6 gals is a lot of beer!

 

[Toga]

Cook with it. Will be great in stew or pot roast. The pot roast drippings with stout make awesome gravy :rockin:

 

[rodwha]

I have other crappy beer set aside for that. I tried doctoring up some just barely outdated Mr Beer kits that obviously weren't stored well.

 

[user 78027]

Cook with it. Will be great in stew or pot roast. The pot roast drippings with stout make awesome gravy

My vote. I mashed a English Brown too high and it wouldn't ferment so I just made a bunch of pulled beef. The gravy after it was cooked in the beef was very good, It wasn't very much beer, just the sweet wort.