Stout

[Kyle]

This is the one I had at the Jan 22nd meeting:

Mash @ 155F for 1 hour, sparge @168 for 15 minutes:
7oz Quick Oats
12oz Roasted Barley
12oz Chocolate Malt
1# Vienna
1# Wheat Malt
8# 2-row

75 minute boil:
6oz Brown Sugar @75 (or whenever)
2oz Challenger pellets (5.6% a/a) @65 min
Whirlfloc @15 min

Yeast:
US-05

Ferment 3 weeks in primary, keg, let carbonate over 1 week. Tastes best 5+ weeks from brew day. I really like this one, it will be my "house" recipe for stout, still experimenting to find my IPA one though.

[Richard]

what strike temps would that be for mash + sparge? my first AG the mash temp was fairly close to the one I calculated, but the sparge was waaaaaaaaaaaay off.

Also I vouch for this recipe's results... bloody excellent.

[Kyle]

Well, the strike temps are dependent on:

1. your system
2. the grain bill
3. the volume of water used

It is something you fine-tune over a few batches to zero in, but for my 10 US Gal Rubbermaid rectangular cooler generating 1 Corny keg (5US gal), generally:

3.5 US gal mash water, strike temp of 170F for mashing at 155
3.75 gal batch sparge water @ 190F

[Kyle]

the sparge was waaaaaaaaaaaay off.

For the sparge temp, you need to keep in mind that the grain is already heated

[Richard]

Aye I tried that (measured the temp of the grain to calculate). I think it must have dropped a fair bit in temperature by the time I'd gotten the water to the temperature I needed... curse you, dynamic system.

[Kyle]

I really enjoyed this but I am thinking of adding actual coffee to it. I have a nice, spicy espresso bean that I'd like in there.

So, what would you do: maybe 5 tablespoons of grounds in a french press, and then pour into kettle, or same amount of coffee, but put in the mash.

If I add coffee, should I scale back the bittering hops a bit?

Thanks

[Dave Savoie]

Kyle you should give Kiln coffee malt a try ive been reading that the coffee flavor is great from it

[Richard]

Good coffee shouldn't be *that* bitter, at least not enough to mess with the IBUs by more than the error margin in quality control (hop strength, utilisation, etc). The approach I used (that I got from Dave) is just make six cups, as strong as you can make them, and add them to the primary *after* fermentation.

I've had people ask when I'm going to make more of the "coffee beer", so it's clearly a good end result

[Gil Breau]

Good coffee shouldn't be *that* bitter, at least not enough to mess with the IBUs by more than the error margin in quality control (hop strength, utilisation, etc). The approach I used (that I got from Dave) is just make six cups, as strong as you can make them, and add them to the primary *after* fermentation.

I made sure to filter the coffee twice as well, just used a conical filter and ran it through. Read that it's supposed to help keep the oils from the coffee beans from getting into the wort.

[Richard]

Personally I'd shy away from removing the oils as they'd be the major contributor to any kind of fresh-coffee smell. Assuming your concern is head retention, I didn't have any issues.

Remember that you're adding in aromatic oils when you dryhop; the logic "oil is bad" doesn't quite follow...

[Gil Breau]

I read somewhere it counteracted something in the fermentation, but now the way you explain it, makes more sense...

I'm making round two of my Chocolate-Coffee stout next weekend, I'll keep that in mind

[Dave Savoie]

crush your coffee soak it in 1/4 cup of Vodka and make coffee Extract

[Richard]

Dave: Have you compared the results from that with the 6-cup filter/french press coffee approach? I'd have thought given the normal flavour profile from coffee was from water extraction, you might pull out some weird stuff with alcohol on straight raw coffee.

[Dave Savoie]

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/brewing-coffee-76826/

here is some info on different methods

I found with my coffee stout that something just wasnt right good but something missing I think that it had to do with the body that you mentioned and was wondering if the coffee effected the body in some way    

what if one used some of that very good instant coffee from starbucks

[Dave Savoie]

also its been suggested to use expresso beans as they are very bold and you would get that distint coffee flavor with out the acidty that a large amount of coffee gives