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Graham Cracker Stout
So one of my closest friend and brewing competition. He was telling me that his next brew he wanted to make was a graham cracker stout. This is in honor of his new born boy named Graham. Shortly finding out that graham cracker is just a bunch of sugar he gave up on the idea. Since then I have been looking for Ideas to make this graham cracker stout. One to help him honor his son and two to show him up. So I am looking for some Ideas to make this. I have found Graham Flour in the grocery store and am just looking for an Idea. I wanted to know if it really can be done with that same kind of flavor of Graham crackers or just something similar. Any Ideas?
Graham crackers are not just a bunch of sugar. Besides what do you think you are doing when you brew, adding a lot of sugars!
I still think graham crackers in the mash is the way to go. They have sugar in them, so what, they taste like graham crackers. Graham flour does not taste like that. The crackers are seasoned with other stuff to make them taste the way they do. They have things like cinnamon, vanilla, butter, molasses and brown sugar.
Look here is a recipe for homemade graham crackers. Note that the sugar is a pretty low component of the total recipe.
Alton Brown Graham Cracker Recipe
With the Graham flour simply being a slightly courser whole wheat flour, I would guess there to be no flavor addition from that. And of course, the brown in brown sugar is typically molasses, still there because the sugar refining process was intentionally not completed. So from a flavoring standpoint, we are looking at molasses and vanilla. The trick will be to have a beer with enough flavoring from the molasses and vanilla to be precipitable, and yet still have enough body and flavor from the base malts to make a good beer without blowing away the flavor you are trying to hold on to. Wow. Tough to balance.
This sounds interesting. My daughter is always coming over in the summer wanting to make SomeMores, and usually leaves a couple boxes of graham crackers.
I never know what to do with them, so I end up feeding them to the chickens.
So, I'm thinking that I would just crush them up, and add to the mash, but not plan on really getting a lot of fermentables out of them. Maybe do a recipe for around 1.045 or so, & see what I end up with.
Maybe check the total calories, and subtract the "calories from fat" to get some clue on the starch/sugar in them.
Crabnut wrote:
...And of course, the brown in brown sugar is typically molasses, still there because the sugar refining process was intentionally not completed. ...
Thats where brown sugar originally came from. In today's super industrialized profit driven world that is not always the case. Its actually cheaper to completely refine the sugar to white table sugar, then add molasses back to it to create brown sugar. And the two do not taste the same. Does it matter as a beer brewer which you use... probably not. I just point it out because I hate that many food products are not what we think they are.
Lot more to this recipe than I thought, but here is a rough initial attempt. Lots of suggestions would help here to help this go in the direction intended and to keep it in the "BKB style."
Graham Cracker Nut Brown (or Stout...)
Batch Size (Gallons): 6.5
Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.012
IBU: 19.4
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Color: 15 SRM
1 Box (14 oz) Crushed Graham Crackers
9 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US
1 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
1 lb Oats, Flaked
1/2 lb Munich Dark
1/2 lb Victory Malt
1/4 lb Chocolate Malt
Mash at 154 degrees
2 Tbs Molasses - (disolve in prior to boil)
3/4 oz Fuggles (60 min) 11.7 IBU
1.00 oz Goldings (15 min) 7.6 IBU
1/2 teas Cinnamon (5 min)
1/2 teas Vanilla (0 min)
Couldn't figure out how to calculate in the addition of the Graham Crackers, so they are not really accounted for in the gravities or color. It is already way out of style for a nut brown with the IBUs at 18, though a bit close for a Stout. But I am a bit worried that the hops will still be a little strong and mask the intended flavors. How about your thoughts on a yeast. I was looking at S-05 or possibly Nottingham .
Tweaks-
Molasses, vanilla, & cinnamon at 10 min- that way the flavor won't boil off
Yeast - Nottingham or Safale 04, the 05 has a bit sharper flavor
I'm thinking this would lend itself more to the Southern English Brown, than the Northern
IBU for Southern is 12 - 20, so, yeah, drop the hops to, maybe, 15 or 16, letting the graham cracker come through.
BTW, I tried Boulevard's new prototype Chocolate Ale, with a lot of chocolate flavor, minimal hops.
My daughter's boy works part-time in the specialty bottling area, and brings home overruns, mislabels, etc.
Pretty good.
Now we just need a Marshmellow brew & we can make beer Somemores 
Marshmallow beer? now you got me wanting to make that.... wonder if I could make a mini batch of it just to see what it tastes like.... and use regular marshmallows or the whipped stuff in the jar?
How about roadkill stout. LOL. whatever you find o nthe side of the road on the way home from work goes into the boil!
LOL.
DC
If we could get 3 different gravity on a chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker beer we could layer them in a glass.
Jatwolf wrote:
If we could get 3 different gravity on a chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker beer we could layer them in a glass.
Damn thats an interesting idea.
Regarding the recipe I'd leave out the vanilla molasses and stuff at first. Just use the whole box of graham crackers in the mash and see where that gets you for flavor. The vanilla, molasses and such could always be added later in the keg or secondary to taste. I am a proponent of stepping up towards the ideal recipe and not trying to get there in one attempt. I'd like to know how the graham crackers alone drive the flavor first.
But otherwise I think the malt boll looks good.
Ok myth-busters. Marshmallows consist of corn syrup, sugar, egg white, and gelatin. A beer made from those ingredients, basically sugar with a bit of fining agent thrown in? Assuming you could get the yeast to live long enough to eat the sugar, there wouldn't be anything left for taste and color. I realized we were pushing the envelope on the graham cracker stout. Yes. I was the one who tried to put together a recipe, and it may even work out to taste a bit like a graham cracker. But I am not in a hurry to brew it. And a marshmallow beer. Not likely (shakes his head sadly).
Crabnut wrote:
Ok myth-busters. Marshmallows consist of corn syrup, sugar, egg white, and gelatin. A beer made from those ingredients, basically sugar with a bit of fining agent thrown in? Assuming you could get the yeast to live long enough to eat the sugar, there wouldn't be anything left for taste and color. I realized we were pushing the envelope on the graham cracker stout. Yes. I was the one who tried to put together a recipe, and it may even work out to taste a bit like a graham cracker. But I am not in a hurry to brew it. And a marshmallow beer. Not likely (shakes his head sadly).
So im brain storming on this idea as well. Im not sure what others think about using flavors over natural ingredients (i myself am against it). But they make a Whip cream Vodka and im sure that's nothing but flavoring. So how hard would it be to find a marshmallow flavor. If this idea is achievement then we just need to find make a beer with 3 different gravities, and try to get them to quickly separate in a glass after a pour.
I am feeling kinda crazy but never hurts to try. Right?
Even though this is disgusting...I'll post it anyway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshmallow_creme
so this is something i found that goes along with all of this.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/9629/46332
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