Pages: 1
Some suggestions for my Mocha Espresso Stout
Well, I have been drinking a lot of stouts lately and decided to brew my first. I have brewed 5 or 6 batches so far, and all have come out pretty darn tasty. I want to take my time with this stout and perfect the recipe, seeing as it will be in the primary and secondary for a long time. Here is my recipe so far, for a 5 gallon extract batch:
5 lbs liquid dark extract
3 lbs amber liquid extract
1 lb. chocolate malt
.5lb Cara-Pils
.5lb Crystal 60L
1/3 lb Honey Malt
1/4 lb. Black patent malt
1/3 lb. roasted barley
1/3 lb molasses
1 oz. Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes
.5 oz Cascade @ 12 minutes
.5 oz Cascade @ 5 minutes
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 minutes
18 oz liquid espresso added at to secondary
1 entire chocolate bar broken into pieces and added to secondary
this is only my second recipe I have created, so please let me know if something is off! Thanks a ton, I will let you know how it goes.
I would back off the 18 oz of espresso and not use a chocolate bar over 8 oz. First, try 6-8 oz of espresso. That might be plenty powerful and you don't want to get overwhelmed. If it turns out underpowered, you can always add more, but if the batch is hardcore, now you have 5 gallons to suck down. 18 oz seems overkill to me.
How big of a chocolate bar? If you have 8 oz, that should be fine, any more, I wouldn't add it.
I just brewed a chocolate stout and used 24 oz in 10 gallons, which is a little more than called for, but the smell is pretty good so far.
Especially for things like chocolate, coffee, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, and things that are not commonly used, I would only use what the recipe calls for, or be very frugal about it. Some of them can be VERY overwhelming. I made my spruce beer last winter with 2 oz of essence for 10 gallons. The recipe called for 1 oz per 5 gallons and I found out that was plenty!
Go easy on the additions until you know how powerful they will be.
I agree with cubx about the espresso.. that stuff is stronger than you think. I made my coffee porter with 6 cups of coffee and it is plenty strong.. a little too strong if you ask me. If I did my porter again using brewed coffee I would limit it to 3 cups.
My suggestion would be to take out the dark malt extract and get your color from the 1lb of chocolate malt and black patent. If neccessary make it 1.5lbs of chocolate or bump up the other dark grains.
Also keep in mind that that much chocolate malt will add a slight coffee/choclate flavor on its own and you dont want to overdo it.
Good luck with the brew!
thanks a bunch guys..
about the espresso, I looked at several of the recipes on beer tools and some of them were upwards of 20 oz of espresso! I will, however, definetely back off the chocolate and espresso.
Also, would you suggest using cocoa powder instead of a chocolate bar?
Pages: 1
Search Home Brewing Knowledge Base
Custom Search
|