Good afternoon fellow brewers. I am fairly new to brewing, I have about 4 batches under my belt. However I never done a porter/stout style beer, I did came across some grains and I need some help coming up with a 3 gallon recipe.
9 pound of Maris Otter
1 pound of Dark Wheat Malt
1 pound of Chocolate Malt (350SRM)
1 pound of Crystal Malt (120SRM)
Thank you in advance
You could make that into a 3 gallon stout as-is, but it’ll be on the strong side. How much alcohol do you want in it? Is there a commercial stout that you want to match?
Hey thank you for your quick reply. I honestly like stouts strong in alcohol and creamy. Doing some search I came across a recipe similar to what i have , but it had roasted barley. I also found a bag of 1 pound lactose maybe I can add half a pound? to make it a sweet stout. What you recommend?
I personally would only add 1/2 lb of the lactose in a stout, especially without any roasted barley in it. The amount of malt you have in this recipe for a 3 gallon batch borders on making this an Imperial Stout. It’s going to be fairly strong if your efficiency is good.
Thank you for you input. I too was only thinking of using half a pound 15 min before end of boil. What whould be the different adding roasted barley? I understanding roasted barley its kind of a guideline to making a stouts , but which of my ingredients listed would roasted barley be taking place of? dark wheat maybe? only asking for future reference.
I’d probably cut the chocolate malt back to 8oz and add 8oz of the roasted barley. Some flaked oats would be nice in there, too, maybe another 8oz. You’re looking at an OG of around 1.100 with decent efficiency, so that’s pretty imperial. I’m not sure if I would want to add lactose to this - maybe mash on the high side, like 156-ish. That should leave quite a bit of residual sweetness and body. You could always boil some lactose in a bit of water and add it at bottling if you wanted to see how it ends up and adjust later.
Hey thabk you for your feedback. I wish i had some roasted barley or oak flakes, unfortunately I only have the ingredients listed above. I dont mind this stout being Imperial. I will fallow you guidence on mashing at high temp. I do want this to be thick as possible. Im still not sure about putting whole 1 pound of chocolate, dark wheat and crystal. Im afraid it will be to bitter or too sweet. Should I just use have of my grain bill except for my base malt?
What’s the SRM of your chocolate malt and the dark wheat? Dark wheat should be around 9, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about it. The pound of c120 might be a bit much, it’ll certainly give you some sweetness. I’d be tempted to cut that in half.
Edit - do you have any oatmeal? You can sub that for the flaked oats, same thing.
Yes dark wheat is 9. I dont have any flake oats. Unfortunately I only have instant oats in my house. I can always go to te store and get some real oats. Would oats be replacing any grains or just adding it to my grain bill. If I use oats, wouldnt this be considered an oat stout?
Instant/quick/rolled oats are all pretty much equivalent to flaked oats. I sub them pretty regularly. They are all basically pre-cooked and flattened, just to different degrees. But after an hour-long mash in the 150’s, they all work about the same. They just charge more for flaked oats in brewing stores. Just don’t go with something like steel-cut oats, as they are not pre-cooked.
It was just a suggestion, though, there’s absolutely no need to add them. I like to add a small amount to beers like this to help give them a thick, heavy mouthfeel. Doesn’t make it an oatmeal stout, it’s just an ingredient added to provide a certain element to the finished beer. I usually don’t worry about style categories, though. It’s all beer, and it’ll be awesome with or without. 
I totally get it. Beer will be always beer and I know from this recipe I can always make some changes in the future. 4oz of oats do you think will be okay? Should i toast them or just thrown them in my grain bill as is?
9#-Maris otter
1/2# crystal 120
1/2# chocolate malt
1/2# wheat malt
4-8oz of oats
Not sure if I will be using the lactose .
I wouldn’t worry about toasting them. If you were making an actual oatmeal stout where the oats were playing a prominent role, then it would be worth toasting them, but I don’t think it’s worth it here.
Looks good to me, but we’ll see what some of the other folks on the forum think. What are you using for hops and yeast?
Okay cool . Ill wait until sunday or so to brew. I will be putting 1oz 60min and .05 oz 30 min fuggle. WPL002 ENGLISH ALE YEAST
Good choice for the yeast. I think that’ll be a little low on IBU for an imperial stout - depending on alpha acids, it’ll only be in the ballpark of 25 IBU. For an imperial stout, the higher gravity will want higher IBUs. BJCP guidelines (take them for what they’re worth…) call for 50-90 IBU. Again, just my opinion.
I will get back to you on the hops. Not sure what alpha percentage . Once i find out Ill post it here
Okay got it. I have 2oz of fuggle hops (3-5% alpha)
Its actually the one they sell here at northernbrewer
UK FUGGLE HOPS SKU:HP74
Sorry for the delay in response to your questions, Porkchop has pretty much answered them already, and he has much much more experience and knowledge than I do. To specifically answer your questions about roasted barley, I think it adds an astringent dry bitterness to a stout. Chocolate malt can add some bitterness, but it’s smoother. I figured that without some roasted barley in your brew, the lactose would make it too sweet. I’d follow Porkchop’s suggestions of raising the mash temperature and forgoing the lactose.
Have any other hops? If you put all of those in at 60 minutes, it’ll only get you to 37IBU, assuming 4.5%AA. 1oz at 30 would be good, but that would require you to find something else for bittering. The good thing about the 60-minute addition is that it doesn’t contribute much flavor, so any higher AA type would be fine.
I will be getting another 1oz of the same hops so in total it will be 3oz. Maybe i can add 2oz at 60 min and 1oz at 30min.
Thank you for your feedback. I usually dont like dry finish but I will be incorporating some barley on my next batch. Since I only will be using halft of the amount of my grain bill, I will get more base malt and make another batch with the remaining grains inclusind roasted barley. what would be a recomended amount of barley malt in your opinion?
