Dry Irish Stout Tweek

Had an extra Dry Irish Stout extract kit laying around and brewed it up last night. Only on my 7th brew ever and first time modifying a kit. I added 2/3 lb of brown sugar in last 15 mins of the boil and 1 oz of ground coffee at flameout. I have another 2 oz of coffee I cold brewed to put in the secondary along with 4-5 oz of coco nibs to soak in vodka. Planning to add 1/2 lb of lactose when I bottle since I didn’t have any last night. Trying offset the dryness from the sugar and bitterness from the coffee. OG 1.051 and using rehydrated S-04. Looking for subtle flavors, not over the top. Thoughts and advice?

My advice is to do some limited taste testing to see how much coffee flavor you want before adding the cold brew to your batch. I did a clone of Founders Breakfast stout a couple of years ago.

I used 2 oz ground sumatra beans last two minutes of the boil, then I added 2 oz of cold brew (also sumatra) to the bottling bucket. The coffee completely dominated the flavor profile of the beer.

Maybe take a pint of beer and add cold brew in very small quantities to get the taste you want then scale up?

Thanks. Overpowering coffee flavor is one of the things i was worried about. Thinking less is more because I don’t want to loose the taste of the stout.

I double danny’s advice on the coffee. The only time in almost 5 years of brewing that I have ever dumped a batch was on NB’s Cherry Stout that I added coffee to. (I coldbrewed about 12oz.). A year later I did it again, but cut the coffee in 1/2. It was still bad, but drinkable.
Too much coffee tastes like coffee grounds, and bad coffee grounds at that. Tastes like my compost pile smells.

So after reading the advice from you guys, I drank the coffee I had cold brewed and just went with the 2 oz I added at flame out. I’m really glad I did. Just racked it to the secondary after two weeks in primary and the taste is great with the right amount of coffee finish I wanted at the end. There enough to taste it, but light enough it doesn’t overwhelm. The only problem now is the bitter finish from the coffee and probably from the 3.5 oz of coco nibs I added to dry hop for the last week in the secondary. I have lactose to add when I bottle, but I’m looking for advice on how much to use. I just want to neutralize the bitterness with very little sweet. I was going to use 4 oz, but that is just a guess. Advice?

I had a dry Irish stout that finished at 1.006 rather than 1.011. The stout was very dry and devoid of body. I added some maltodextrin to each glass to add body back and make it less dry. I think it may have been two ounces of maltodextrin in two cups of water that I cooked up. Forgot to put it in my notes. Added one tablespoon to each pint pour. Worked very well to add body back and take away some of the overly dry. I would try to fix your bitterness by the glassful rather than the entire batch. Easier to change the fix by the glass rather than trying a second fix on the entire batch.

I agree, but I promised I would give some bottles away to friends and can’t ask them to do that to every pour. Hoping to get at least close this time around so I know which direction to adjust when I make it again.