Sweet Pastry Stouts

Doesn't look like it has been mentioned. I'd pull all the specialty grains out of the mash and cold steep them. I'm also with @EvenMoreJesus with both his recipe as a whole, looks solid, and specifically Carafa III; I'd go with dehusked. Add the cold steep at 10 mins to boil end or if advantageous, like me, right at boil end. Pretty limited risk there isn't enough heat in the great volume totel boil to sanitize the cold steep volume; but that's up to you. This process will greatly reduce your astringency and it will also help with your mash tun size constraint.

 

Scottish Ale mashed at 159 for 45 went from 1.091 to 1.028 in 4 days and is incredibly clean. Pitched it at 58 in a 61* room. Moved it to the 50* garage when it hit 67 and it kept trucking at 67 for another 12 hours or so before moving back inside to let it finish. Just a small 3g batch but temp was internal in a thermowell. Just a touch under my intended FG.

 

Plus one on cold steeping. I did this recently for an Imperial Milk Stout and it came out really well. Although, it could be an interesting idea to cold steep the roasted adjuncts and keep the crystal malts in the mash for extra sweetness. Not sure if that'd work, though

 

So the point of the cold steep is to reduce astringency? Never heard of doing something like that before

 

I don't know if it's astringency necessarily but it does reduce harsh flavors such as bitterness that can come from mashing roasted grains. Think of it like cold brew coffee vs regular coffee.

https://www.homebrewersassociation....steeping-getting-the-most-out-of-dark-grains/

 

+1 vote for mashing everything together

 

Update on the recipe above I brewed:

Missed my OG by a good amount (ended up with 1.098 instead of 1.140) and realized I didn’t have any extract on hand. Pitched two packs of wlp004 (Irish ale) and it’s down to 1.044 which is around where I wanted it to be. Will report back with how it ends up tasting

 

I’ve done it both ways. Never side by side, so all I have are hunches. I think cold steep = less roast for the color value, but I also think hullless roasted grains can be used to accomplish the same goal. Experimental brewing reports results from a side by side for a schwarzbier, I think, from the recent Aussie homebrew con. They thought they perceived a difference

 

Here is the link to the Experimental Brewing write-up, in case anyone wants to poke holes or whatever: https://www.experimentalbrew.com/experiments/writeups/writeup-dark-grains-cold-steep-vs-full-mash

 

I like roast and burnt coffee flavor in a stout. I don’t see the point of using dehusked carafa in a stout. I do use it in schwarzbier and beers where I’m not looking for the roast but in a stout it’s roasted barley in the mash at full length for me. To each his own.