Sweet Stout

At 13% cara malts...no, not too much. I think you could do 5% each but you would be getting up towards the ridiculous amounts of specialty malts with that amount. You could drop the mash temp and use a higher attenuating yeast to offset though.

 

Lots of comments:

1) most sweet stouts aren't caramel bombs, they're instead sweet and creamy from copious amounts of lactose and a a high mash temp. I'd nix all those different types of cara malts and just stick with one or two (I use Special B and G. Naked Oats in mine, with 2 lbs of lactose per 5 gallons). I haven't had cafe con leche, so maybe it is a caramel bomb and I'm off base here.

2) Swap out the roasted barley for black malt or dehusked carafa III special, depending on what you're looking for. Black Malt will give it a sharper roast character than roasted barley, and DH CFIII special will make it more mellow. You want the beer to taste like sweetened espresso, and since you'll be adding coffee, go with the dehusked carafa III special.

3) Your FG will be nowhere near that low (beersmith treats lactose as fermentable so, its wrong). My smaller milk stout starts at 1.080 and finishes at 1.042 (its not overly sweet, just has a high mash temp and lots of lactose) and my bigger, imperial Milk statou starts at 1.115 and finishes at 1.055 (this one has a little sweetness).

4) they say they rack onto beans at cigar city in the blog post, so I'd dry bean instead of cold press. You'll hear lots of personal opinions but cold press is somewhat insipid, in my own personal opinion.

5) Don't use regular 2-row, go with Marris Otter, Optic or something rich. Brewing a milk stout with generic 2-row is like building a house out of popsicle sticks.

 

Lactose produces 35 pts/lb. I assume all of the lactose I'm adding will be unfermentable so I calculate OG of the beer without lactose, then the OG of the beer with Lactose, subtract the without lactose OG from the with lactose OG and the difference is estimation f what will be added onto the FG.

Smaller is about 13% lactose, Bigger is about 10% lactose. Let me know and I can bm you the recipes if needed.

 

I would steer away from the Irish Ale yeast. That is a better yeast for a dry stout. I've used London Ale with much better success.

 

This is why I hate brewing software.

 

Holy balls.. 1.055 FG on a sweet stout?

I was a bit.. "ehh it's a milkshake" with my RIS that I just tossed on the PVW oak that finished at 1.034 from 1.120.

 

I have a friend who's a pro brewer taste the beer and he asked, "so did this finish at like 1.025 or 1.030, because the body is really chewy?". He almost spit his beer out when I told him 1.055, and then told me I was lying.

I kept getting comments from judges (in comps) and friends that it wasn't chewy/creamy enough so adjusted by mashing high (158F), using a yeast with lower attenuation and nice ester profile (WY1968), and adding a ton of lactose on top of a decent amont of crystal malt and oats, so there is definitely some residual sugar. The flip side is that theres a lot of roasted grain in it (ca 15-20%) to balance out residual sweetness so it comes across as slightly sweetened coffee.

 

I had a (non imperial) Milk Stout that finished at 1.030 IIRC. Had one judge say it could use more body.

 

Pretty funny. I think sometimes that in order to hit whats listed in the style guidelines you really need to go out of the suggested OG/FG range. Did you think yours needed more body or was the judge's opinion an outlier?

I just had a good laugh about this as well when I looked at Ron Pattinson's Blog, that Mackeson 1936 Stout, a very famous milk stout finishes out at 1.016 (Asterisk is that 13 oz of lactose added post fermentation to the cask, but even with that still only about 1.024).

 

I'd say it was an outlier. I've pretty much stopped taking anything on a BJCP scoresheet seriously unless I'm tasting/sensing the same thing myself, or unless judges in two different competitions noted the same thing. Or unless it's complimentary.

 

Agreed. BTW, forgot to say, congrats on popping your 1st BOS cherry.

 

Thanks. The beer gods smiled on me that day.

 

Completely understand that whole deal... The RIS I did was something I wanted to be really, really chewy and full bodied. Had one get to 20 points and didn't like it the first time. Second time I mashed at 154, and got the 34 point finish. Tasted good flat. Boozy and full, but was sweeter than I wanted still, despite having right at 20% of it being roasted malts, and right at 2% being BP malt even. I had it at 98 IBU's as well.

Whichever the case, I'm pretty impressed with a 1.055 FG, regardless.. I need to brew me a nice low easy drinking stout soon, sweeter the better for people who come over. I like a roasted coffee bomb, most don't.