Evolution of a Stout

Confessions of an Extract Brewer

It all started with a pot of coffee.  It is brew day and my friend Frank and I are invading my wife’s kitchen, brewing a dry Irish stout.  I had recently brewed a Bass clone and at this point, I've got black and tan’s on the brain.  But on this day, in exchange for allowing the intrusion, I am asked to brew a pot of coffee for my wife.

As the wonderful scents from the coffee pot intermingle with the aromas of the steeping grains, Frank and I look at each other with the same idea.  As we plan on when and how to add the coffee, I have a revelation.

My favorite coffee drink by far is an Iced Mocha from Peet’s.  Chocolate, milk and espresso.  I’ve had Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  I’ve enjoyed Samuel Adams Cream Stout.  In my younger years I started a few camping mornings with Red Hook’s Espresso Stout, brewed with Starbucks coffee.  But I’ve never had all three together.  I realize it is now incumbent upon me to create it.

Iced Mocha Stout is born.

Using the dry Irish stout as a base, I add lactose powder for the milk, double strength coffee and cacao nibs for the chocolate.  It isn’t bad, but you don’t get much chocolate.  Cacao nibs impart the bitterness of pure chocolate, but no sweetness.

Any sugar I add would be consumed by the yeast during fermentation.  My wife is a pastry chef.  So I appoint her my in-house food consultant and inquire how much vanilla would highlight the chocolate without upstaging it.  She is conservative, so we start with a tablespoon of vanilla extract.

I try another batch with two tablespoons.  I am also interested in increasing the mouthfeel.  Lactose is milk sugar.  It is mildly sweet, but viewed by yeast much like my 8-year old son views cauliflower.  It is meant to add thickness and a slight creaminess.  I start with 4 oz of Lactose powder because that is the package size sold by the brew supply shop.  Or why not use 2 packages?

Around the same time, I catch wind of the Samuel Adams Longshot competition.  So I decide to send off some bottles.   When they were ready, I popped one open and discovered why not.  The lactose washes out both the chocolate and the coffee and leaves it totally unbalanced.

While one judge likes the direction and scores me a 34 out of 50 (which I later came to understand wasn’t such a bad score), my overall was a disappointing 31.

The next batch I drop the lactose back to 6 oz.  As I measure out the coffee grounds to brew my coffee  for the fermenter, I have the idea of skipping Mr. Coffee and just putting the grounds in a hop bag.  I am no barista, but I know enough about coffee to know that boiling the grounds scorches them and makes them bitter.  Bitter coffee not good.

But I want to give steeping a try.  Putting them into the fermenter means they go in cold.  Not optimal.  Putting them into the carboy also presents concerns.  The thought of the beer sitting on week-old coffee grounds does not sound appealing.  That kind of bitter is not better.  There is but one solution.  I know the risks, but I decide to go for it.  185 degrees is safe enough not to ruin the coffee, but that means opening the kettle lid to whatever happens to be floating in the air.

My in-house food consultant (IHFC) has told me many a time that the danger zone for food is 40 – 140 degrees.  Anything colder or hotter is inhospitable to bacteria.  My main adversary, lactobacillus, happens to be bacteria.  So with 45 degrees of cushion, I decide to go for it.  I make my little Arabica tea bag, wait for 185, drop it in, and give it a prod with a sanitized spoon to get it into the soup. 

This turns out not to be as easy as I thought, because of the wort chiller taking up all that space in there.  But I get it done.  The result is not bad.  What else can I tweak?

I start playing with the grain bill.  Some of the feedback from the 2010 competition was a desire for something roastier.  I try a variation with rauch malt, which is smokey.  I try a batch toasting some 2-row at home.  Then the beer shop decides not to sell dark malt in ½ pound packages anymore and is clearing them out.  I buy a few and decide to swap out some of the liquid malt.  I first try half a pound and then a pound.  Each half pound of dry replaces ¾ pound of liquid.  I hate math.  It ruined my aspirations of becoming a theoretical physicist (that and having only an average intelligence).  So I decide to use a pound and ditch the small amount of extra “roasty” malts and call it even.  I decide to get the roasty flavor from the coffee, now that the lactose is down to 4oz.

The Longshot competition comes around again.  This time I know going into the brew that this will be competition beer.  I boost up the coffee weight.  The contamination risk is weighing on me though.  I open the lid just enough to drop the coffee bag in, give it a prod, and then close it to limit exposure.

After I have transferred to the fermenter, I discover to my horror that the bag had been caught between the wort chiller and the side of the kettle.  While most of the bag is wet, there are dry grounds in the middle as I empty the bag.  What to do?

I can’t put grounds into the carboy.  Adding the extra coffee at bottling strikes me a bit like unwrapping your presents before Christmas, like it’s cheating somehow.  The beer’s true flavor can only be unveiled after a full fermenting period and you sink or swim with that.  I did increase the grounds, but there was a lot of dry in that bag.  Guilt wins; I go with what I got.

The scores come back.  Average is 30.5.  At the conclusion of my pitty party, partially exacerbated by the fact that the free tee shirt was not as cool as last years, I steel myself and decide to continue on.  I will build it better, faster, stronger!  Well, better and stronger anyway.

Costco has a sale on Madagascar vanilla around the holidays.  Same sale they had last year.  I had bought some to experiment with and liked the results.  But after the holidays were gone, so was the vanilla. Buying it elsewhere was muy expensive, so I had gone back to extract.  I see it back in Costco’s baking aisle, in all it’s glory.  I stock up.  I look over at the wife.  She approves.  Maybe I’ll grab one more package then.

I try using the bean like a flavoring or aroma hop, in the last 5 minutes of the boil.  Almost no flavor impact.  Next batch, I think about transferring the bean from kettle to carboy.  But my adversary, lactobacillus, would want me to do that.  And I did buy that extra package at Costco…

Since dropping back the lactose powder, I find myself missing the mouthfeel, that cream in my coffee feel that should come with an Iced Mocha Stout.  As I read through a brewing book that I scored from Santa, I come across a recipe for Oatmeal Stout.  Something has to be done.  Maltodextrin is cheating, but Oatmeal is insane, isn’t it?  Or is it deliciously insane?

I decide to go for it.  As an extract brewer I don’t get much practice at trying to hold a mash temperature at precisely 158 degrees for an hour.  A previous experience mashing pumpkins yielded good results.  I muse on how Mashing Pumpkins might be a good name for a pumpkin ale, then I realize I don’t have a good lawyer for that.  So I set to mash oatmeal.  The first batch, my second most recent to date, turns out pretty good.  There is a nice flavor that oatmeal imparts to a stout.  It turns out to play nicely with others, and gives that mouthfeel I was looking for.

But that damn coffee is off again!!

I dread subjecting myself and my friends to another 5 gallons of off-balanced stout.  I decide to sac-up and….coffee directly to the keg.  I am able to re-balance it, and it is great.  I decide that more important than being macho is making beer that tastes great.

And here comes Longshot 2012.  I have no misgivings about winning anything but a free tee shirt, but I damn well want better than a 31/50.

So my last changes for the competition beer:

Change to Espresso instead of coffee and add 2 vanilla beans to the fermenter.

These two changes really pull everything together.  Espresso has that roasty flavor, more so than coffee.  It tends to have a stronger finish, which is why most people prefer it with sugar or sweetness.  I typically don’t transfer to a secondary fermenting vessel.  And in this case, I leave the beans (sanitized in vodka, cut longways and scraped with a sanitized knife.  Yes, on a sanitized cutting board!) in the fermenter for 3 weeks.

After, I transfer the whole contents to a keg.   I pull a measured sample, and then add a measured sample of espresso.  I play around with the ratio until I have the right mix.  For an impatient person with a hobby that requires great patience, I feel a certain catharsis about getting instant gratification.

I pull enough Espresso shots to reach the desired volume (math, don’t let me down again!), and then pour it in.  I have to bottle for the competition, so I prepare my bottling bucket and transfer a couple gallons directly from the keggerator.

By now it has been judged.  I simply await the results.  I wonder how I would react to a 30, or something close to that.  At worst I know I will receive feedback from the judges.  The interesting thing about these competitions is that judges are judging taste, smell and color,  but in comparison to a specific “classic style” category.  What if I want to make my own category!! 

I can take a 30 if guys and gals that like beer…. like my beer.