What is this?

You could probably call it a tropical stout. Reads like it may end up something like the stouts brewed in the Carribean and African ex-English colonies. I like a few of the ones I've tried. Can be a bit sweet to some people's tastes.
 
Mark Farrall said:
You could probably call it a tropical stout. Reads like it may end up something like the stouts brewed in the Carribean and African ex-English colonies. I like a few of the ones I've tried. Can be a bit sweet to some people's tastes.
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I'm one of those weirdos that likes a little bit of residual sweetness to my beer.

On a similar note, do you think this would work out if I barrel aged half of it?

I was thinking rum or cognac barrel aging since you mentioned tropical.
 
Iliff Avenue Brewhouse said:
7 oz of lactic acid?
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Here is my water report. I'm not very good at the whole water thing, but a guy at the LHBS metnioned adding Lactic Acid to help. Any advice to bring it inline for the mash?

upload_2020-6-3_13-37-13.png
 
I can't really comment on the lactic acid...I have never used it. I'm not a fan of sours and my mash/brew pH is handled by the use of RO and a few brew salts. Your grain bill looks pretty good to me but I don't brew stouts or porters at the moment. The only thing I might do is put in a little less of the melanoidin. I find it gives the beer a sharpness to it...but that might fit with a stout style.

I like the idea of aging in a rum or cognac barrel, especially if the brew is on the sweet side. The flavor that inevitably infuses the beer out of the barrels might give it a really nice flavor that compliments any lingering sweetness after the fermentation. I have been toying with the idea of using a whiskey barrel myself.
 
^Tony^ said:
I can't really comment on the lactic acid...I have never used it. I'm not a fan of sours and my mash/brew pH is handled by the use of RO and a few brew salts. Your grain bill looks pretty good to me but I don't brew stouts or porters at the moment. The only thing I might do is put in a little less of the melanoidin. I find it gives the beer a sharpness to it...but that might fit with a stout style.

I like the idea of aging in a rum or cognac barrel, especially if the brew is on the sweet side. The flavor that inevitably infuses the beer out of the barrels might give it a really nice flavor that compliments any lingering sweetness after the fermentation. I have been toying with the idea of using a whiskey barrel myself.
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The lactic acid is to balance mash pH. At 7 oz it would be noticeable, at 7 ml, not.
 
Yup. I don't use lactic acid. I use aciduated malts and brew salts to control pH.
 
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The rum/cognac flavours sound interesting. Can't see why not.
 
I like the look of the recipe! It looks like it should have some nice complex flavors. I too like some residual sweetness to many of my beers. Let us know how the malts end up playing off eachother.
 
Same I think even more so in the darker styles to ballance the drying roast character of them roasted malts.
I use phosphoric acid now near every brew except for in stouts that dark roast malts drops the ph along with you gypsum addition into the high end of then mash ph spectrum all on its own.
I read somewhere a 5.5 5.6 ph is good in darker beers.
 
To be honest,
AGbrewer said:
I tried acid malt, but didn't see much difference. Maybe I need to give it another go.
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Another reason that I don't use acid malt is that it takes so much to pull down the PH of my water (usually around 1 pound). I'm already at the limit of my mash tun, so any extra grain really ends up forcing me to reduce my over all batch size to keep the flavor I want in the end product.

I suppose that isn't a huge deal to reduce batch size. It would probably be at most a half gallon batch difference (4.5 gallon vs. 5 gallon). The next light colored beer I make, I will try acid malt again and just adjust my batch size to see how it comes out.
 
AGbrewer said:
To be honest,


Another reason that I don't use acid malt is that it takes so much to pull down the PH of my water (usually around 1 pound). I'm already at the limit of my mash tun, so any extra grain really ends up forcing me to reduce my over all batch size to keep the flavor I want in the end product.

I suppose that isn't a huge deal to reduce batch size. It would probably be at most a half gallon batch difference (4.5 gallon vs. 5 gallon). The next light colored beer I make, I will try acid malt again and just adjust my batch size to see how it comes out.
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If it takes a pound (assuming 5 gallon batch) to bring your mash pH down (the water's pH doesn't matter), you might look into using RO water or brewing darker beers. What does that much acidulated malt do to your beer's flavor? I'd expect it to be quite tart. Usually no more than three ounces works here but our water is pretty good.
 
AGbrewer said:
So I came up with this recipe and have no idea what it should be categoriezed as...probably a mistake.

However, it is made up of grains that I need to get rid of, so I figured something dark.

Will it taste good?

What exactly is it?

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1005221/something-dark
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Seven ounces of Lactic acid sound like an error in your calculations. With 2 lbs. of Chocolate Malt and a pound of Melanoidin I doubt you'll need much of anything to adjust the mash pH downward. Depending on your water you may need to raise it instead. Even in my lightest colored beers I seldom use more than 2 or 3 mls of 88% Lactic Acid in a 5.25 gallon batch.
 
BOB357 said:
Seven ounces of Lactic acid sound like an error in your calculations. With 2 lbs. of Chocolate Malt and a pound of Melanoidin I doubt you'll need much of anything to adjust the mash pH downward. Depending on your water you may need to raise it instead. Even in my lightest colored beers I seldom use more than 2 or 3 mls of 88% Lactic Acid in a 5.25 gallon batch.
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He meant 7 ml. I raised the same question.
 
Nosybear said:
If it takes a pound (assuming 5 gallon batch) to bring your mash pH down (the water's pH doesn't matter), you might look into using RO water or brewing darker beers. What does that much acidulated malt do to your beer's flavor? I'd expect it to be quite tart. Usually no more than three ounces works here but our water is pretty good.
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I had a couple recipes that required pretty close to a pound to get it down to 5.2 pH, I'll have to dig them up to see what the malt bill was.

It was a 5 gallon batch.

As for RO water, I tend to stay away from it due to the waste that is caused by creating it. Seems a bit much to me.

Normally I only brew RIS, BDSA, Tripel, BGSA, Barleywine, Imperial Porters, and the ocassional Double/Triple IPA. I've done some smaller beers (e.g. Kolsh, Hefe, etc.), but those are few and far between.
 
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