Mexican Latte Stout - Critiques?

[unviewtiful]

Hey all,

I'm planning to make a Mexican latte stout pretty soon to be ready for Christmas. My plan is to start with a milk stout base, then add cinnamon, coffee, chocolate (either powder or nibs, not sure yet), and ancho chilies. I'd like to do a 10 gallon batch and put chilies/cinnamon in only half, letting that half sit for ~4 months and drink the other half in the meantime. I took the grainbill from an awesome RIS I made as a 5 gallon batch, used the same percentages and added lactose and the flavorings. I plan to soak the cinnamon, chilies, and cocoa nibs (if I go that route) in some vodka before dumping it into secondary. Anyone have suggestions from past experience adding any or all of these flavors?

10.5 gallons
1.062 OG/1.017 FG
33.7 IBU
31.3 SRM

19 lbs 2-Row (75.2%)
2 lbs Flaked Oats (7.9%)
1 lb Roasted Barley (4.0%)
1 lb Chocolate Malt (4.0%)
0.75 lb Crystal-120L (3.0%)
0.5 lb Special B (2.0%)

Mash at 156

0.80 oz Apollo @ 60 min (23.2 IBU)
2.00 oz Willamette @ 20 min (10.5 IBU)
1 lb Lactose @ 5 min (4.0%)

16 oz Cold Brew Coffee (8 oz per 5 gallons, added at secondary)
4-5 oz cocoa nibs (secondary)

The following will only be added to 5 gallons:
3 Cinnamon sticks (secondary)
2-3 oz Ancho Chilies (secondary)

I'll just go by feel with the cocoa, cinnamon, and ancho and keg it when I like the flavors. Then carb and let it sit in the closet until Christmas.

 

[m00ps]

I made a mexican hot chocolate stout with all those ingredients except coffee that turned out well. It definitely is better nwo that the flavors have melded together.

For 5 gallons I used 5 cinnamon sticks (2 at flameout 3 in fermentor), 4oz cacao nibs, 3 whole dried ancho chilies, and 2 vanilla beans. For the coffee, Id recommend adding whole beans to the fermentor rather than cold brew it. Its less hassle to do and imparts a much better coffee flavor IME

 

[unviewtiful]

I made a mexican hot chocolate stout with all those ingredients except coffee that turned out well. It definitely is better nwo that the flavors have melded together.

For 5 gallons I used 5 cinnamon sticks (2 at flameout 3 in fermentor), 4oz cacao nibs, 3 whole dried ancho chilies, and 2 vanilla beans. For the coffee, Id recommend adding whole beans to the fermentor rather than cold brew it. Its less hassle to do and imparts a much better coffee flavor IME

Thanks for the advice! Did you plan to add the cinnamon sticks to the fermenter before you started, or did you just not get enough of the cinnamon character from the flameout addition?

 

[m00ps]

I saw people adding 3 or more so I figured Id start low and move up. Also, I wasnt sure how much flavor would come from the near boiling wort vs just dry hopping with them

 

[Marc77]

This sounds amazing and I'll probably end up making it myself. Let us know how it turns out though for sure!

I am curious about the coffee beans vs cold brew. How many ounces of coffee beans are needed for the equivalent of 16 ounces of cold brew is the real question.

 

[m00ps]

Im not too sure since I would think the cold brew depends on how concentrated you make it, right?

For stouts and porters, Ive had good results with 4oz of whole beans, from a sealed bag, tossed in 5-7 days before bottling like a dry hop. Ive also made a coffee blond ale where I scaled it back to 3oz since it has a more delicate malt character

 

[BurlingBrew]

Sounds delicious, plugging the recipe into my beersmith as we speak!
What kind of yeast are you thinking about using?

 

[unviewtiful]

This sounds amazing and I'll probably end up making it myself. Let us know how it turns out though for sure!

I am curious about the coffee beans vs cold brew. How many ounces of coffee beans are needed for the equivalent of 16 ounces of cold brew is the real question.

I had blonde with coffee at a local brewery, and they told me they used 1 lb/bbl. They put whole beans in the fermenter for 24 hours and the coffee flavor and aroma was awesome. That works out to roughly .5 oz/gallon, or 2.5 oz for a 5 gallon batch. I figure I'd at least double that if using whole beans (so 1 oz/gallon). But if I do cold brew, I'd make it fairly concentrated so that you'd want to cut it at least in half if you were to make a normal cup of coffee with it (so somewhere around 2.5 oz grounds per 8 oz liquid).

For yeast I was thinking some kind of English ale yeast. Maybe WLP013 London Ale if I have time for a starter, S-04 if I rush it.

 

[Marc77]

I had blonde with coffee at a local brewery, and they told me they used 1 lb/bbl. They put whole beans in the fermenter for 24 hours and the coffee flavor and aroma was awesome. That works out to roughly .5 oz/gallon, or 2.5 oz for a 5 gallon batch. I figure I'd at least double that if using whole beans (so 1 oz/gallon). But if I do cold brew, I'd make it fairly concentrated so that you'd want to cut it at least in half if you were to make a normal cup of coffee with it (so somewhere around 2.5 oz grounds per 8 oz liquid).

For yeast I was thinking some kind of English ale yeast. Maybe WLP013 London Ale if I have time for a starter, S-04 if I rush it.

I'm making a Three Floyds Zombie Dust clone and will have Wyeast 1968 London ESB yeast. So I'll harvest that and use it here I'm thinking..unless you think that won't work. I can not wait to make this. It sounds so amazing.

 

[unviewtiful]

I'm making a Three Floyds Zombie Dust clone and will have Wyeast 1968 London ESB yeast. So I'll harvest that and use it here I'm thinking..unless you think that won't work. I can not wait to make this. It sounds so amazing.

That yeast should probably work great. Make sure you ferment it fairly cold (60-62 F) to avoid fruity esters. They would be very out of place in this brew.

 

[Marc77]

That yeast should probably work great. Make sure you ferment it fairly cold (60-62 F) to avoid fruity esters. They would be very out of place in this brew.

That makes sense with it being a stout and using this kind of yeast. But, looking at 1968 it says the temp range is 64 - 72 degrees. Do you add more yeast to account for the what I can only guess would be loss of attenuation?

 

[unviewtiful]

I'm not familiar with that particular strain, but I don't think fermenting at 60 would greatly affect your attenuation. And since you're pitching a slurry from a previous batch, you'll have plenty of yeast.

 

[unviewtiful]

Ended up brewing this yesterday finally. The actual recipe I used was:

11 gallons in the fermenter
OG 1.056
IBU 49ish

19 lbs 2-Row
1.5 lbs Flaked Oats
1 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb Chocolate Malt
0.75 lb Crystal-120L
0.5 lb Special B

Mash at 153-154

1.30 oz Apollo @ 60 min
2.00 oz Willamette @ 15 min (was planning to do it at 20 min, but didn't hear the timer go off)
0.5 lb Lactose @ 5 min

WLP013 London Ale @ 66F

I had planned to mash at 152 and use .75 lb lactose, but my mash came in a little high and I didn't have room to add cool water. So I backed off on the lactose, and I'll see how sweet it finishes. Also decided that I'll steep whole beans in secondary at about 1 oz/gallon. Spices and chocolate will also be added to secondary after a quick vodka soak. Planning on 1 oz cocoa nibs per 5 gallons, then 3 cinnamon sticks, and 2 oz Ancho chiles in the spiced half. Anyone have inside on the amount of cocoa nibs? Will 1 oz in 5 gallons be enough?

Initial taste was great. The roast flavors came through very nicely, but I may have over corrected the sweetness/bitterness balance from the initial recipe. I'll probably end up adding at least another 4 oz of lactose to balance it out. If I did it again, I'd drop the Apollo to 1.00 oz. I'm also hoping the oak characters reported with WLP013 come through on this one to add just a little more depth.