Please review my plans for stout

[mpenn35]

Any help, input, and advice is appreciated!


Cooper’s Stout Base Extract Kit (five gallon batch)

Can of Cooper’s Stout hopped LME
Three pounds dark DME
Possibly adding ½ to one pound of Lactose

Ferment for two weeks. Bottle two gallons and rack the rest to secondary. Add cacao nibs (like dry hopping) and one or two vanilla beans in secondary. Leaving two weeks in secondary before bottling, then aging a minimum of two weeks in bottles. Will be using corn sugar to prime with.

Questions:

When adding lactose, if I go that route, would you recommend boiling with small amount of water and adding to fermenter after adding wort or adding to secondary after racking from the primary?

I don't want the chocolate to be overpowering in the beer, so how many ounces of nibs would you recommend for three gallons of beer?

Likewise, how many vanilla beans for three gallons?

Will I need to add any additional hops to this?

 

[jmprdood]

I have made a few Coopers stouts. I would bring a couple gallons of water to a boil with half your dme, and add an oz of cascade or willamette hops and boil for for about 15-20 minutes. Turn off the flame and add the rest of the dme, canned hopped lme and lactose. Cool in the sink in an ice bath for a few minutes. Strain into fermenter and top up with cold water mixing like mad to aerate and combine so you get a good OG reading. The pitch the yeast. A couple weeks in primary should be good, but it'll take almost a month in the bottle to come into its own.

As far as secondary - there are several threads on here about racking with cocao and vanilla - just use the search at the top of the page - I'm not much help there as I don't usually secondary.

Cheers!

 

[A4J]

When adding lactose, if I go that route, would you recommend boiling with small amount of water and adding to fermenter after adding wort or adding to secondary after racking from the primary?

Either way will work.

I don't want the chocolate to be overpowering in the beer, so how many ounces of nibs would you recommend for three gallons of beer?

I've only tried this once. I added 4oz to a 3 gallon batch. It wasn't enough. It wasn't a cooper's kit tho and I already had steeping grains in my recipe. 4oz would be a good starting point.

Will I need to add any additional hops to this?

The Coopers kit is pre-hopped so I wouldn't add any more hops, especially since you're splitting it into different batches trying out different things in secondary.... but.... if you're going to add lactose, I would seriously consider adding hops to balance out the sweetness.

 

[BobC]

Any help, input, and advice is appreciated!


When adding lactose, if I go that route, would you recommend boiling with small amount of water and adding to fermenter after adding wort or adding to secondary after racking from the primary?

I just brewed a Breakfast Stout that called for 1lb added at the start of the boil. From what I understand you can add it at anytime during the process; the boil, primary, secondary, even at bottling time. You just want to pasteurize first in water between 180-190 degrees.

I'm interested in the chocolate question as well since my SWMBO wants me to make a chocolate peanut-butter beer.

 

[Calder]

Don't add the lactose right up front. Once in, you can't take it out, and it can make it quite sweet.

 

[Buckeye_Brewer1]

I would also recommend only 1 vanilla bean. 1-2 is standard for a 5 gallon batch. Once you add too much vanilla you cant go back.

 

[mpenn35]

Thanks to everyone, lots of great information. Hoping to get this started on Sunday! Any other input is welcome.