should I tone down a sweet stout sweetness?

[MikePote]

Recently I made a morebeer sweet stout extract kit. Recipe as follows:

6lb ultralight LME
1lb lactose

1lb black patent
12oz crystal 75l

2oz cascade @60min

I added 1lb light DME and .5lb brown sugar to the boil

I recently took a gravity reading and drank the beer and it was SUPER sweet. It is currently sitting in secondary and I was going to bottle sunday. SG 1.062 FG 1.022. FG seemed a little high so I made a post and a few people told me that without the lactose I would be about 1.015 which seems appropriate. The beer is not undrinkable but I wouldn't enjoy it all that much. It was my 3rd batch of beer (have done two ciders as well) and have a couple of questions.

1. Did my additions make the beer sweeter? I added things that in my research looked like they increase abv with little effect on taste.

2. I was thinking about adding some coffee to give it another flavor aside from sweet. I feel like a sweet coffee stout would be much better than just a sweet stout. Thoughts?

3. Any suggestions to tone down or hide some sweetness would be appreciated. I also thought about going to the LHBS and tossing in some medium toast chips soaked in bourbon or even just tossing in a couple shots of bourbon before bottling. Advise please.

Thanks for any help.

 

[TipsyDragon]

I would recommend letting it finish fermenting, if it hasn't already. Then carbonate it. Remember that sample you sipped is almost completely flat and has virtually no carbonic acid in it. Not to mention it's still green and the yeast are in clean up mode.

Your additions wouldn't of affected the residual sweetness. The coffee might be good no matter what the sweetness level is.

 

[beergolf]

Carb it up and it will not seem quite as sweet.

That being said, I have figured out that a full pound of lactose is too much for my taste. I like about 8-12 oz in my sweet stouts.

 

[jro238]

As others have said, carbonation will definitely help decrease the sweetness. It will also help 'wash' the sweetness out of your mouth after each sip. I don't brew much in terms of stouts, but the coffee idea might turn out pretty good. You could always try it with few bottles out of this batch.

 

[MikePote]

Thanks for the responses. I (kind of) wish I would have saw them two hours ago before I bottled. It was definitely done fermenting. Hopefully it wasn't a bad decision but I decided to go to starbucks and add some strong bitter coffee to my preferred taste at bottling. I wound up adding about 10oz of their Christmas blend and I think it will wind up pretty good. I was BSing with the guy behind the counter who has a buddy who homebrews so he gave me the coffee free because I promised to bring him a couple bottles when the beer was done. In hindsight I wish I would have done half coffee half no coffee but im not to worried. I will post in a couple weeks after it has carbed up and let everybody know how it turned out. Thanks for all the help.

 

[MikePote]

Not that anybody is awaiting the results of this thread but hopefully it helps somebody else in the future. After 7 or 8 days I popped one of these in the fridge and let it sit a couple days. It was still terrible. I have a hard time describing the mouth feel. So thick and sweet but only in a bad way. No good came from it. So I figured I would RDWHAHB for a few weeks and if it didn't work out oh well.

Two days ago I threw two in the fridge. I opened one 20 minutes ago. Holy crap! Its a Christmas miracle! I would assume its from the carbonation but the sweetness, while still too sweet for my taste, has waaaaaay toned down and it feels like normal beer. It is currently drinkable but not great by any means, but if the next two weeks are as effective as the last two weeks I think it will be a really good beer. So to the newbie who searches this thread four years from now just RDWHAHB and all will be good. Thanks for all the advise.

 

[berninga87]

Glad to hear It's getting better! I just brewed a sweet stout myself (only my 4th batch) and I used the same amount of lactose. I like the really sweet thick beers, but it's nice to know if it comes out to be too much it should mellow out. Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[BigFloyd]

These sorts of beers need TIME to reach maturity and for the flavors to meld. It's not at all unusual for a milk stout to take 3 months or more sitting in the bottle at room temp to come into its own.

I do hope that you cold brewed your coffee addition. That helps to avoid having a stale coffee sort of astringency from developing. Cold brewing can be done simply by letting the coffee sit 12-15 hours in water at room temp then filtering out the grounds.

 

[maynardtl8]

Yeah, made a milk stout with vanilla and cinnamon once and it was ok. Let it sit in my 2g keg over a year and was awesome. Just needs good aging. As for your questions, the lactose addition actually wouldnt have an effect on abv as it isnt a fermentable sugar, which is why sweet stouts always have that residual sweetness.