I brewed an Espresso Stout using one can of Cooper's Original Stout, 3.0 Lb of Munton's dark DME, 1.0 lb of flaked barley (hoping to thicken the head retention) and 5 oz of espresso coffee. I steep the barley in 1.5 gal at 155 for 30 minutes, and then rinsed with 32 oz of boiling water. Brought it to a boil and then removed from heat and added the DME. Once it was well mixed I poured to into the fermenter and added the Cooper's pre hopped extract, filled the bucket to 5.0 gal. and mixed everything together again. I added the coffee to the bottling bucket with the priming sugar right before bottling on 1/23/13. This past weekend I tried a bottle. It doesn't taste bad at all but has somewhat of a stale grainy finish. I'm wondering if I used too much barley or maybe steep it too long. Any suggestions?
Stale grainy-like finish in brew.
- Thread starter McAle
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Stale flavor can come from either old extract, or maybe careless handling during bottling, leading to oxidation. Other than that I'm don't have any insights. Since it was flaked barley, I can't see the boiling water causing tannin extraction. Maybe you could give it a week or two more to see if things meld together better?
Since the flaked barley wasn't mashed, and boiling water was used on it, it's possible that the flavor is coming from the flaked barley but I haven't experienced that.
He steeped at 155, but does flaked barley have any diastatic power on it's own? I thought it did, but maybe the flaking process killed the enzymes??
No, I don't think it does. It has to be mashed with base malt.
Flaked barley isn't malted, so it really needs to be mashed with a base malt. I found this on the forums which claims that it has a little beta amylase but not much else, and this on the wiki which agrees with my preconceived notion :fro: that it has no diastatic power at all.
Ah, I didn't know it was unmalted.
I'd be interested in trying that beer just to see what how the description fits for me. It actually sounds pretty good if there is less "stale' and more grainy...
I'd be interested in trying that beer just to see what how the description fits for me. It actually sounds pretty good if there is less "stale' and more grainy...
Thanks for the input everyone. I'm thinking now the stale taste might be coming from the espresso. I used espresso powder, normally used in baking, to make the coffee. And five cups probably is way too much. I'm going to let age for another month and see if the stale taste might mellow out a bit.
For the record...aside from the after-taste, the beer has rich malty flavor with a creamy head similar to (but not exactly) like a nitro head.
For the record...aside from the after-taste, the beer has rich malty flavor with a creamy head similar to (but not exactly) like a nitro head.
