Adventures in Homebrew: Milk Stout

The day after brewing my Rye Beer, I was back in the kitchen, standing over a brew pot. Although this time it was Jesse’s kitchen, helping him brew up a Milk Stout.

Milk Stout

7.0 lbs 2 Row
1.0 lbs Chocolate
1.0 lbs Crystal 80L
1.0 lbs Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs Roasted Barley

1.0 oz Goldings @ 60
1.0 oz Goldings @ 20
1.0 lbs Lactose @ 10

Fermentis Safale US-05

This was our third all-grain brew using a batch sparge process. One thing we are learning is that a 5 gallon mash tun does not have the volume to collect 6 gallons of wort using a single batch sparge. All of our recipes so far have used 10-11 pounds of grain, so we dough in with around 3.5 gallons of water. We lose about 1 gallon to grain absorption, so our initial runnings are around 2.5 gallons. Completely filling the tun with sparge water nets us another 2.5 – 3 gallons; about a gallon shy of our target boil volume.

So, what to do about the missing gallon? So far, we have been topping off the kettle near the end of the boil. I’m thinking for the next brew, we do an additional sparge and collect enough runnings to get us up to our desired boil volume. Thoughts?

Since we have been hitting the homebrew thing hot and heavy, we had quite a few brews available for sampling Monday night. Jesse broke out his APA that we brewed last month and his Apfelwein from a few weeks ago. I brought over my Smoked Porter and recently brewed Wit.

The APA is tasting pretty good, but will definitely benefit from another week of carbing.  The Cascade hops are coming through nicely and there is a surprising amount of caramel in the finish. The Apfewein is also very good. The Safale 04 chewed it down to 1.020 in less than a week, at which point Jesse bottled to keep some of the sweetness. Highly quaffable.

My Smoked Porter started life unbearably peaty, but has since mellowed out and is now quite approachable. I should have just put all the bottles aside to age, but instead grinded through about half the batch when it was still green.

Jesse had a sixer of Fat Tire’s Mothership Wit, so we were able to do a side by side with my Wit. While I wasn’t attempting a clone, the two are strikingly similar. Mothership had a stronger yeast contribution, giving it a more peppery finish. In my Wit, the spices were muted, but denser. If I had held my fermentation temperature above 70° instead of letting it drop after the first few days, I think the taste would be even closer. Color wise, mine is a touch lighter than New Belgium’s brew, more milky white than yellow.

Jesse also had his Arduino set up, so I snapped a picture of it.

Since it wasn’t attached to a fermenter, I ran my finger through the photo sensor a couple times to simulate airlock activity. The little computer is currently attached to the Milk Stout’s fermenter, logging away.

With all this homebrew stuff, I have been neglecting some of my other beer-ish responsibilities. I’ve tried some great brews in the last couple weeks, but haven’t had time to type up reviews. Heater Allen Hugo, Dogfish Head Pangea and Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot are all waiting to make the jump from scribbled notes to slightly more coherent post. My wife also picked up a 3 year old bottle of DH’s Raison D’Extra; one of the more memorable beers I have ever tried.

Cheers!
Kevin