Experimenting with stout (vanilla, coffee, coconut, choc)

[Shayler]

Thinking of testing a few things, plan on buying a cheap stout kit doing primary fermenting as normal but then separating into a few fermenting vessels to try different things, been reading allot of different recipes.

Vanilla - Thinking of using vanilla pods and possible extract for more flavour
Coffee - Just going to make some espresso and add it
Coconut – Toasting some dedicated coconut in the oven and adding it
Chocolate – not sure what to do yet maybe coco powder

Anyone have any advices, or change how I add the flavour?

Cheers,
Matt

 

[periolus]

I have tried coffee, and that seemed to work well. I used a kit and used black treacle and dark spray malt instead of the 1kg sugar and then made up a pot of coffee on the stove and added directly to the FV.

Chocolate and vanilla would both be good, but I am not sure about coconut. Blackberry works really well in porter, maybe you could also try that in the stout?

 

[Shayler]

Went to Binghams brewery yesterday, they do vanilla stout, coffee stout and ginger stout

 

[graysalchemy]

All those flavours have been covered before on this forum over the last. 18 months. Coffee, chocolate and vanilla would not be a problem, coconut can be a problem because of its high fat content which will place havoc with head retention. However it has been done by someone on here and I believe it is brewed commercially.

Good luck