Imp Stout Adjuncts/Flavourings

[Oneiroi]

I recently got a few 5l demijons for playing around and experimenting and just brainstorming ideas which could be fun at the moment.

I was thinking of brewing 20l Imperial Stout around the lower end of the style (8-9%), then after primary bottle 5l plain, as is, and split the remaining 15l between 3 secondaries. Current ideas to choose from:

• Whisky soaked oak cubes
• Rum soaked raisins (Probably with a touch of vanilla too)
• Vanilla, Coffee and Cacao nibs (a la Brewdogs Semi-Skimmed Occultist)
• Fruit Puree (thinking cherry or blueberry)

Has anyone done any of the above and have any notes or advice?
And how about other combinations I haven't even thought of?

 

[Scottyburto]

Hi

Ill be interested in this as id like a stout ready for xmas. Ive been contemplating coffee or porridge. An imperial might be abit too brave for me as im a light drinker with a wide neck if u catch my drift. Although id rather drink less of something great than loads of average brew.

Keep us posted.

 

[BeerCat]

Vanilla, probably a good extract, have used pods in vodka and don't seem to get much from them. Cacoa nibs are very bitter if you ask me. Whisky soaked barrel chips are good. Used oak dust and ruined a batch. Do a search for hop sensation chocolate extract, its made for brewing and a new product. Not tried it yet.

 

[Scottyburto]

So would you suggest vanilla extract liquid as in the little bottles used for baking?

 

[STICKY_ICKY]

I did whole coffee beans in secondary before. Added 200g for 3 days and the coffee aroma and taste was perfect. Beer finished at 9%

Also did whisky soaked oak chunks and vanilla pods in a 6% stout. I didn't properly sterilise the oak and got an infection, which resulted in an amazingly complex sour stout. A very happy accident.

But my favourite impy stout adjunct has to be peanut butter flavour. I put one of these in 20L of an 8% stout and it was delicious. http://www.lorannoils.com/peanut-butter-flavor-1-dram-0580-0100

Currently doing an 11% maple stout. added 1 litre of maple syrup to 21L in secondary. Have now got it on oak chunks (that have been boiled and re-soaked in single malt this time), gonna leave it to condition on the oak for 2 weeks. Maple stouts are one of the best imo.

 

[stz]

Whisky is kind of a dodgy flavour for me, I've always been able to pick it out as a hard flavour whenever I've used it. Bourbon is so often used because it has that sweet vanilla thing going for it which I find marries better. Wood chips for wine making work great, I'd buy the chips over the cubes, get american oak over french and soak 60-100g in bourbon for as long as you can be bothered and add either the liquid or the lot. The longer you leave it the more you'll get out of it. I've added them to cask before without problem.

Raisins = fermentable sugars. They don't contribute an awful lot of taste. Rum (dark I'm guessing?) will add that at least, but you need quite a lot to get things rummy.

Vanilla is subtle and easily lost. Best made into a tincture with alcohol for maximum extraction and added at packaging where you'll get most bang for your buck as you don't need to flavour your trub and yeast cake. You need quite a lot. 3-4 quite large pods in a batch. Again used in cask no problem.

Coffee, great, prefer either cold brewed coffee added to taste or packaged with beans. If you can grind or mill them roughly you'll have a better extract, but a harder time keeping them out of the final beer. Hot brewed coffee will add bitterness which may not be desirable, but nothing wrong with pouring a little boiling water over it before dumping it in if sanitation is a concern. Again, added to cask no problem.

Cocoa nibs ... love hate relationship. Some of the most intensely chocolate like beers I've made feature them heavily, yet I've never felt they add very much. I mill and bake them at 120C for 10-20 minutes until the colour changes and the smell develops. Can't hurt with sanitation, but I've never had problems adding them to the fermenter or cask. Cannot get the same impact with coco powder or cocoa powder which always seemed weird as it is cocoa nib milled, heated and off the cocoa butter, maybe the fats carry a lot of the flavour active components.

Blueberry isn't very nice? I made a heavily blueberried saison and it tasted like a fruit wine, but not very good. Cherry you need a lot of and you need to decide if you are going for sweet or sharp/sour. You need A LOT of sweet cherries to make a sweet cherry flavour. Sour cherries are more noticeable, but you still need a lot. Raspberry is easy mode, flavour for days from not that much. Use a freeze dried or puree product because whole fruit is a massive pain in the butt.

 

[JonBrew]

Figs work really nicely in an imperial stout. I used tinned figs as I wanted to use lots (I think I went with 5 or 6 tins worth) and the equivalent amount (or weight) fresh would have been about £30 IIRC. That was for 6 litres of finished beer (it was a split batch also). The fig flavour is quite subtle so you need a lot. I wazzed them up in a food processer, sat them in a large straining bag in a secondary FV and then racked the IMP stout on top. My records indicate I left the beer on the figs for a month before bottling.

I reckon you could go with even more than I used and get great results. The fig flavour dissipates as the beer ages. My IMP stout came out at about 13% ABV (estimated) after the fruit addition. It was one of my best beers to date.

I plan to make this beer or similar again in the future and I often thought that if I was feeling flush I might use fresh figs instead. I imagine the taste would be even better but you'd need to be careful about cleaning the figs before use. I think I felt that with the tinned figs, there was a good chance they would have been sanitary from the canning process.

 

[Braindead]

Ive done 2 recently. A bourbon barrel aged coffee, vanilla and cocoa imp stout.
Also a Maple glazed coconut macaroon Imperial Stout aged in Diplomatica spiced rum staves. Toasted coconut only been in 2 days but tastes awesome and still have to add the vanilla and maple yet.

 

[prog99]

I chopped up 2 vanilla pods and threw them into 20l of 11% stout. Turned out brilliant. Didn't bother soaking it or anything.

 

[MartinHaworth]

My family think that I am a homebrew nerd, and mock me relentlessly.

One form of this mockery is for them to 'invent' 'interesting' adjuncts for me to try.

Last night they suggested that I make a 'badger carpet stout':

- mash the badger and add it to the boil for 60 mins
- filter the wort through the carpet (axminster by preference)
- ferment as usual

..and what did I do to provoke this ribaldry? I commented that I was interested in trying to brew a banana and chocolate beer.

It goes without saying that I never mock their interests!

Cheers

Martin

 

[Scottyburto]

My family think that I am a homebrew nerd, and mock me relentlessly.

One form of this mockery is for them to 'invent' 'interesting' adjuncts for me to try.

Last night they suggested that I make a 'badger carpet stout':

- mash the badger and add it to the boil for 60 mins
- filter the wort through the carpet (axminster by preference)
- ferment as usual

..and what did I do to provoke this ribaldry? I commented that I was interested in trying to brew a banana and chocolate beer.

It goes without saying that I never mock their interests!

Cheers

Martin

Whilst reading your post my second thought was "so its not just me!"

My first was "i wonder if hes got a recipe for that banana bread beer?"

Scott

 

[Scottyburto]

Any ideas what the best extract stout to start with is? Or is it a cause of getting a stout extract and adding more malt and a higher tolerance yeast?

 

[DavidDetroit]

I'm doing the whiskey-soaked cubes very soon. I have everything but the whiskey. The oak was surprisingly expensive. I'm doing a clone of Dragon's Milk Imperial Stout. Edit: I just realized, the name probably doesn't mean anything; but, it is quite tasty, comes in at about 12% ABV. I've seen it on "Ratebeer" and they give the explanation.
Happy hunting!

 

[Oneiroi]

Awesome thanks for all the ideas & advice. So far thinking is:

Blueberry or Cherry out.

Whisky & oak in (but use Bourbon)

Some combo of vanilla coffee cacao definitely in.

Rum Raisin probably out (sounds hard to get a good flavour)

@JonBrew Figs sounds like a great idea, got a tree in the garden too, though I imagine the canned or dried ones might impart more flavour.

Badger sounds hard to source fresh aunsure....

@STICKY_ICKY I love peanut butter but find it really hard to imagine what it would be like in beer. Maybe I need to try it for science.

I'd be interested to hear how the Maple stout comes out too, is there much flavour left from the syrup after it's fermented out?

 

[-Bezza-]

I'm doing the whiskey-soaked cubes very soon. I have everything but the whiskey. The oak was surprisingly expensive. I'm doing a clone of Dragon's Milk Imperial Stout. Edit: I just realized, the name probably doesn't mean anything; but, it is quite tasty, comes in at about 12% ABV. I've seen it on "Ratebeer" and they give the explanation.
Happy hunting!

Cracking beer that!

I want to try making a bacon and bourbon stout at some stage.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Awesome thanks for all the ideas & advice. So far thinking is:

Blueberry or Cherry out.

Whisky & oak in (but use Bourbon)

Some combo of vanilla coffee cacao definitely in.

Rum Raisin probably out (sounds hard to get a good flavour)

@JonBrew Figs sounds like a great idea, got a tree in the garden too, though I imagine the canned or dried ones might impart more flavour.

Badger sounds hard to source fresh aunsure....

@STICKY_ICKY I love peanut butter but find it really hard to imagine what it would be like in beer. Maybe I need to try it for science.

I'd be interested to hear how the Maple stout comes out too, is there much flavour left from the syrup after it's fermented out?

125ml of black treacle - any more will be overpowering. . I did put gin in an ipa once in various amounts. I found I needed around 10% was needed. perhaps adding some malibu for a coconut note.

 

[DavidDetroit]

Cracking beer that!

I want to try making a bacon and bourbon stout at some stage.

I understand bourbon, almonds, raisins, licorice, but I'm having a difficult time wrapping my mind around bacon. Yikes!
HOWEVER, one of the local microbreweries do bacon and I think even pancake or something. I thought it was a gimmick but it is the real deal. I would try it.
I was posting on the sister-site to this one and I asked "which bourbon should I use" because I don't know bourbon. Lot of feedback. I'm going to brew the stout this coming Monday so I am excited. Will be using oak chips for the first time.

 

[-Bezza-]

I understand bourbon, almonds, raisins, licorice, but I'm having a difficult time wrapping my mind around bacon. Yikes!
HOWEVER, one of the local microbreweries do bacon and I think even pancake or something. I thought it was a gimmick but it is the real deal. I would try it.
I was posting on the sister-site to this one and I asked "which bourbon should I use" because I don't know bourbon. Lot of feedback. I'm going to brew the stout this coming Monday so I am excited. Will be using oak chips for the first time.

I've been meaning to make some bacon bourbon for a while now. It seems pretty straight-forward so will give it a go and if it tastes any good, can think about adding it to a stout. Of course the whole point of doing it is for the shock factor.

Which bourbon are you settling on? You're spoilt out in the US with the bourbons you can get hold of - over here we get Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and a load of supermarket knock-offs, unless you go to a specialist shop. That said, I read this article that says you have to be careful in the US as there are a raft of distilleries that are producing craft bourbon that is anything but:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/your-craft-whiskey-is-probably-from-a-factory-distillery-in-indiana

There's then this link in the article which outlines whether the bourbon is produced by a particular distillery or just bottled there: https://recenteats.blogspot.com/p/the-complete-list-of-american-whiskey.html

But, at the end of the day, if it tastes good it is good. So take it all with a pinch of salt.

 

[Gunge]

I've got a few bottles left of a 'basic' stout to which I added 200g Asda's extra special cocoa to the last few minutes of the boil, and 10tbsp Lavazza ground coffee cold-steeped for 24hrs in a litre of water, to the bottling bucket. Turned out better than I'd any right to expect, with the intertwined flavours of both coming through wonderfully. Today I received a package of herbs and spices for my cooking endeavours, included in which was some liquorice root... some of which are destined for my next stout experiment.

 

[DavidDetroit]

Which bourbon are you settling on? You're spoilt out in the US with the bourbons you can get hold of - over here we get Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and a load of supermarket knock-offs, unless you go to a specialist shop. That said, I read this article that says you have to be careful in the US as there are a raft of distilleries that are producing craft bourbon that is anything but:

Do you have Costco? Big, wholesale place which sells a lot of different whiskeys. I'm going to go there or to Trader Joe's which is, not high-end prices but very conscientious about selling quality products. TJs also does that thing where they have put their own label on something that is made by some place that knows how to make it. So I'm going to one of those.
So bottling a batch on Monday and then brewing this stout on Tuesday.
That thread I started on the other site is still getting responses (which bourbon? but not too expensive). There are tons of whiskeys being suggested.
Yeah, I don't drink whiskey every really, so unfortunately that great whiskey selection is wasted on me. Same with wine. Looks pretty, smells alright. But I'll taste my wife's and go, "Nope, still don't see the point. Ruined perfectly good grape juice."
Anyway, the hint of whiskey in the actual stout is really something. Did I mention it's 11%? My highest ABV was 9+.