Update

This past weekend I bottled the apfelwine and also transferred the Milk Chocolate Stout into the Secondary.

Observations:

1. Apfelwine tastes exactly like white wine, just with apple flavor. It's really dry and pretty smooth, you barely even notice that it's 9% alcohol. This will do nicely to give out and have on hand when someone doesn't want a beer. Since it's being carbed, it'll be more like a champagne almost, rather than a flat wine. But it's pretty good, especially for not even being aged at all.
2. I might experiment with putting cocoa in more beers in the future, depending on how this one comes out. It smells good, and is really easy to mix with water and pour the beer on top of.
3. The Milk Chocolate Stout is looking like it's going to be more of a Milk Chocolate Porter. I can already tell that it's just not going to be dark enough, and quite possibly roasted enough for it to be a Stout. I think it may have something to do with my grain bags that hold my steeping grains. I think they may be too big to allow for all the sugars to be properly extracted from the grains they hold. I'll have to experiment around with smaller bags.
4. I've found out that my pipeline is built up a bit too much. I need to clear out some bottles for the stout in a few weeks. I need about 48 bottles in 3 weeks and I don't want to get extras from outside. I want the beer I have drunk. So come on over and help me make some empties.

The Milk Chocolate Stout

This past Saturday was a big one in terms of brewing for me.

First, a week before I got a new toy.




A brand new Turkey Fryer! This thing will be great. No longer will SWMBO's nose curl from boiling wort in the kitchen. Boiling outside will cut that out. Plus, with a 30 quart pot, I can do full boils now.

With full boils, I will get better hop utilization, which means I need less hops for more bitterness and flavor. Plus, there will be less off-flavors from the extract I use.


Win/Win/Win.


So, this past Saturday, I kicked the outdoor brewing off by starting up my Milk Chocolate Stout.


Here's the recipe.

• 4.5 lbs of Extra Pale Dry Malt Extract.
• 1 lb of Chocolate Malt
• 12 oz. of Crystal 60L Malt
• 4 oz of Roasted Barley
• 1 oz of Black Patent Malt
• 1 lb of Dextrose
• 1 lb of Lactose (Milk Sugar, which is unfermentable, and will leave the beer sweeter)
• 1 oz of Cluster hops at 60 min.
• I used a starter of Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast.
  

The whole process started with making the starter a few days before:

Then steep the grains for 30 minutes at 150 degrees. Here's how we looked after steeping.

Here's the hot break after the boil started. Fortunately, I use Fermcaps so I won't be having any boilovers.

The one and only hop addition at 60 minutes:

My starting gravity was actually a bit high at 1.061. I, along with Beersmith, had expected it to be closer to 1.055, but we shall see where the final gravity ends up. Hopefully, somewhere in the 1.014-1.019 range. It wouldn't be bad for this beer to have a bit of body to it.

In another week or so I'll transfer the Stout to the secondary and add in some baker's cocoa. Probably about 3 or 4 ounces. Hopefully, this should be a pretty sweet, chocolaty and roasted tasting beer.

Cheers!