I’m sure some of you are waiting to hear about how our take on Steph and Tim’s Foreign Extra Stout has played out — I can tell you that Ray and I have tried a couple, and they have carbonated, but they need to mellow a bit.

But if you also remember that post at all, you should remember our mention that I was going to put my own spin on the recipe, and I did. Except it didn’t quite work.

Inspired by my Orange Chocolate Chip cookies, I wanted to add an orange flavor to the stout; however, foresight was in my favor and I decided I didn’t want to chance the entire 5 gallons. So Ray and I prepped 2 carboys when it came to secondary fermentation: one for 2.5 gallons of untouched stout (the control) and one for 2.5 gallons of stout with 1.5 ounces of McCormick orange extract added (the variable).

We thought the grocery-store extract would be fine, and we eagerly awaited the orangey-goodness seeping through the stout, infusing the roasty beer with a nice citrus nose and flavor. We didn’t get that lucky.

While the control batch carbonated fine — just needs a little more aging — the orange-flavored stout never carbonated. So it’s flat, and quite honestly, it reminds me of orange-scented cleaning supplies in the taste and nose department. A bit of a disappointment, BUT it’s not as if we wasted 5 gallons. So far we used a majority of a 12 ounce bottle to create a beer and brown sugar reduction that was paired with sauteed apple slices over french toast. It was pretty neat. We’ve also read plenty of blog posts about using “bad beer” for marinades and such, which we will most likely do over the coming months. I wanted to feed it to my plants, but Ray dissuaded me.

So, you might be asking, “What happened?” We’re not 100% sure; I know I properly added the priming sugar to the bottling bucket — and the regular stout fermented fine — so I think it’s safe to rule that out. The only thing we can think of is that your typical baking extract does not rock yeast’s world. That, or maybe I didn’t do my good luck dance well enough that day.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days 3 Comments »