A home brewer's journey
Explore Home Brewing with Nano 528
Grains, Hops, Brewing Ideas
Beer for a picnic
Brew S'More
I'm still learning to use GoDaddy Website Builder so if something isn't cool, it's just me.
Now to the topic of this series of entries.
We have some friends who have a themed party each year. The theme is the famous "s'more". Attendees can bring a dessert that must of course have graham crackers, marshmallows and dark chocolate.
My partner in these endeavors, my wife said "Why don't you make a s'more" beer? The rest is now history.
The recipe
How to make a beer taste like a s'more?
I guess most who use the Internet regularly know that AI is in your face as soon as you are in a web browser. There are several ways to turn this off but I choose to use it.
Just use common sense. It is searching the same sites you might find by a non-AI search and melding these together. I find mistakes and things I don't like or agree with.
This was the case after a few suggestions as I settled on a recipe.
Let me make a few comments on the different items in the recipe:
- The combination of malts was intended to give the backbone a biscuit, toasty flavor. Along with the Honey Malt the hope was to mimic the taste of graham cracker.
- The Chocolate Malt amount is low enough that I felt it was mostly in for color but maybe a little chocolate flavor. The real chocolate is of course the cocoa powder.
- And the Milk Lactose is for mouthfeel and maybe add to the impression of marshmallow.
- It needs the Vanilla I just realized did not get shown in the screenshot.
- So the finale two ingredients are:
- SafAle English Ale, S-04 as the yeast.
- 1.5 tsp of Vanilla Extract at Bottling.
Brew day notes
Recipe Notes
- I found the Cocoa Powder difficult to incorporate. It didn't seem to dissolve and left some serious trub in the wort.
- A little so with the Milk Lactose although this seemed to incorporate better.
- I would say the rest went well together. I usually don't include as many different types of malt (6 in this case). I was being guided by suggestions to get the s'more flavor.
Brew day notes
Brewing Notes
As you may have noticed, I had not brewed in quite a while. Life, work, etc
The Brew Day went well in general. Let me talk about some things I will correct next time.
- I forgot how long it takes to accumulate filtered water using a small Brita with charcoal cannister. This took up quite a bit of time the first thing in the morning.
- I forgot to check my Aeration Stone system. When I needed it, it was blocked. Turned out to be the HEPA disk filter. So I quickly attached the stone directly to the air pump. It did not ruin the beer although not what I had in mind.
- The Mash was straightforward. However, I only have a 3 gallon cooler. With the malt in this recipe and the strike water, it was filled to the brim. Had to very gently place the cover on.
- I just noticed as I viewed the recipe that I did not end up using the 3 stage Fermentation profile.
- I did it all at my cellar temperature which this time of year runs about 69° F. The primary fermentation was 7 days. Due to all the trub, I decided to split this into two 1 gallon secondary containers. One is a Little Big Mouth Bubbler so it holds 1.4 gallons. The second is just a 1 gallon glass wide mouth. I got about 2.25 gallons avoiding all the trub. This fit fine between the two vessels.
Result
Tasting Hopgoblin Ale
Well I guess when I started to update this section, I didn't finish.
As you all know, life gets busy. I went back to look at my recipe. I took my sweet time drinking up Hopgoblin. Looking at the date, I made the beer in September of 2024. I finished the last couple of bottles early in 2026 (maybe March).
Hopgoblin was a great Brown Ale. I tend to like balanced ale. I would say more toward the malt side than the hop side. The IBU's were adequate to balance the beer.
I guess I'll adopt a scale of 5. On this scale, I'd give this beer a 4. I always find hmebrew refreshing. Since my experience is medium, I don't always remember in the heat of the battle to check O.G. I am very careful with temperature.
This is a good solid recipe and will yield a reasonable drinker with enough alcohol to be satisfying but low enough so you can have a couple in an evening
