Coconut Stout Recipe – A Decadent Coconut Milk Stout
Coconut can sometimes be a divisive flavour but I happen to like it. I have seen a few coconut beers from commercial breweries over the years and I like the idea so wanted to brew my own.
This coconut milk stout recipe happened to go down quite well with everyone I shared it with and even my wife who doesn’t really like dark beers. The sweetness and full-bodied mouthfeel, plus the layer of coconut complexity works really well so this is recipe is well worth brewing.
Table of Contents
Coconut Stout, Does It Work?
I tried a few commercial beers with coconut added and think it works rather well. I guess it all depends on how much you like coconut. When designing this beer though I knew that the coconut needed to be paired with a bold almost chocolatey beer with plenty of body. With this in mind, I decided a milk stout would pair perfectly with the coconut.
How To Add Coconut To A Beer?
I pondered this for a while and as usual, did a bit of research online to see what other brewers have done to achieve a coconut beer. The options really boil down to the following:
- Coconut Flavouring
- Fresh Coconut
- Coconut Liqueur
- Desiccated Coconut
I knew that I wanted to use actual coconut in the beer if possible so the flavouring and liqueur could be eliminated straight away. I always think that when you are adding flavours to a beer like this then artificial flavourings or extracts can always be added just before packaging if the actual ingredient you are adding doesn’t pack enough punch.
I have seen on various forums that home brewers have used both fresh and dried coconut with no real consensus as to which provides the best results.
I decided to roll with desiccated coconut firstly for ease of use so I wouldn’t have to process a whole load of fresh coconuts (probably one of the more difficult flavourings to prepare for a beer). Also, desiccated coconut is available almost everywhere and is cheap so the beer can be made by anyone.
Do You Want A Beer To Taste Like A Bounty?
Depending on where you live in the world you may or may not have heard of a Bounty. It is basically a coconut chocolate bar. It consists of a sweet coconut centre enveloped in milk chocolate.
They are by no means the most popular chocolate bar but this is the sort of flavour I am aiming for in this beer so I opted for a fairly large portion of lactose to give the beer a rich, thick mouthfeel and a robust sweetness.
Preparing The Desiccated Coconut
On its own dried coconut is fairly coconutty (not surprisingly) but a little one dimensional. Along with this is the fat content which is a lot higher than I was expecting. In a bid to get a better result and alleviate these two problems I decided to toast the coconut.
Toasting The Desiccated Coconut
I spread the coconut out on a baking sheet and put in a low oven. It takes only a couple of minutes and is extremely easy to burn. After a couple of minutes, the coconut should have turned a golden brown and the kitchen will be filled with a wonderful coconut aroma.
After toasting in a low oven for a couple of minutes blot the coconut between a few sheets of kitchen paper to remove the excess oils.
Although some of the oil will come out of the coconut I did find an oil slick at the top of the fermenter after adding the coconut. I initially thought this would be a problem for head retention but the finished beer seems fine. When racking the beer I tried to rack beneath the oil slick leaving as much as possible behind so this may have helped.
Coconut Milk Stout – Ingredients
The malt for this beer is as simple as it comes and was mainly designed with grains that I have leftover from other beers. I wanted the beer to be less roasty and more chocolatey and to have a real smooth mouthfeel so opted against any roasted barley or black malts, going with chocolate malt to provide the colour and flavour here.
Hops are again really simple as I want the coconut to be the star here so I am not looking for the hops to compete for flavour in any way.
Lactose is added at around 10% of the grain bill. This is on the higher end for my tastes but I want it to be rich and it definitely is. I wouldn’t go much above this myself but up to around 12% would be maximum in my opinion without it being way too sweet and cloying.
Recipe Details
| Batch Size | Boil Time | IBU | SRM | Est. OG | Est. FG | ABV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 L | 60 min | 27.0 IBUs | 69.7 EBC | 1.061 | 1.019 | 5.4 % |
Fermentables
| Name | Amount | % |
|---|---|---|
| Pale Malt (2 Row) US | 3.548 kg | 68.36 |
| Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L | 469.6 g | 9.05 |
| Chocolate Malt | 465 g | 8.96 |
| Caramel Wheat Malt | 227.3 g | 4.38 |
| Milk Sugar (Lactose) | 480 g | 9.25 |
Hops
| Name | Amount | Time | Use | Form | Alpha % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuggle | 45.1 g | 60 min | Boil | Leaf | 5.8 |
Miscs
| Name | Amount | Time | Use | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coconut Desiccated | 160.00 g | 5 min | Boil | Spice |
Mash
| Step | Temperature | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Mash In | 65.56°C | 75 min |
Download
| Download this recipe's BeerXML file |
This sounds like a great recipe! A quick question, what temperature did you roast the coconut at? And at what point did you add them? How was the aroma of this beer, when you racked your beer did you add anything to bring out the aroma of coconut?
I toasted the coconut as 180 celcius. It does not take long at all so keep an eye on it.
I added at the end of the boil and the finished aroma was quite coconutty but did fade away as the beer aged. I would consider a flavour extract next time maybe.
Hey Neil, just wanted to check with you:
1. Do you add the toasted coconut into the primary fermenter?
2. How long is the fermentation?
Thanks!
I added the toasted coconut just after primary fermentation died down.
This beer was in the fermenter for about 10 days with the coconut so just over 2 weeks I think.
Which yeast do you use for this recipe?
I used Safale S-04 for this stout.
Hey Neil , this sounds delicious , i need to clarify though, you mentioned above about adding coconut at the end of bil and again in the ferment . Did you split the 160 gram between the two additions ? thanks..
Fred
Hi! I’m still getting to grips with home brewing but have tried your small batch milk stout recipe a couple of times (successfully); would the process for this coconut milk stout be the same as the small batch milk stout, in terms of boil temperature and timings? I’m assuming that we can easily turn this into a small batch by simply reducing the ingredients?
Yes, to make a small batch just reduce the ingredients down proportionally. The boil and fermentation time is the same as the milk stout.