pirate stout help

[izumidai]

I am interested in making a rum themed stout and I have a couple of questions...

My original idea was to use a foreign export stout as my base recipe and add a pound of blackstrap molasses and age it on dark rum soaked oak chips. I then thought, hey, why not add some spices that would be traditionally used in spiced rum?

After doing a little research, I have read a lot of things saying that rum can be a little overpowering in a beer.

I have read quite a bit that molasses can add a rummy character to beer on its own, so my question is should I just skip soaking the oak in rum? and will this give me a nice rum character?

As for spices, I am thinking things like vanilla, anise, allspice, ginger, maybe some rosemary. My question with the spices is, am I better off adding them to the end of the boil, or am I better off making an extract with some vodka and the spices to add at kegging? I am afraid of adding too much spice and would appreciate any feedback on how to really dial in spices.

Also, any ideas on yeast. My original thought was to repitch some wlp013 London yeast that I have, but I am wondering if a belgian strain or something else might give this a more piratey feel.

THX,
Kevin

[spiderwrangler]

I'd probably do the beer with spices and just oak and add rum in to taste at bottling.

[brewinhard]

Why not make a tincture by adding your spices to the rum and letting it age for a bit. Then use the "spiced rum" to augment your beer appropriately.

[thatguy314]

Captain Lawrence makes a series of smoked porter aged in barrels called smoke from the oak. They have mixed success. Bourbon barrel is good. Wine barrel is ok. The rum barrel is undrinkable. It's an overpowering flavor in the beer. That said I think the problem stems from a couple issues

1) too much rum character. it could be good if he toned it down

2) too young a rum character. the beer was made from barrels that held very young rum. it had a very "white rum" character. it didn't have the same dimension and character that a dark aged rum has. I think if aged rum was used as a base it would blend better with the beer.

3) clashing flavors. I don't think white rum and beechwood smoke were very complimentary characters. white rum has a sweet, almost coconutty flavor. if you try to structure a beer similar to the coconut porters and stouts that have been successful, i think it might work better.

Hope this helps. Let me know if it comes out well!

[BlueLoon]

a pound of Black strap is a lot. Personally I'd either do the rum to taste like mentioned, or do a little black strap in primary an then add rum to taste at bottling/kegging. Plus you can use the rum for the tincture with the spices.

[Puttie00]

Has anyone ever tried these essences, maybe these would work and there's less cost as well. You would not be adding any extra alcohol though.
http://www.grapegrainandbeanstore.com/cgi/commerce.cgi?search=action&category=LES0

[izumidai]

THX for the responses so far. Here what I am thinking so far...

I am using the foreign extra stout recipe from BCS as a base.

I was going to add a pound of black strap or treacle, but in what I read here and in talking to other folks that is probably a bit much and maybe not the right ingredients. A few people have highly recommended using a pound of the D2 candi syrup because it has flavors more in line with rum. Any thoughts on adding a pound of D2?

I then plan on fermenting this as is and then to the secondary adding oak that was soaked in goslings dark rum. Should I drain off the rum and just add the oak or add the rum and oak?

For the spices, I am going to take the Randy Mosher potion approach and dose small sample til I get the right flavor and then calculate how much I need to the 5 gallons at kegging.

I made the first attempt at a potion last night by taking a 6oz ball jar and adding a vanilla bean, cinnamon stick, anise, rosemary, allspice, ginger, black pepper and orange peel and covered that with vodka. I am going to try some different combinations as well to see what I like the best. Smells great after one day. I am looking forward to dosing some gold rum as well to make some homemade spiced rum after the brew is over.

How is this sounding so far? Does this recipe even have a chance of making a good beer or am I wasting my time? What tweaks would you make?

[Chupa LaHomebrew]

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know how fermentable blackstrap molasses would be? I would imagine less than Candi syrups but I have never tried it.