Milo Breakfast Stout

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

I've been challenged by a friend to brew a beer using a breakfast cereal. Now I know plenty of people have used Coco Pops and Weet Bix so I was thinking of trying something that I'm not sure I've seen anyone use before, Milo Cereal.

The ingredients are as follows:

Wholegrain Cereals (53%) [Wheat (36%), Corn (17%)], Sugar, Wheat Flour, Formulated Supplementary Food Base: MILO (10%) [Barley Malt Extract, Rice and/or Barley, Milk Solids, Sugar, Fat- Reduced Cocoa Powder, Minerals (Calcium, Magnesium and Iron), Vitamins (C, B1, B2 and A), (Soy)], Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder, Barley Malt Extract, Skimmed Milk Powder, Sunflower Oil, Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin), Flavours (Chocolate and Vanillin), Salt.

I don't really see anything there that could cause a problem so I think if I throw a box of it into the mash it should be fine. Although I think I read somewhere that some cereals should be boiled before being mashed while others will be fine in a normal mash but I can't remember why?

As a base beer I'm going to use a slightly tuned down version of the attached recipe for the Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast Stout with probably only half of the coffee addition because I don't really want the coffee to dominate too much and I don't want it to be too big (around 6.5%).

What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Liam_snorkel]

I don't really see anything there that could cause a problem so I think if I throw a box of it into the mash it should be fine. Although I think I read somewhere that some cereals should be boiled before being mashed while others will be fine in a normal mash but I can't remember why?

this gives a pretty good run down:

https://byo.com/mead/item/442-cereal-mashing-techniques
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Starch_Conversion

basically, some starches gelatinise at higher (than usual mash) temperatures, so to make it available for enzymes to break down they need to be boiled prior.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

Ahh yep that's the article! Thanks cobber.

 

[Mardoo]

Most major-label cereal products are made using twin-screw extruders or other processes that cook the product in the course of mixing and forming it. Maybe try a little mash first and see whether you get conversion. I'd be pretty surprised if you didn't get conversion, although you might want to soak it in hot water first.

 

[Feldon]

And don't forget to put a small plastic toy in the bottom of the fermentor.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

I also found this article:

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/484-confessions-of-a-cereal-brewer

I think I should be ok without an initial boiling step of the cereal given that it's mostly wheat and I'm fairly confident that whatever processing the corn portion of the cereal has been though will be sufficient for conversion.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

This recipe is around 25% oats. I feel like that's going to cause me a bit of grief for sparging...

 

[TimT]

What about a muesli beer? That would seem to be pretty close to the original grain.

 

[Weizguy]

I once used a box of generic cornflakes in an English Bitter. Was a little salty.

Have you considered making a chocolate stout with Aldi Choco Pillows?

Otherwise, go with the oats and I believe that sparging ease will depend on the geometry of your mash vessel and lautering setup.
I have a shallower bed and little lautering issues in my Techni-Ice cooler with a larger rectangular base and copper manifold

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

I've got a grainfather and although I haven't had any sparging issues before I've never brewed anything like this.

I'm pretty sold on the Milo cereal even though I doubt the flavour will come through very much given that this beer looks to be pretty big already.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

Well it was an absolute ******* nightmare but I managed to brew this monstrosity yesterday.

I didn't grind up the cereal thinking that the sparge was going to be bad enough as it is and I thought the cereal would just disintegrate anyway (and it sure did).

The sparge was horrific. I ended up having to manually mix the grain bed up so that I could finish the brew in less than a million hours. The result was an incredibly murky and thick wort. Never seen anything like it.

I gotta say, the Milo smell came through quite strongly throughout which is a good sign.

Also if there was ever a brew that could've used a whilfloc, it was this one. So of course I forgot to add it...

 

[IsonAd]

How'd this turn out?

 

[MHB]

Two things that would concern me.
What is the total fat content of the breakfast cereal? the nutrient panel on the box should tell you - fat is a pretty major head killer, and some fats can be degraded into pretty bad off flavours. I'm not sure how beer enzymes will cope with milk fats - hence the concern.
There is a pretty big fraction of raw Oat in there, I would be tempted to boil that with a little malt then use the boiled oats/water to mash in at a Glucanase rest temperature, before ramping up - should help with the runoff/sparge. The breakey cereal will be fully gelatinised, no need to boil, just mash it in with the rest of the grist.
Mark

 

[jimmyjackpot]

I used Nutri grain breakfast cereal in a beer a few years back. I was doing BIAB and I remember the Nutri Grain basically turned the bag into a bucket, lifting and draining it was a nightmare.

The base beer was a Brown ale of sorts and taste tests during ferment revealed very little to no Nutri Grain flavour. I wanted the Nutri Grain to be noticeable so I took a risk and "dry grained" with some more Nutri Grain into the fermenter after FG had been reached.

The end result for me was not really worth the effort as the flavour did not come through anywhere near enough and the brew day was a PITA with the blocked bag.

There were no problems with head retention or off flavours in the finished beer and it was quite drinkable but I will not be doing a Nutri Grain beer again.

Will be interested to see how the Milo flavour comes through in your beer.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

Only managed to get around to bottling it a couple of weeks ago so I'm tempted to open a bottle this weekend to see how it is.

Initially it was very bitter and had a relatively unpleasant oily mouthfeel but just before bottling it seemed to have mellowed out significantly and seemed fine.

i don't really anticipate getting much milo flavour from the final product but I'm very excited to find out.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

I cracked a couple of bottles of this on the weekend. The first was infected which was fairly unpleasant. I didn't have enough newer bottles to go around so I had to bottle a few in bottles that I've had for a couple of years so I think it's time they were retired.

in any event, the second bottle was actually pretty good. Mouthfeel has gone from very oily to incredibly smooth and the bitterness has mellowed wonderfully. In terms of Milo flavour, once the beer warms up a bit there's plenty of chocolate and coffee aroma but I swear there's the slightest hint of Milo specifically.

Head retention is almost non existent however.

Overall I'm pretty bloody happy with it. But I think that's mostly to do with the base recipe being excellent opposed to anything I've done.