Caramel Machiato

My spouse wants me to try and make a beer that tastes like a Starbucks Caramel Machiato.  Pleasing her tends to make my existence a good bit more tolerable.  That said, any suggestions on how I might make such a beer?  I came up with this, but I don’t know what a caramel machiato tastes like:

10 lbs 2-row
5 lbs Munich
2 lbs Crystal 80L
1 lb Honey Malt
1 lb Pale Chocolate
2 lbs Lactose
.5 oz Magnum 60 minutes
Mash Temp 156
3 smack packs Wyeast Scottish Ale Yeast

Any ideas/suggestions are quite welcome.

Where’s the black patent? That might give you some of those coffee notes.

How about Crystal 120L… I understand it has a roasty taste.  I’m not sure there’s any black patent. in my storage container.  My spouse told me that the Caramel Machiato isn’t only a caramel taste and that it has co  ee notes.

Not sure if 120L will give enough to shine through. You could certainly roast it a bit more in a hot pan or something to try to squeeze a bit out of it. Another thing you should think about is a bit of lactose, up to a pound, to try to give it some more sweetness/milkiness.

I was going to add 2 lbs Lactose to this recipe.  I really wanna make it caramelly (? spelling) and sweet.  I might be able to scrounge some black patent… about 2 oz or so.

If that’s all you need, I can totally post you some chocolate malt from france, two letters max weight 100 g each, that’s about 6 ounces.

I would add some freshly brewed expresso to the keg after primary ferment to lend a fresh coffee flavor to the beer.

For what its worth, the base of the Starbucks caramel machiatto is vanilla syrup. The caramel syrup is put on top of the foam. My wife also loves them and I make them at home for her. You may want to add vanilla beans.

I made a vanilla sweet stout that I added espresso when bottling.   It was probably my favorite espresso stout, not that it tasted like a caramel machiatto.

Edit: Brain cramp

I read somewhere that in Southern Tier’s creme brulee stout(which is freaking phenomenal and has an insane carmel flavor) they take table sugar and carmelize it in a pan turning it into a brown caramel sauce then add it to the boil for the last couple minutes.  Give it a shot, it really lends that caramel sweetness and flavor you’re probably looking for.

I’d also cold brew some starbucks coffee with a fresh vanilla bean or 2 split in half and add that to the secondary.

Wow… great ideas guys.  I do ha e black patent by the way.  I appreciate the o  er to send me some though.  I like the idea about heating table sugar to make a caramel sauce and just happen to ha e one  anilla bean a ter making the Bad Santa recipe out o  Zymurgy.  And just might do the cold brewing o some Starbucks as well to add to the secondary.  Thanks  or the ideas and suggestions.

Something stuck with your ’ v ’ and ’ f ’ keys?

You are  ery obser ant… haha.  My youngest seems to enjoy messing with my computer.  One key went a couple months ago… made writing  un,  antastic, and  reedom di  icult.  Then the other key went a  ew weeks ago.  It is helping me stretch my word usage though.

Pop off some of the number keys (or the function keys) and use those as replacements - they’re often the same size.

I thought about this post as I made my contribution to dinner last week, a bourbon carmel sauce that I love with pie/vanilla ice cream/finger.  In fact it made me decide to add it to a caucasion ala ‘the dude’.  Mmmm, Pinski abides. 
The sauce is definitely going to make its way into the boilpot of an upcoming porter.

I used to prank my coworkers by switching the n and m keys around…

you would wait for years for me to notice! I have had a few keyboards missing keys and it is f***ing annoying for sure. but I haven’t actually looked at the keyboard when I am typing in so long I could likely get away with one of those clever unmarked keyboards.

To get coffee flavor in a stout, I like to use roasted barley. It’s a completely different flavor than black patent. 1-2% will keep it subtle. If you’re going to add coffee directly, you might just want to skip it.

2 lb of lactose is too much IMHO. I’d keep it closer to a pound.

I’d just try to clone So Tier Creme Brulee.  Not something I particularly like but I dont think you’ll get much closer than that on a WAG.  There was a recipe recently in either zymurgy or BYO.