AG Oatmeal Stout

[jeg3]

Putting this on this morning:

ABV: 4.8
IBU: 37
EBC: 74

3.5kg Maris Otter
750g Flaked Oats
500g Roasted Barey
250g Briess Black Malt
250g Crystal 90L

40g Northdown 90mins
10g Challenger 90 mins

Using yeast harvested from a dark ale that finished primary recently

Aiming for 1.049 OG and 1.013 FG. Hopefully my efficiency will be higher this time - I'll be monitoring the mash temp more closely

 

[GHW]

Seems to be a fair few of us with oatmeal stouts on the go. Mine will be four weeks in the bottle as of next Saturday, the wait is frankly killing me. Let us know how yours turns out.

 

[jeg3]

Well the sparge got stuck but rescued it by blowing through the tap in the mash tun.

Efficiency was 70%, so better than last time.

Just coming to the end of the boil, looks like I'll get about 20 litres bang on into the FV, a bit short but it's looking good

 

[jeg3]

Having finished it yesterday evening, here is the summary:

Mashed with 14l strike temp 74 degC (grain was cold).
Sparged with 19l at 77 degC. Even though I chucked in 100g of rice hulls the sparge stuck.

Ended up with 25l preboil which was short of the desired 27l. Checked the preboil gravity and adjusted for temp was 1.044 - this gives an efficiency of 70%, which is pretty good given that my process is fairly uncontrolled.

One point of note as this is my first AG stout I was surprised how much water the grain took in and how sticky the wort it - the first runnings were like treacle!

OG measured post boil 1.054, added a litre of water to get down to the desired 1.051 and pitched my starter. A good krausen had developed this morning.

 

[clibit]

You're well on course there, nice recipe. :thumb:

 

[jeg3]

Well after a soft start, got home tonight to find a very vigorous primary fermentation taking place. I found this with the two extract stouts I did, however the krausen this time is much darker and much thicker.

It smells very good. So looking forward to it, although my usual 4d + 10d + 4w + 6w will really test my patience. Good job I've got a Dunkelweizen ready in 3 weeks

 

[jeg3]

Well looked this morning and it appears primary fermentation is coming to an end, after only 36 hours. Will give it a couple of days and rack to secondary

 

[Stephan]

It`s sounding good. I used to like a long maturation once it was bottled. Should be just about ready for Christmas.

 

[jeg3]

Yeah my usual conditioning time is 4w in a keg followed by 6w in the bottle. Even with pale ales I've found I wish I had left it longer in the bottle, rather than just drinking it.

That puts it mid-January. Some may be drunk at Christmas though!

 

[jeg3]

Took a gravity reading tonight and had a taste. It's been in the FV four days and is down to 1.010.

Taste wise it's very complex, with a slight burnt taste but loads of liquorice, a bit to much for me so hopefully that'll calm down as it continues to ferment and conditions.

On the whole though mightily pleased with how it's turning out

 

[jeg3]

Racked to secondary tonight. Meant to do this after 4 days but events got the better of me. I'll rack to the keg on Sunday anyway, but wanted to give it a few days off the yeast cake to settle.

The taste has improved markedly, the liquorice has mellowed out to what is normal and the roast, dry flavours of the malts are really coming through. Balanced hop bitterness. Looking forward to this one. It already tastes better than the kit stouts I did

 

[jeg3]

Racked this into the king keg tonight for its initial conditioning. I had wondered whether to bottle it straight away, but experience has taught me that patience, and longer conditioning, results in a nicer beer.

It'll stay in the keg somewhere cool for 2-3 weeks before being bottled. Hopefully it will be sufficiently carbonated from the keg that little or no priming sugar will be required in the bottle.

 

[GHW]

Racked this into the king keg tonight for its initial conditioning. I had wondered whether to bottle it straight away, but experience has taught me that patience, and longer conditioning, results in a nicer beer.

It'll stay in the keg somewhere cool for 2-3 weeks before being bottled. Hopefully it will be sufficiently carbonated from the keg that little or no priming sugar will be required in the bottle.

So you go from primary -> secondary -> keg -> bottle?

That's some journey. I've never done more than primary to bottle or barrel, for any type of beer. What do you think it gains from the extra steps?

Btw I'm not intending to imply criticism by asking, I'm just interested in other ways of doing things.

 

[jeg3]

My first AG - a Bathams Bitter clone - got significantly better after 10 weeks in the bottle so I decided to follow Graham Wheeler's method and condition in the keg for a few weeks. All of my beers since have been on par with good bottles beers.

The advantage of conditioning in the keg is that the bottled beer needs little or no priming.

But it can be upwards of 10 weeks before I feel it's ready. The wait is punishing.

The exception is the dunkelweisen that conditions this week. That was a 2 week fermentation followed by 2 weeks in the bottle

 

[jeg3]

Wheeler suggests that beer should only be bottled when it's ready to drink from the cask or keg. There's some debate about whether this step is really required, but for me this hobby is about striving for excellent beer. Once I'm in a good place with conditioning then I'll look at milling my own grain, the yeast, the water and controlling the fermentation temp better

 

[MartinHaworth]

Brew Day Today! and it's Oatmeal Stout! Going by the book.

Switched on HLT at 9am, and began cleaning and sterilising.

10am: Strike temp 75C, mashed in 13L of water, came out at 65C so added 1 more liter to bring it up to 67C.

 

[jeg3]

Looks good. What's the grain bill?

 

[MartinHaworth]

Straight from Greg Hughes

Pale Malt 4.2kg
Rolled Oats 250g
Crystal Malt 200g
Chocolate Malt 160g
Roasted Barley 70g

Cheers

Martin

 

[MartinHaworth]

First runnings shared between 2 pans and started to heat, whilst dunk sparging grainbag in 80C water.

Not all of sparge water will fit in the pans, but some added as the boil progresses

39g of Challenger at the start of the boil shared between the two pans.

The pans came to the boil at slightly different points - I will finish the first one sooner and start the cool in the bath.

 

[MartinHaworth]

OK, finished boil, chilled in sink down to 26C.

Took SG reading of 1033!! What on earth have I done wrong - that shows an efficiency that is really very low.

I did everything the same as normal - I did get the grain from an unfamiliar LHBS and I don't think they sell a lot of grain - could it be old grain?

Anyway, any ideas what I could do to increase SG - maybe add some treacle in solution?

Pitched rehydrated yeast at 21C