Oatmeal stout - thoughts welcome please

[Ciaran12s]

Hi all,

Planning on doing my first stout this coming week.

Base 4700kg
Chocolate 400g
Flaked barley 100g
Rolled oats 400g

East Kent holdings 20g 60mins
Progress 18g 60mins
East Kent holdings 20g flameout

25litres, 1.047OG, 25 IBU's

Does that sound ok? I've used an app called wort(cos it's free and want to get the hang of software before I start paying)

The main concern is time in the FV. I need to do a brew this week and one next. I'll then be gone until 27th December and with everything else going on might not get bottling til 29/30 at the earliest. That's not too long is it? I have seen on here about stouts benefiting from longer conditioning times - does a few weeks in the FV help/hinder or make no odds?

I thought about vanilla as well. Should I bother? If so soak it in vodka and add after fermentation a la dry hop style or at pitching time?

Thanks for any advice folks!

 

[Dutto]

The recipe looks a bit heavy on the Chocolate Malt.

In March 2016 I made a 23 litre batch of Barley Wine with 500g of Chocolate Malt in it and the whole lot tasted like liquid dark chocolate! I still have some resting on the shelf and the chocolate flavour has mellowed a little but not enough to make it any better than "drinkable as a shandy". (Which is why I still have some left!)

Since then, I have made Mild Ales with 100g of Chocolate Malt and a Stout with 200g of Chocolate Malt and they have both had the "hint of chocolate" taste that I wanted.

I would therefore drop the Chocolate Malt down to 200g and reallocate the 200g to the Rolled Oats. The increased oats may increase the time for the beer to clear, but as it's a Stout any cloudiness will be hidden. :whistle:

Hope this helps. :thumb:

 

[Ajhutch]

I think the chocolate malt amount would probably be personal preference, but like Dutto that might be too much for me. However if it were me I’d allocate it to another dark malt or roasted barley and also up the oats.

 

[Ciaran12s]

Thanks for that lads. That's the thing about that software, I can up chocolate to get the colour but I did think that was bit heavy. I've got some carared and cara Amber so I'll maybe plug them in and fiddle the numbers that way.

I've seen about cooking the oats separately from the mash to avoid stuck sparges. Any truth in that or would 600g not cause too much trouble in there?

 

[MyQul]

I made a stout once which had loads of chocolate malt and no roasted barley in it once. It tasted fine but to me it tasted like a porter rather than a stout.

Edit: It was the burton bridge top dog stout from BYOBRA. I had 365g of choccy. So I'm thinking yours will end up more porter-y than stout-y too

 

[strange-steve]

I think you're on the right lines with your recipe but a couple of tweaks might help. I agree with Ajhutch that some roasted barley would be a good addition. This is Jamil's award winning oatmeal stout recipe just to give you an idea:

4.2kg pale malt
450g oats
340g chocolate malt
340g amber malt
220g crystal 80
220g roasted barley

50g EKG at 60 mins

Mash at 68°C
Ferment with S-04
OG 1.055
FG 1.016
36 IBU

And I wouldn't be too concerned about leaving it in the FV for a few weeks.

 

[jeg3]

You may want to think about upping the bittering hops as well, 25 IBU sounds a bit low. I've just finished drinking an oatmeal stout which was 40, and that had a good balance

 

[Zephyr259]

I have similar thoughts to those above. With only chocolate malt it's going to be more of a porter than a stout. Roasted barley will help that, I'd also add some crystal malt like your CaraRed and CaraAmber to up the sweetness to match the body from the oats.

 

[chub1]

Another for a bit or Roasted Barley:thumb:

 

[Ciaran12s]

Nice one cheers everybody! Glad I asked now, was just going to plod on.

I tried to create the recipe from stuff I have with the only ingredient bought being the EKG. Bit of a fluke that they match the Jamil 's recipe.

I shall source some roasted barley and hopefully get it done Tuesday night with all the recommended tweaks.

Thanks again

 

[Ciaran12s]

Got it brewed up last night and it's currently bubbling away quite happily.

Final recipe bwcame;
4700 pale malt
400 oats
250 chocolate
250 roasted barley
250 cara red
100 flaked barley

30 EKG
36 Progress

I hit 26 litres at 1.047 which was 70%. 25litres at 1.049 at 70% was the target so happy enough with that.

That's my 4th AG and things get better and smoother every time. There was however issues with sparging as usual. Ended up being around two hours altogether. I started it off very slow and it went great for about 5 litres then just stopped. Quite a bit of blowing back up the tube and underletting sparge water etc. After a few of these and some messing around it started coming thick and fast. It could be the oats etc but I really need to sort a better filter out.
Any recommendations? 15mm manifold, stainless braid?

There was a fair bit of trug got through to the fv. I drained really slowly through a sieve and left about 2 litres in the boiler but the trug is up to about 3 litres in the fv. Again a better filtration system required here. Stainless braid for the boiler? Any filters which just work well and don't clog up too badly?

With my current setup sparging is a bit crap really. I've yet to set it so that the flow out matches the flow in. Hopefully I'll get this ironed out soon. What sort of temperature should the mash tun be at during the sparge? I believe 80 is max but I'm more concerned about the minimum as that's probably where I'm at.

 

[Gunge]

Until recently I've used a 15mm slotted copper manifold. About 10 brews ago I used a SS braid and used it ever since. No hint whatsoever of a stuck mash regardless of grist make-up. In fact, it flows so freely the temptation is to run off way too fast. And unlike the copper manifold it takes about 10 seconds to rinse clean!

 

[Ciaran12s]

Until recently I've used a 15mm slotted copper manifold. About 10 brews ago I used a SS braid and used it ever since. No hint whatsoever of a stuck mash regardless of grist make-up. In fact, it flows so freely the temptation is to run off way too fast. And unlike the copper manifold it takes about 10 seconds to rinse clean!

I was leaning towards that anyway but that's decided it. Cheers!

1 metre? 50cm?

 

[Gunge]

I was leaning towards that anyway but that's decided it. Cheers!

1 metre? 50cm?

Not sure without digging it out, but it runs from the tap of my Colemans Extreme mashtun to the back wall in a straight line. Just make sure that the braid is neither stretched or compressed or the tiny openings will close-up.

 

[Gunge]

I made a stout once which had loads of chocolate malt and no roasted barley in it once. It tasted fine but to me it tasted like a porter rather than a stout.

Edit: It was the burton bridge top dog stout from BYOBRA. I had 365g of choccy. So I'm thinking yours will end up more porter-y than stout-y too

I don't know if I made a porter or a stout yesterday.... it had 250g choc, 250g carafa III and yep you guessed it - 500g flaked barley! Porter/Stout.... what's the distinction anyway?

 

[Ciaran12s]

Thanks for the tip! I'm off to screwfix! Got another brew planned in for the weekend.

 

[MyQul]

I don't know if I made a porter or a stout yesterday.... it had 250g choc, 250g carafa III and yep you guessed it - 500g flaked barley! Porter/Stout.... what's the distinction anyway?

As a rough rule of thumb a porter will have black malt or no roasted barley in it whereas a stout will have roasted barley. Of course as you know, nowadays homebrewers and craft brewer have gone all 'freestyle' on what constitutes a particular beer style

If the beer you made yesterday had no roasted barley in it, beer nazi, Oberfuhrer MyQul would say you made a porter

 

[chub1]

As a rough rule of thumb a porter will have black malt or no roasted barley in it whereas a stout will have roasted barley. Of course as you know, nowadays homebrewers and craft brewer have gone all 'freestyle' on what constitutes a particular beer style

If the beer you made yesterday had no roasted barley in it, beer nazi, Oberfuhrer MyQul would say you made a porter

Yup
quite often porters had brown and black malts.

 

[Alside101]

I have a false bottom for my peco boilerits like 1 of those things you put on a frying pan for it spiting. All the trub gets stuck on that with the hops. It works really well. 1 of these

https://www.geterbrewed.com/stainless-steel-false-bottom-for-peco-boiler/

 

[Ciaran12s]

I have a false bottom for my peco boilerits like 1 of those things you put on a frying pan for it spiting. All the trub gets stuck on that with the hops. It works really well. 1 of these

https://www.geterbrewed.com/stainless-steel-false-bottom-for-peco-boiler/

I had considered that previously. Id have to make something to fit my rectangular tun so that could have worked out quite expensive. I'm going to get a metre of braid and use half in the tun and half in the boiler. I'll see how that goes and if I'm still getting trub to the fv I'll probably get the spit guard.

I've seen them in supermarkets and they look about the right diameter but I've never actually measured. Kick myself every time I see one.