Smokestack Brewery AG #1 - Oatmeal Stout

[rickthebrew]

Hope all goes well ceejay :clap:

 

[Ceejay]

Cheers dudes! You too! :

 

[Ceejay]

Hit strike temp (78 degrees), poured 12.5l into the mash tun, doughed in and reached a mash temp of 65.5 degrees. Meh - quickly boiled the kettle and hit 66.5 degrees, which I guess will be OK. I think I fannied about too long getting the water in the tun, I'll have to address that for next time and maybe use an 80 degree strike temp.

15 minute glucan rest for the oats + 1/5 weight of pale malt at 43 degrees and doughing in:

Feckin forgot to heat the oat grist back up to main mash temp. Oh well :|

By 'eck - it's quarter to eleven! Time for a beer methinks...and what more appropriate than a glass of Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout?

 

[Ceejay]

A quick check of the recipe reveals my mash tmep shoudl be 66 degrees - so I'm OK! Woohoo!

Quick question though regarding my yeast starter - it now looks like this:

Should I be pitching the whole thing, ditching the liquid and using the slurry at the bottom, or pitching the liquid and ditching the slurry?

Do I need to shake it all up first?

I think it's the first one! :hmm:

 

[Good Ed]

Aleman to the rescue again, I read a recent post where he said this; but cant't find the post :wha:

let the yeast settle (like what you've got) and when ready decant off the old wort, and top up with cooled boiled wort from 45mins into your boil, give it a shake and by the time you're ready to pitch the yeasties will be rearing to go

 

[Ceejay]

Right-o. I'll give that a go!

Just about to collect first runnings :

 

[Ceejay]

Pretty cool - my mash tun temp at the end of mashing was 65.4 degrees! First runnings SG = 1.070 @ 50.8 degrees. Not quite sure if that's good or not at this stage... :hmm:

Cracked open a bottle of Darkness from the Exeter Brewery in celebration of my first ever mash. very nice it is too - not quite a nice as SSOS though :lol:

 

[Ceejay]

Well, I've had an eventful day. Half had a total mare, but made up for it in the results.

Collected about 26l of wort @ 1.042, 51 degrees which I make spot on 1.052m just like the recipe :thumb:

Then, for some really stupid, annoying, idiotic reason (conciding with the "Next" delivery man knocking on thedoor and me answering it) I turned the boiler on with next to no wort in it and melted a hole right through the fecking bottom of it!

:sick: :nono: :lol: :sick: :shock:

So, I errr, improvised. Got my tools out, cut and filed holes in the fermenting bucket (which is a nice, sturdy old one, luckily) and made a replica boiler, which actually did the trick rather nicely! I ended up wasting probably a couple of litrs of wort, but considering the circumstances, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. :pray:

Rollng boil, 90 mins with 62g EKG in for the duration. 5g of Irish Moss went in 15 mins from the end, along with the chiller.

 

[rickthebrew]

Good recovery ceejay - looks cracking, shame about the other boiler but these things happen Everything else looks spot on :thumb:

 

[Ceejay]

Cheers mate. Only thing is - I only got 18 litres into the FV, and the OG was 1.060 at 19 degrees C, so I'm a bit up on OG. Would it be too late to back liquor tomorrow by a couple of litres?

 

[luckyeddie]

I'm taking notes - doing my first AG tomorrow.

 

[Good Ed]

Well done CJ, shame about the boiler, that's a dogs b****cks, good recovery though :thumb: up to you if you want to back liquor, but if your going to do it, do it now :

 

[rickthebrew]

Just boil and cool some water and top up the FV. I normally save some treated sparge water and adjust my brewlength at the end of the brewday (you never know when something might happen to make you a few litres short ) I normally top up to 23litres even if it means lowering the OG a few points unless i`m brewing some special. At the moment i`m starting to do 40 -46 litre brewlengths so that it fits in around the family better

Next time you have an emergency i`m only 15mins up the road if your stuck for anything and need a hand or some equipment :thumb: There have been times i could of done with borrowing a boiler or some yeast when a brewday has gone **** up :lol:

well done on the first one :thumb:

 

[Ceejay]

Hehe, thanks - I really appreciate that. Perhaps we could get together to do a brew sometime :thumb:

Might boil a couple of litres now and stick it in when it's cool later.

EDIT:liquored back to make it up to 23l - add in the extra volume should theoretically give me an OG of 1.047, so shoudl end up around 4.9% if it goes down to 1.010. :

 

[gurtpint]

A job well done Ceejay! Necessity is the mother of invention as you proved by not letting the boiler incident stand in the way of brewing.

 

[Ceejay]

Really, I have to say thanks to all of you that have answered my stupid questions and given me the confidence to tackle my first brew. This is a truly great forum! Anyone looking to do their first AG brew should definitly use Brewstew's guide. I kept referring back to it and it just makes the day go really easily. If I didn't have that I don't think I would have had the b@lls to carry on after the boiler "mishap". :


Anyway, now I've got all the emotional cr@p out of the way :lol: , the airlock is bubbling along to itself nicely, and it looks like there's a nice 2" krausen. Smells bloody lovely, the air coming out the top of the airlock :)

Transferring to the FV, and a good old fashioned foam party for the yeasties:

 

[Mark1964]

Have a good one good luck :thumb:

 

[Ceejay]

Cheers.

Day 4 in the FV. Gravity is down to 1012 and it's still bubbling through the airlock, which gives me 75% attenuation from 1047 doesn't it?. The krausen has subsided:

And this is it in the glass:

Had a good old taste, and I can't believe how good it tastes already. Rich, nice bitterness, creamy and delicious. You can really taste the malt. This is my first taste of an AG homebrew and I couldn't be happier! :grin:

Quick question: Is' desirable to drop to a secondary FV? GW's book recommends to do this just after the "billowy clouds stage" which I think I'm way past... :hmm:

 

[graysalchemy]

I always drop into secondary after a week for another week, then bottle.

Looks good. Mines down to 1025 after 36hrs :thumb: :thumb:

:thumb:

AG

 

[ChrisG]

Looking excellent.

I have brewed oatmeal stout twice now as it was so good.....i should really get another batch going.