Oatmeal Stout

[edit1now]

Ta

[edit1now]

3/5/2008

Tested one bottle. Uncorrected FG (PG) 1011 with hydrometer@ 20 ̊C = 5.5% ABV. Not very fizzy, but some CO2 tingle. Better after a bit longer in bottle maybe. Tayleur says add 1 SG for 20 ̊C on 15 ̊C hydrometer so 1012 = 5.38% ABV. G Wheeler says add 0.8...

11/5/2008

Tested another bottle. PG 1013.3 corrected for 15.5 ̊C, so 6% ABV at present. Seems nicely primed now. I'm taking some to LAB tomorrow

Better run up some labels.

EDIT: Just applied HMRC fudge factor (thanks Steve) so that makes it 5.1% ABV.

[Vossy1]

Good luck for the meet e1n
I'll be brewing this one again shortly, a fine brew

[Gurgeh]

Well!

Thanks E1N - that was an amazing bottle of stout. really delicious. silky smooth luscious nicely balanced astonishingly good.

Definitely on my brew list. one of the next three I reckon.

Do you have to do a cereal mash on those oats after roasting them?
what if i leave out the melanoidin malt and/or replace with amber/crystal?

[edit1now]

Thanks for the kind remarks, Gurgeh!

It actually got:
mashed for about 1 hour at 40 ÌŠC
about 1 hour 20m starting at 63 ÌŠC and going up to 73 ÌŠC
(see the first post for why )

though it should have got:

½ hour @ 40 ̊C
½ hour @ 50 ̊C
½ hour @ 60 ̊C
½ hour @ 68 ̊C

like the one I did in October, but didn't get posted on JBK.

You'd understand that only HERMS loonies like me would bother with all those steps

[edit1now]

My theory said that the ½ hour @ 40 ̊C would help with the oatmeal, and there was enough pale malt to convert it.

Melanoidin malt was there for extra maltiness - replace with amber or anything you have lying around.

Most of my beers are improved by a long time in bottle - the Oatmeal Stout you tried was bottled on the 26th of April so it's had six months already. When the LAB-ers tried it in May (I think), there were complaints of a sort of malic note which was said to come from the "ring round the bath" in the primary fermenter - it spent just over two weeks in the brewing bucket before racking.

PS please could you remind me what the letter codes mean on the three bottles you gave me?

[Gurgeh]

Thanks for the kind remarks, Gurgeh!

Merely factual E1N, merely factual. It was amazing! Am totally on the case regarding doing this brew - may have to be my next one in fact...

You'd understand that only HERMS loonies like me would bother with all those steps

Oo oo, that's me, that's me!

Seriously though, it WOULD be good to see my Herms put to anything other than holding 66C or raising to mash out, but i reckon it'd take a bloody age and I'm an evening brewer that likes to be in bed by 10.30!

I reckon I might have the 40C cereal mash and a 68C mash going in parallel, then combine them after a half hour and use the herms to sort out a further 45 mins at 66C....??? what do you think?

So the bottles I gave you...
L was Daft as a Brush (london pride based)
I was Golden wolf (IPA)
the red cap was 'Jilly's favourite' (as seen on TV bla bla bla).

c =crouch vale yeast
w = wolf yeast

Oh, and that paperwork you wanted is being written .....Now!

[edit1now]

So the 40 ÌŠC step (toasted oatmeal plus some (half?) of the pale malt) gets added to the 68 ÌŠC (for a big body)... I suppose that only the stuff which had been at 40 ÌŠC would benefit from the 66 ÌŠC bit because the mash at 68 ÌŠC would have inactivated the 50 ÌŠC protease/ peptidase enzymes and some of the 65-66 ÌŠC beta amylase enzymes...

I may be talking out of my lower sphincter here

Thanks for the bottle info - I'm heading for the beer fridge (8-9 ÌŠC) with my crib sheet

[Gurgeh]

I reckon... (not the bum bit, the other bit )

V1's recipe:
46L
8.275kg Marris Otter
559g Crystal Malt
559g Chocalate Malt
559g Roast flaked oats
207g Roast Barley

so roughly speaking...

oats & 3Kg pale malt, 40C, 10Litres liquor (stiff to minimize volume)

all the rest of that grist 68C, 3.5l/Kg (wet to compensate for other bit and for HERMS reasons)

give them 30 mins parallel, combine and raise temp to 66C, hold for 45 mins, then continue as usual...

do you think the diastatic power of nice fresh MO will cope with 1/6 of it's weight in adjunct?

[edit1now]

do you think the diastatic power of nice fresh MO will cope with 1/6 of it's weight in adjunct?

Gaah... I read somewhere (Protz & Wheeler?) you need twice the weight of malt to the adjunct you're trying to convert, so 6:1 really should work.

My second batch won't be ready to test until nearly Christmas - I'm assuming it wants a month in bottle

[Gurgeh]

Thanks E1N, that's a plan then. Just waiting for an opportunity and I'm going to do an 8Gallon length of the stuff.

I've realised that my Herms could easily do the job, but I reckon I could shave a significant amount of time off the process by doing the cereal mash and main mash simultaneously. I don't really see a down side so long as I give the goods in the cereal mash sufficiently long at 66C to do the main conversion.

Technical question though - is there an optimum PH for the cereal mash?

[edit1now]

I dunno - water treatment is a long way down my list of priorities. The only time I measured my mash pH I got 4.5 with a meter which was only slightly out of calibration (about 0.4 too low, so make that 4.9?)

[Gurgeh]

John Palmer ('how to brew') reckons:



so i'll go for a teaspoon of 'ph5.2' in with the cereal mash. thus upon combining, the two components of the final mash will each have the same pH, which would seem quite sensible to me...