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Oatmeal Stout
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67oF
|
Adj
|
Orig
|
Alcohol
|
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SPGR
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1.018
|
1.018
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1.060
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5.5%
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Ingredients
·
8 lbs. of Liquid Dark Malt Extract
·
¾ lb. Roasted Barley
·
¾ lb. Crystal
90
·
¼ lb. Chocolate Malt
·
¼ lb. Black Malt
·
1 lb. Oatmeal
·
1 oz. Willamette
Hops (Bittering)
·
1 oz. Willamette
Hops (Flavoring)
·
White Labs Pitchable
Liquid Yeast – English Ale Yeast WLP002
Brewers Log
Beer Date 09132008: <Day 1>
Perhaps today is a good day to brew!!!! The weather is
outstanding, I don’t know how hot it actually got, but from 9:00 am to ~ 1:00
while I was brewing and cleaning the weather was great. It was in the upper
80’s, but still rather pleasant to sit outside and watch a pot of boiling wort.
The brew of choice is Oatmeal Stout. The batch I did a
year ago was so good, and it is time to make more of it. I think I found the
same recipe in the booklet, but there additional grain in this batch that
wasn’t in the one before (or at least it wasn’t logged) and I had to get a
different type of hops.
I made the choice last night to do a few things different
this time. Based on experience and, what I have heard, and what I have read I
wanted to
- Try
something closer to a full boil.
- Try
out the wort chiller
- Add
some cold water after the boil to help cool faster
- Try do an ice bath along with the wort
chiller.
I have heard that a full boil is better, more of the water
comes in direct contact with the sugars and oils and it all cooks together
instead of making a concentrated solution and diluting. I am not sure how
accurate it is, but I am imagining the difference between freshly squeezed
orange juice and that from a frozen concentrate.
A few weeks back I picked up a couple of clamps that I
connected to the hose of the of the wort chiller
and tested it for leaks. It looked solid and ready to go.
In a book I have been reading they suggested adding cold
water to the wort when you are cooling it. I have
been adding room temperature water and that has been working well, this time
I put a couple gallons in the fridge.
I have heard that here in Arizona, the tap water is warm enough that
you can only chill the wort to a certain point with
the wort chiller alone. But the boiling pot I have
is too big to use in the sink or any tubs that I own. I could use the utility
sink in my laundry room, but that would be tough to drain the water running
through the chiller. I picked up a bit painting bucket thing from Lowes.
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Washed out both brew pots and filled my old pot (5
gallon pot) with 2 gallons of bottled spring water and heated the water to
150oF.
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I poured the grains into a couple of grain bags and
plopped into the water while turning the head down to a very low setting
and pulling the pot mostly off the burner.
The direction were to steep the grains at 154oF for 30
minutes.
·
¾ lb. Roasted Barley
·
¾ lb. Crystal
90
·
¼ lb. Chocolate Malt
·
¼ lb. Black Malt
·
1 lb. Oatmeal
I wasn’t able to keep the temperature right at 154oF,
but I kept it between 150oF and 160oF.
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I pulled out the grain bags and let them drip as much as
possible into the pot before placing in my mixing bowl to drain. It seemed
weird letting the black drippage go to waste this
time. Usually my roommate Dave likes to mix that stuff with his iced tea
and drink it, but he is at the Grand Canyon
right now with a group of friends so my college buddy Jason is helping me
out. Jason wasn’t interested in drinking the drippage
that looks like motor oil, and I cant say that I
blame him.
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While the grains were steeping I put 2 gallons of
bottled spring water into the bigger (10 gallon) boiling pot and started
heating it up on the big burner outside. After I was one steeping the
grains I poured the little pot into the bigger pot and cleaned out the
dirty small pot while waiting for the liquid to come to a boil.
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When the temperature of the wort
crossed the 200 oF
mark we added the malt extract.
·
8 lbs. of Liquid Dark Malt Extract
I turned off the burner and removed the pot placing it
onto the ground. Jason took the whisk and stirred while I poured in the 8
pounds of sticky, gooey wonderfulness.
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Once the wort came to a boil
and the foam died down, I added the bittering
hops. The recipe called for Fuggle hops, but they
didn’t have any so I had to substitute, I was told that Willamette hops is
a decent replacement so I decided to give it a try.
·
1 oz. Willamette
Hops (Bettering Hops)
As usual I chose to go with while leaf hops.
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After 45 minutes
of boiling, I added the flavoring hops.
·
1 oz. Willamette Hops
(Flavoring Hops)
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The boiling is done and it is time to try out my cooling
solution. I put the boiling pot into the big container and inserted the
sterilized wort chiller. Before turning on the
water I added a gallon and a half of cold water, that immediately dropped
it about 30 degrees. I turned on the water and packed some ice around the pot.
It took about a ½ hour to cool down to < 80 degrees.
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Jason held the strainer and we starined
out the hops and pouted into a sanitized bucket, topped off to the 5 gallon
mark with water and then siphoned into the carboy and arrested for a couple
minutes
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I pulled out a small amount and took a specific gravity
reading.
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77 oF
|
Adj
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SPGR
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1.058
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1.059
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I shook up the yeast a little bit and poured into the
carboy.
·
White Labs Pitchable
Liquid Yeast – English Ale Yeast WLP002
I apparently didn’t shake it up as well as I thought
because when I poured there were some clumps of the sediment floating, I
hope that doesn’t matter too much.
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I did my usual with the hose into a bucket of water, and
I clipped on a butter knife to the end of a hose again to keep the hose
under water.
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Beer Date 10192008: <Day 36>
I didn’t have another keg and it took a little while to
get what I needed. I went to my local home brew shop and picked on up the day
before, but it had some issues getting an air tight seal and I had to take it
back and get another.
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67oF
|
Adj
|
Orig
|
Alcohol
|
|
SPGR
|
1.018
|
1.018
|
1.060
|
5.5%
|
|