I’ve brewed my house oatmeal stout recipe twice previously, and both times it has been a winner. Looking towards my keg rotation, I thought it would be nice to roll this one out for 2016. I’ll note that this is the third time I’ve brewed this one in essentially the same form–probably a record for my home brewery.
- 8.5 lbs. 2 row malt (Great Western)
- 1.25 lbs. old-fashioned oats
- 1 lb. 80° L crystal malt
- 1 lb. Victory malt
- 0.75 lb. chocolate malt
- 0.5 lb. roasted barley (Simpsons)
- 0.3 lb. rice hulls
- 1 tsp. Irish moss, 10 minute boil
- 1.1 oz. Northern Brewer hops pellets (9.9% alpha, 4.5% beta), 60 minute boil
- 1 pkg. English Ale yeast (White Labs WLP002, 0.9 L starter)
- Three days before brewing, I began a 1.5L starter (191 g of extra light DME and ~.5 tsp of yeast nutrient in 1.75L of water, for a target gravity of 1.040). After 48 hours, I decanted 0.6L for future use and cold-crashed the rest of the starter.
- I mashed in with 5 gallons of water at 170°, and hit 156.5° for my mash-in temperature. The mash had dropped to 155° after 30 minutes and was down to 153.4° after 50 minutes.
- After 60 minutes, I added 0.5 gallons of 162° water, let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the first runnings. Then, I added 3.75 gallons of water at 185°, which raised the mash bed to 162°. I let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the remainder of the wort.
- All together, I collected 6.8 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.049, for a mash efficiency of 72%. I note that the relatively small quantity of rice hulls seemed to be just fine for this recipe.
- I brought the wort to a boil, adding the hops and Irish moss as scheduled.
- After 60 minutes of boiling, I turned off the heat and chilled the wort to 75°. The final yield was ~6 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.060. I decanted most of the spent wort from the starter, and pitched the yeast slurry before sealing up the fermenter.
- I brewed this beer on Sunday, January 3, 2016 (first brew of the year!). It will be fermenting at 68°.