Oatmeal stout recipe beginnings

Just getting started on this one, looking for some feedback. Looking to get an oatmeal stout out of this, a little on the sweet side, something drinkable. Want to setup a base recipe to build on for chocolate stout, and play with further flavors; shooting for 5.5% - 6.0% ABV. So after a few days of kicking around some ingredients here is what I have:

5 gallon batch
7 gallon boil


8 lb American - Pale 2-Row
1 lb American - Roasted Barley
1 lb Rolled Oats
0.5 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 120L
0.5 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 40L
0.5 lb American - Carapils (Dextrine Malt)
0.5 lb American - Chocolate
12 lb Total

1.5 EKG @ 60'
.5 EKG @ 15'

Wyeast - Irish Ale 1084

Not really alot to say about it. Looks good.

Only nitpick is Id cut the carapils and add some unmalted barley

I've never used CaraPils in a stout. I typically go for oats, choc malt, UK 2-row or MO and some roasted barley. My oatmeal stouts are pretty simple.

You could simplify things by dumping the US malts and using some quality maris otter like Thomas Fawcett.

9 lbs TFMO (or more)
1 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb rolled oats

The beer will turn out better I guarantee it

I have 30# of 2-row, next bulk will probably be MO, but for now everything is being based on 2row, so as of now that is my only static ingredient.

@ maibock, originally I only had those three, in approx the same ratio, although i should probably start with a dead basic stout, and build on that. Limit the variables. I will probably cut the recipe some, and end up closer to Remmy's suggestion.

I would like to keep the caramel in, but cut it to a single malt instead of the two, any suggestions there?

80L, English dark crystal, or carabohemian. Preferably English dark, as that has the most of a dark fruit taste.

I like the direction this seems to be going.

Here is one way of looking at the low gravity stouts. If you want to make a Guinness style dry stout, you would use 70% base malt, 20% unmalted barley, and 10% roasted barley. For a sweet stout, you would use (about) 80% base malt, 10% crystal, 10% dark roasts of some sort, and maybe some lactose. Oatmeal stout can be anywhere along that dry to sweet spectrum, but must contain oats. You could make a dry oatmeal stout by replacing the unmalted barley in the dry stout with oats. You could make a sweet oatmeal stout by replacing around 10% (or more) of the base in the sweet stout with oats and keeping the crystal and lactose in place. Or you could find the middle ground, using 10% oats, 10% roast, and 5% or so crystal.

It sounds like you want to hit the middle ground here, and if you replace the three different crystals with 5% 80L, I think you will be in a good starting place.

This is what I'm thinking will work...

8 lb American - Pale 2-Row
1 lb American - Roasted Barley
1 lb Flaked Oats
0.5 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 80L
0.5 lb American - Chocolate
11 lb Total

Here's my last oatmeal stout recipe for what it's worth.




Mashed at 154 for 90 minutes.

Remmy- simple and to the point, as I said if I didn't already have the bulk on the US 2-row, I would switch to the MO. Keeping cost down helps with wifey. Where does that put your ABV?

Right around 5.5%.