New Recipe

I am trying a new Oatmeal Stout Recipe and would like to run it by you guys to make sure I understand everything. It's an all grain brew. The original recipe is as follows:

9.0# Maris Otter
1.0# Crystal 80L
0.75# Roasted Barley
0.5#Chocolate Malt
1.25# Flaked Oats
0.75 oz Chinook (11%) @ 60 min
1.0 oz Goldings (5%) @ 0 min
Wyeast 1098

I would like to do a half batch to start with so I converted it to ounces and here's my adjusted recipe with additional oats to give me a 18% oats ratio:

72 oz Maris Otter
8 oz Crystal 80L
6 oz Roasted Barley
4 oz Chocolate Malt
20 oz Flaked Oats
0.4 oz Chinook (11%) @ 60 min
0.5 oz Goldings (5%) @ 0 min

I have just a few questions. I'm not totally sure how many gallons the original recipe was made for. What does it look like to you? I've contacted the creator of it but I haven't received any response yet. I was guessing 5 gallons but wasn't positive.

Also, with an 18% oats ratio I was reading that I should do a 3 to 1 ratio during the mash of water to grist. Does that sound right?

How much water should I sparge with?

Once the sparge is done and I begin boiling the wort how much should I reduce it?

Thanks for your help with the questions. Any other glaring problems with the recipe?

wesjames said:

I have just a few questions. I'm not totally sure how many gallons the original recipe was made for. What does it look like to you? I've contacted the creator of it but I haven't received any response yet. I was guessing 5 gallons but wasn't positive.

Also, with an 18% oats ratio I was reading that I should do a 3 to 1 ratio during the mash of water to grist. Does that sound right?

How much water should I sparge with?

Once the sparge is done and I begin boiling the wort how much should I reduce it?

Click to expand...

Looks like it was a 5-6gal batch depending on the expected OG.

assuming you mean 3qt to 1lb for the mash, that's way too much, thats about what your total volume of water should be. having more oats might make it a lil gummy, but shouldn't be enough to be an issue. I recommend toasting them a lil first to develop a bit more flavor from them.

how much water to sparge with is basically enough to get you to your pre-boil volume. there is about a 0.12 gal/lb grist absorption during the mash and you need to compensate for boil off (differs system to system, but typically about 1gal/hr), so whatever that comes out to be. if shooting for 3Gals, about 9-10qts for the mash and same for sparge should work fine

I recently went through scaling a recipe. You have to scale using the potential fermentable sugars in the grain, not by the weight of the grain. Your original recipe will break down as follows:

75.49% Maris Otter
7.51% Crystal 80L
4.13% Roasted Barley
3.75% Chocolate Malt
9.11% Flaked Oats

No matter what size batch you are brewing, follow the percentages in the recipe and you should be able to duplicate that recipe quite closely.

dcp27 said:

Looks like it was a 5-6gal batch depending on the expected OG.

assuming you mean 3qt to 1lb for the mash, that's way too much, thats about what your total volume of water should be. having more oats might make it a lil gummy, but shouldn't be enough to be an issue. I recommend toasting them a lil first to develop a bit more flavor from them.

how much water to sparge with is basically enough to get you to your pre-boil volume. there is about a 0.12 gal/lb grist absorption during the mash and you need to compensate for boil off (differs system to system, but typically about 1gal/hr), so whatever that comes out to be. if shooting for 3Gals, about 9-10qts for the mash and same for sparge should work fine

Click to expand...

Thanks so much for your help. Very helpful and I think I understand better now. Brew day is tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

orchidbeer said:

I recently went through scaling a recipe. You have to scale using the potential fermentable sugars in the grain, not by the weight of the grain. Your original recipe will break down as follows:

75.49% Maris Otter
7.51% Crystal 80L
4.13% Roasted Barley
3.75% Chocolate Malt
9.11% Flaked Oats

No matter what size batch you are brewing, follow the percentages in the recipe and you should be able to duplicate that recipe quite closely.

Click to expand...

How do you know how much fermentable sugars are in the grain (such as oats)?