Help with Oatmeal Stout

My favorite oatmeal stout (I'm trying to emulate it) was something I had on tap at a Breckinridge Brewpub. They left years ago with the other Birmingham brewpubs. If anyone has had it, maybe you can give me some pointers.

My first attempt was as follows (quantities in pounds):
7 pale ale malt
1 flaked oats
.5 crystal 80L
.5 roasted barley
.5 black patent
.5 chocolate

.75 chinook (12.7%) for 60 min
.25 chinook for 2 min



It's hitting about 3 weeks in the bottles and I think it has become too much like a porter. Most people would like it that way, but I like really stout stouts. It seems just a bit too sweet and chocolatey. I was thinking of taking out half the chocolate and replacing it with some dark crystal.

I had about 82% efficiency, started at 1.056, used Safale-05 and finished at 1.020. The FG is a bit high, so maybe that is why it is sweeter than I'd like and I should try to keep my mash a little cooler.

Any suggestions?

S-05 should have gotten you lower than that, but what was your mash temperature? You may need to lower it so that a greater percentage of your wort is fermentable sugar...ergo, same OG (nice efficiency btw), lower FG. If you want less sweetness, I would mash somewhere between 150° and 152°.

Furthermore, if a less-sweet beer is what you want, I definitely wouldn't replace the chocolate malt with dark crystal. Dark crystal will actually leave more residual sweetness than chocolate/roasted barley/black patent and probably won't achieve the ends that you're looking for.

Good luck with your next attempt!

cuttsjp said:

S-05 should have gotten you lower than that, but what was your mash temperature? You may need to lower it so that a greater percentage of your wort is fermentable sugar...ergo, same OG (nice efficiency btw), lower FG. If you want less sweetness, I would mash somewhere between 150° and 152°.

Furthermore, if a less-sweet beer is what you want, I definitely wouldn't replace the chocolate malt with dark crystal. Dark crystal will actually leave more residual sweetness than chocolate/roasted barley/black patent and probably won't achieve the ends that you're looking for.

Good luck with your next attempt!

Click to expand...

Well, that's the funny thing--I was originally worried I had mashed at a temp. too low. I was reading just slightly over 150. I was using a fairly crappy dial thermometer, though it seemed to agree with a proper boiling temp and with two other thermometers. Still, I had to wait a while for it to settle and maybe my mash water was cooler near the top. I've got a Thermoworks thermometer now which registers quickly and has a longer probe.

I was having second thoughts about the crystal for the reason you mentioned. I'm brewing tomorrow and have a pound and a half each of roasted and black, so maybe I should try taking those up a few ounces and keeping my mash temp. fairly low.

Thanks for the advice.