Oatmeal Cream Stout Recipe-NEEDS CRITICISM

I'm a pretty new brewer; this is my 2nd all grain batch and my 5th batch ever, so bear with me. I think there's no better way to find out what makes a good beer than just experimenting and brewing as much as I can. At the very least I'll find out what not to do again. Here's my next recipe.

10.5 lb Mash

4 lbs maris otter
1 lb munich
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb caramel 40
.5 lb caramel 60
.5 lb caramel 120
.5 lb roasted barley
1 lb chocolate
.5 lb carapils
1 lb wheat
.5 lb lactose (during boil)

Hop Schedule
1 oz EKG @ 60 min
1 oz Fuggles @ 30 min

Yeast: Wyeast Irish Ale

First off--does this beer have too many ingredients? I want it to be complex but KISS advocates tell me if I'm taking the wrong approach. I'm also going for viscosity and a fair amount of residual sweetness so I'll mash high--around 155 F. I'm undecided about the wheat and unsure if I need the carapils since I'm already using the oats and lactose, but they're left over from my last batch so I wanna get rid of em.

I would love this beer to turn out somewhere between Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout and Harviestoun Old Engine Oil--2 of my favorites.

bmurph said:

I'm a pretty new brewer; this is my 2nd all grain batch and my 5th batch ever, so bear with me. I think there's no better way to find out what makes a good beer than just experimenting and brewing as much as I can. At the very least I'll find out what not to do again. Here's my next recipe.

10.5 lb Mash

4 lbs maris otter
1 lb munich
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb caramel 40
.5 lb caramel 60
.5 lb caramel 120
.5 lb roasted barley
1 lb chocolate
.5 lb carapils
1 lb wheat
.5 lb lactose (during boil)

Hop Schedule
1 oz EKG @ 60 min
1 oz Fuggles @ 30 min

Yeast: Wyeast Irish Ale

First off--does this beer have too many ingredients? I want it to be complex but KISS advocates tell me if I'm taking the wrong approach. I'm also going for viscosity and a fair amount of residual sweetness so I'll mash high--around 155 F. I'm undecided about the wheat and unsure if I need the carapils since I'm already using the oats and lactose, but they're left over from my last batch so I wanna get rid of em.

I would love this beer to turn out somewhere between Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout and Harviestoun Old Engine Oil--2 of my favorites.

Click to expand...

Mmm Old Engine Oil.....

I've never made an oatmeal cream stout, but it seems like a LOT of specialty grains and crystal malts! I'd keep the specialty grains to about 20% or so. Personally I'd just look up a clone for samuel smith and just add some lactose for the creaminess.

Thats also a lot of crystal malt, especially if you plan to mash high. You might consider mashing a little lower if you decide on 1.5 lb of crystal. You could probably drop the carapils and the wheat, since they essentially do the same thing as the crystal malts.

Have you run this thru beersmith or hopville to see what your gravity and ibus will be?

You might also move some of the hops a little closer to the end of the boil to get more flavor/aroma out of them. EKGs would probably be good to have as a late addition, but either will be fine. You aren't really looking for too much hop presence here.

I'm not positive about your yeast choice, I can see if you wanted to do a dry irish stout, but thats not really what your going for. Honestly though, I dont really know what the difference would be. I've never used irish yeast. Just wanted to throw it out there. You might consider a clean american yeast, or maybe an english yeast.

I'm not really familiar with this style but I just wanted to offer some general recipe advice if anything. It's always good to use other recipes as a basis. Designing Great Beers is an awesome book that really goes into detail on different styles. So does "The Jamil Show". Google it, and do a search in his podcast archive for an episode on stouts. He may have even done a samuel smith episode/clone.

Good luck!

Edit:
Recipe/clone from brew365
http://www.brew365.com/beer_ss_oat.php

Details on oatmeal stouts and some example recipes
http://***********/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/1194-oatmeal-stout-style

chapa said:

Mmm Old Engine Oil.....

I've never made an oatmeal cream stout, but it seems like a LOT of specialty grains and crystal malts! I'd keep the specialty grains to about 20% or so. Personally I'd just look up a clone for samuel smith and just add some lactose for the creaminess.

Thats also a lot of crystal malt, especially if you plan to mash high. You might consider mashing a little lower if you decide on 1.5 lb of crystal. You could probably drop the carapils and the wheat, since they essentially do the same thing as the crystal malts.

Have you run this thru beersmith or hopville to see what your gravity and ibus will be?

You might also move some of the hops a little closer to the end of the boil to get more flavor/aroma out of them. EKGs would probably be good to have as a late addition, but either will be fine. You aren't really looking for too much hop presence here.

I'm not positive about your yeast choice, I can see if you wanted to do a dry irish stout, but thats not really what your going for. Honestly though, I dont really know what the difference would be. I've never used irish yeast. Just wanted to throw it out there. You might consider a clean american yeast, or maybe an english yeast.

I'm not really familiar with this style but I just wanted to offer some general recipe advice if anything. It's always good to use other recipes as a basis. Designing Great Beers is an awesome book that really goes into detail on different styles. So does "The Jamil Show". Google it, and do a search in his podcast archive for an episode on stouts. He may have even done a samuel smith episode/clone.

Good luck!

Edit:
Recipe/clone from brew365
http://www.brew365.com/beer_ss_oat.php

Details on oatmeal stouts and some example recipes
http://***********/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/1194-oatmeal-stout-style

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input and the links.

Carapils and wheat are out, I just needed a second opinion.

I'll probably scale down the crystal malts a bit, maybe cut the 40 and 60 in half but I love the dark fruitiness you get from 120.

I might add half the EKG with the Fuggles at 30 min and the rest at 10 or 5 min? What do you think?

I would give you expected OG and IBUs but I haven't plugged it all into a calculator yet, plus the recipe is still changing.

I'm entertaining the notion of a multistep infusion; do a beta rest at ~145 F for 30 min then bump it up to ~155 F for an alpha rest for the next 30 min.

As for the yeast...I already ordered the Wyeast Irish Ale and I don't want it to sit in my fridge for too long while I formulate my next batch so I'm stuck with it. I didn't choose it randomly...there's a poll on this site asking which yeast is best for an oatmeal stout and Irish Ale won.

By the way could you post that Old Engine Oil clone? I may have found my next batch...

Here are my thoughts:

1. Oatmeal stout is by its nature oily, creamy and full-bodied. Adding the body-enhancing characteristics of a milk/cream stout will make it so full-bodied it's like drinking a 16-ounce granola bar covered in yogurt. Delete the lactose.

2. This grist is waaaaaaaaayyyy too complicated. There are 11 proposed ingredients in your grist. In my experience, that's a sure-fire way to get none of the effects you're looking for; there's so much going on that there's no way to pick out individual effects from a particular ingredient. K.I.S.S.! This is something which strikes every beginning brewer feeling his oats (har): Somewhere between the fifth and tenth batch, he gets the urge to strike out on his own, and when he does so he comes up with a 'kitchen-sink' recipe. On rare occasions it works. Mostly not. Avoid this pitfall!

3. First step: Get rid of all the Crystal malts, including CaraPils.* If you can't bear to part with one, stick with the 120L. That way you'll get some sweetness and dark fruit notes peeking through the roast-malt character. Replace the deleted Crystals with the equivalent amount of pale malt.

4. The oats and Munich malt will provide plenty of body. Again, delete the lactose.**

5. It is not necessary to step-mash highly modified malts. In fact, step-mashing a malt like Maris Otter can have a deleterious effect on the beer. As you say, this is your 2nd all grain batch and your 5th batch ever; keep the variables under control until you know what you're doing. Control your ingredients first.

6. Keep the hops as they are. If there's one thing I cannot abide, it is the homebrewer's proclivity to put hops flavor and aroma in EVERYTHING. This is Oatmeal Stout. As in any Stout, if bitterness is perceived it should be coming from the roasted grains. Flavor and aroma should come from roasted grains (and, possibly, esters). Hops just get in the way. Put in enough for a solid bitterness - especially since you're deliberately brewing in this much body - and have done. I'd bitter this to around 35 IBU in one addition.

7. I concur that Irish Ale yeast is the last yeast you should choose for any Stout. If that's what you have, use it. Otherwise, go and get a more highly-attenuative yeast.

So. Simplify, simplify, simplify. In the grist: Pale, Munich, Oats, Chocolate, Roasted and a touch of dark Crystal. In the kettle: Bittering hops to 35-40 IBU.

Good luck!

Bob

* CaraPils is a crutch. The skilled mashing brewer doesn't need it.
** I'd delete the Munich, too, frankly, and replace it with Maris Otter.

To add what has already been said, you need to remove Cara40, 60, Carapils, Wheat, Lactose, and double your Maris Otter. This would be my revision:

9 lbs maris otter
1 lb munich
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb caramel 120
1 lb roasted barley
1 lb chocolate

Hop Schedule
1 oz EKG @ 45 min
1 oz Fuggles @ 15 min

I also love Maris Otter, but I always use it for my house IPA. I'd be interested to see how it works with a porter. I'm actually brewing something very similar to this, this weekend. Here is my recipe:

10 lbs Pale Malt
2 lbs Flaked Oats
1 lbs Crystal 90
0.5 lbs Black Malt
0.5 lbs Chocolate Malt

0.5 oz Chinook at 60 min
0.5 oz Chinook at 15 min
0.5 oz Willamette at 15 min
0.5 oz Willamette at 5 min

I am using WLP007 as my yeast on this one which is a Dry English Ale yeast.

These are all great suggestions. Thanks all for helping out a beginning brewer. I have to keep the mash to about 10.5 lbs or less because that's as much as my mash tun/igloo cooler will allow. So here's my next shot.

6 lbs maris otter
1 lb munich
1 lb oats
1 lb chocolate
.5 lbs crystal 120
.5 lbs roasted barley--I have about .8 lbs on hand but I've never used this grain and don't know how strong it is. Recently I tried St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, and while it was very good, I thought it was too astringent. I really like that roasted flavor but this beer just had too much, and I'm assuming excess roasted barley is the culprit.

.5 lbs would be 5%
.8 lbs would be 7.8%

Should I use the full .8 lbs? I'm looking for that happy medium---just enough roastiness but I don't wanna overdo it.

I think I'll keep the hops the same.

1 oz EKG at 60
1 oz Fuggles at 30

I realize bob's right that there should be no flavor/aroma hop presence. For that matter, has anyone ever brewed and just skipped the hops altogether?

Expected OG: 1.049 (I may add a bit of DME to bump this up, it's kinda low)
Expected IBU: 32

You want hops to balance the flavor. Instead of using the entire ounce at each of your hop additions, why not cut them in half like I did in my recipe. 0.5 at 60, 0.5 at 30, at 15, and at 5. Think about it this way, the later you add the hops, the more you are going to taste them, the earlier the more bitter. I know it seems like such a waste to use hops at 5 minutes and then just throw them out, but trust me, its a great way to use hops. You pull all the oils and stuff out, but it doesn't have a chance to boil out.
As far as your malt bill goes, I would add at least another lb to your base malt, you want it to be at least 70% IMO.

Couple of quick suggestions: i'd keep your hops how they are...very similar to how i hop my oat stout, and the balance is great. Like bob said, there's no reason to have any aroma, and little flavor, in a stout. 0.8 lbs of roast barley sounds good, why keep .3 around, imo? I have used up to 1.5 lbs, being really roasty, and cut it down to 1 lb for my current recipe.

Enjoy the brew!