First All Grain Recipe - Coffee Oatmeal Stout

Hello all, this is my first post and also my first all-grain recipe. I've brewed several extract + steeping recipes so now I'm ready to make the jump. Just this week I constructed the 10 gallon, round cooler/mash tun found in the DIY section so I will be using it and batch sparging. I have a recipe that I have designed so I have two questions:

1. Does this look like a good recipe?

2. I use spring water to brew with so will my specialty grains alone allow me to reach the proper pH or should I treat the water? I'm still searching online for the pH of Publix spring water online so unfortunately I don't have that yet. I do know that is has: Micron Filtration, Ultra Violet Light, and Ozone treatments.

My grain bill is:
8.0# - 2 row malt (67%)
1.5# - Flaked Oats (13%)
1.0# - Smoked Malt (8%)
1.0# - Chocolate 350L (8%)
0.5# - Coffee Malt (4%)

1) Grainbill looks ok, but seeing the whole recipe and process would give us a better idea of what you're looking at.

2) With the darker malts, your pH should be fine as is, but it never hurts to add something like 5.2 stabilizer to be sure.

I gotta say, love the forum handle, good play on words!! I'm a longtime all grain BIAB brewer, about to do my first batch using a 10 gal cooler today. Although I bought mine at Midwest. I mostly use spring water for my all grain beers, and before I started using 5.2 stabilizer I only had one beer come out with any type of tannins (from the mash pH being off), and that was a very light pale ale. I'd say you're good as is with that grain bill, but a light, simple grain bills may not get the pH where you want it, so using a stabilizer doesn't hurt at all. I just add the proper amount to the strike and sparge water when I start heating things up for brew day.
Congrats on taking the jump!! And welcome to HBT!!

Too much oatmeal. Designing great beers suggests somewhere around a max of 8% of the grist to oatmeal. Anymore and you could wind up with a oily slick in the beer.

Thanks for the quick reply! I will definitely be purchasing the 5.2 stabilizer.

I am looking at strike water of 4 gallons (about 1.33 qt/lb) at 167 to reach a mash temp of 154 and mashing for 60 minutes.

Next I'll have 5 gallons of sparge water at about 167-169 and do a double batch sparge.

I'm still working on the hop schedule and am looking at using White Labs Edinburgh Yeast (WL028).

Thanks, I just started reading that book so I guess I haven't reached that part yet. I will look at making an adjustment. Is there anything you'd recommend to replace that? More base malt or specialty malt?

mrrshotshot said:

Too much oatmeal. Designing great beers suggests somewhere around a max of 8% of the grist to oatmeal. Anymore and you could wind up with a oily slick in the beer.

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That's a really good point. I little bit of any flaked grain can go a long way.

AttenuatingCircumstances said:

Is there anything you'd recommend to replace that? More base malt or specialty malt?

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I'd go with a base malt, maybe something different from the 2 row base malt you're using, like Munich or Maris Otter. That would add malty flavor, while still adding some fermentable sugar. Out of curiosity, are you using software to create the recipe?

AttenuatingCircumstances said:

Thanks, I just started reading that book so I guess I haven't reached that part yet. I will look at making an adjustment. Is there anything you'd recommend to replace that? More base malt or specialty malt?

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I'd jump ahead to the stout section and give it a quick read since your brewing one soon.

That book also mentions that there is nothing wrong with adding a little malt extract. In fact, many of the NHBC finalists have some malt extract in them even if there an all grain brew.

Just give that section a once over and experiment freely. Just remember that you can overdo some things which is why that book is such a great tool.

I used a calculator for the mash and sparge water (http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php) and I used hopville.com to enter my recipe and estimate my gravity, color, IBUs, etc.

AttenuatingCircumstances said:

I used a calculator for the mash and sparge water (http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php) and I used hopville.com to enter my recipe and estimate my gravity, color, IBUs, etc.

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Cool. I was just wondering, software and calculators are really helpful when creating a recipe. See what hopville says about replacing a bit of the oats with a base malt. In general, you want to use at least ~80% base malt in a grain bill, and I think something like Munich would be a nice addition to an oatmeal stout, Maris Otter too. Both can have a nice bread-y or biscuit-y flavor.

Without knowing the water chemistry, you might want to drop the 5.2 powder at first. 5.2 addresses only the water. It does very little for the mash. It's not the cure all wonder chemical. If you're worried about lowering mash pH, use lactic acid or sauer malz. Black malt will lower the mash pH to a very limited extent over a time period. The amount of black malt needed to acidify a mash would over power the taste of the brew. You'll need a decent pH meter if you're getting into the pH thing. Until you get things down, maybe start out making a simpler brew. To see how the equipment functions and what the beer will taste like with your spring water. Before deciding to doctor it up. Good luck with your first grain brew. You'll do fine.

I'd definitely skip the "5.2 stabilizer". It's useless for most people, and adds a weird salty flavor besides. There are perhaps one or two very unusual circumstances when it might actually buffer the pH, but it most often does more harm than good.

With that grainbill, your pH should be fine in most waters.

Thanks for the feedback from everyone, it has been a big help!