Specialty Wood-Aged Beer Oak'd meal Raisin beer!

This is inspired by bugeaters oatmeal raisin cookie beer. I changed some things and added some others so at this point I'm going to start calling this recipe mine Thanks to Bug for the inspiration!

Oak'dmeal raisin beer!!
21-A Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer

Size: 5.50 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 151.65 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.046 (1.026 - 1.120)
Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (0.995 - 1.035)
Color: 14.05 (1.0 - 50.0)
Alcohol: 4.48% (2.5% - 14.5%)
Bitterness: 23.0 (0.0 - 100.0)

Ingredients:
5.0 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt
1.0 lb Light Munich Malt
.5 lb Crystal Malt 120°L
.5 lb Caramel Malt 60L
1.0 lb Oats Flaked
1.5 oz East Kent Goldings (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.5 lb Raisins - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 lb Invert Sugar
.50 tsp Cinnamon (stick) - added dry to secondary fermenter
.25 tsp Nutmeg (ground) - added dry to secondary fermenter
.25 tsp Cloves (ground) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 ea Vanilla (whole bean) - added dry to secondary fermenter
6.00 oz Bourbon - added dry to secondary fermenter
3 oz French Oak cubes med toast - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 ea White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m


Notes
Infusion mash at 154 for 1 hour. Sparge w/ 180 f water to reach your preboil water level.

Toast the rolled oats at 325° F in a convection oven for 1 hours to achieve
a light brown toast.

Turbinado sugar addition will go into secondary fe
rmenter. Invert the sugar by mixing the sugar in ratio of 3:1 by weight wi
th water. Bring to a boil until sugar completely disolved. Add 1 tsp lemo
n juice and simmer until sugar solution turns clear.

Add 3 oz of sanitized oak cubes (I steamed them for 10 minutes) to secondary and allow to sit for at least 4 weeks. I let mine sit for 6 weeks on the oak cubes.

Steep 1/2 tsp gro
und cinnamon, 1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg, 1/4 tsp whole cloves, and 1 spli
t and scraped vanilla bean in 6 ounces bourbon until time to keg. Strain
bourbon and add to keg to taste.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.17

Has anyone tried brewing this yet? This beer really was incredibly good I'd hate to be the only one who did it!

I brewed the winter warmerized version of the original recipe a few months back and it was absolutely amazing! Thinking about brewing it again this week so it will be ready just in time for Christmas.

Oaking it would definitely put a nice twist on it! Have you brewed the original recipe as well? Do you have notes on how they compare?

I did brew the original recipe and I thought it was damn good. I wasn't sure if it was my processes or not but I felt it lacked in some body/mouthfeel so I tweaked the original recipe a bit to get around that. It turned out amazing. I wanted to change it even more and the name oak'd meal raisin popped in my head so I figured why not oak this thing. With the bourbon already added to it I felt it was only appropriate to oak this one. With all of the spices and bourbon the oak is just a subtle addition but I could taste that it was there and I liked it.

With a low abv of 4.48 this beer had TONS of flavor so it went over great w/ SWMBO.

I would like to experiment w/ this one and make an imperial oak'd meal. I might check out that winterized version and start there as a base.

I will try brewing this in 2 weeks and it will be ready right before XMAS ! It's the only receipe I found containing raisin. Is the raisin flavor realy present ?
There is much different ingredients :O

And what if I use ale temperature while fermenting ?

The real take away is going to be that of an oatmeal raisin cookie...It's a great tasting beer and you won't be dissapointed!

Ferment at your average ale temperature of anywhere around 63-65 deg F should do fine.

Ehhm my first idea was to brew a simple raisin beer but I i'll try anyway with Oats ;-) Have you tried using more raisins in your receipe ? Some websites recommands 1 lb for 5 Gal. Would your beer taste great with more raisins or it would be over-flavored ?

3 oz / gal = 15 oz
15 oz almost = 1 lb

I say go for it...The raisins definitely do not overpower in anyway. You could probably get that dark fruit flavor from simply trying a belgian yeast or something...It's hard for the raisin to compete w/ the spiced bourbon that you add to it. Go ahead and try the 1lb and let me know how you like it..I may try the same thing.

It's sounds much complicated to find the right yeast ; i'm not a spetialist but the WLP410 looks to be ok for fruty aroma at 67 or at 85 ?
I don't know what is phenolic

Maybe I could use WLP041 instead. This yeast is closer to yours.

http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/belgianchart.pdf
http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew_strains.html#SPECIALTY/BELGIAN_YEAST

Have you used German products for your munich, crystal and caramel malt ?
Thanks again !

I have used Weyerman before yes I love their malts and I usually order from the store in Belgium. I can't say for sure that WLP041 will be good for this recipe. I would suggest just changing the amount of raisins like you said and leaving the yeast alone. This beer really does turn out great so I wouldn't change too much right away. But this is homebrewing and we're all free to experiment however we want. Whatever you end up doing please post up and let us know how it turned out!

Brewed the original last night. I made some brewers caramel instead of invert, added last 10 min of boil. Also added some cara-pils because I too was worried about the sugar making it too dry. Mashed at 156. I plan on doing the routine bourbon tea that you have up there, along with some raisins in secondary me thinks. Dropped it on a prior cake of US-05, sucker took off like a bat out of hell in 1 hour.

I hope to hand these out for Christmas if its any good!

Will post in a month or two with results

Good deal when you say brewed original you mean you brewed Bug's recipe?

Yeah i was reading radical brewing and came across the idea of an oatmeal cookie beer. So i googled it and came across Bug's recipe and it seemed pretty solid. Making the spice tea with apple pie moonshine (all i have), hoping it turns out.

How long did you leave it in secondary? I've never added fermentables to secondary...I racked it two weeks ago and the air lock still bubbles periodically. The inverted sugar seems to be taking quite a long time to ferment (understandably due to less yeast present). Curious to know what others have experienced.

waldo711 said:

How long did you leave it in secondary? I've never added fermentables to secondary...I racked it two weeks ago and the air lock still bubbles periodically. The inverted sugar seems to be taking quite a long time to ferment (understandably due to less yeast present). Curious to know what others have experienced.

Click to expand...

For me, the sugar (caramel for me) went into the boil. The 1/2# raisins I put in the primary after a week, which restarted fermentation for about another week. I bottled after 3 weeks.

Mine is ready ! I used Wyeast' similar instead of White labs because my carrier only have this brand.
For the grains, I discarded Crystal malt 120 L, trying to keep raisin flavor first.
I forgot the Oats loll ...

Because I wanted to make a raisin beer, I doubled the quantity.

Unfortunately, the raisin flavor is weak not to say missing...
I used these instructions : http://www.ehow.com/how_5819966_brew-beer-raisins.html

I taste all spicy ingredients, but not the raisins.
My beer is comparable with a tea infused with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. It taste water and it's not enough carbonated.

I don't know what I missed :O

I tried mine last night and I was pleased with the flavor. I got quite a bit of flavor out of the raisins, not too much cinnamon and spice, and only a touch of toasted oats. I don't know why the oats are so faint, i'm a little disappointed in that. Maybe next time i'll use more. Overall though its pretty good. The flavor is subtle, which to me is better than punch you in the face flavor that hides the rest of the beer.

max21722 said:

Mine is ready ! I used Wyeast' similar instead of White labs because my carrier only have this brand.
For the grains, I discarded Crystal malt 120 L, trying to keep raisin flavor first.
I forgot the Oats loll ...

Because I wanted to make a raisin beer, I doubled the quantity.

Unfortunately, the raisin flavor is weak not to say missing...
I used these instructions : http://www.ehow.com/how_5819966_brew-beer-raisins.html

I taste all spicy ingredients, but not the raisins.
My beer is comparable with a tea infused with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. It taste water and it's not enough carbonated.

I don't know what I missed :O

Click to expand...

Post the recipe you used, i'm sure we can figure out where you went wrong.

I handed these out for Christmas and got great feedback. I think the only thing I would do different next time is to scale down the raisins and up the spices and add to the boil instead of making a tea. The tea gave me a dull, stale, subdued flavor.

How did you guys added the raisin flavor ?

Bought golden raisins, pasteurized them, and added to secondary.