Chocolate Oatmeal Milk Stout recipe-looking for feedback

Hi all, after making an oatmeal stout from from NB that came out extremely astringent I decided to create my own PM chocolate Oatmeal Milk Stout recipe. I'll call it "Count Chocula's Oatmeal Stout"

This is only my second recipe I put together so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Oats, Flaked------------------1.0 lb
2-Row Caramel Malt 60L-----1.0 lb
Chocolate Malt----------------12.0 oz
Black Malt---------------------4.0 oz
Golden Light DME-------------4.5 lb

Golding United States---------2.0 oz--------60 min

British Ale II 1335 Wyeast

Cocoa Nibs---------------------4.0 oz 15.0 min Boil?
Lactose-------------------------1.0 lb 15.0 min Boil
Irish Moss----------------------1.0 tsp 15.0 min (not really needed but just a habit to throw it in all my beers)

I plan on making a starter for this, volume to be calculated from Mr Malty.

Mash grains @ 152 for an hour then batch sparge- bring boil volume up to about 4.5 gallons, boil for 60 min.

Not sure if I should add the nibs to my boil or add to my secondary. For my last choc Oat stout I added 4 0z to my secondary after soaking a week in vodka which is why I'm thinking it was so astringent. If I was to add to the secondary this time i'll only soak overnight (in a better grade vodka as well).

I'm thinking I'll only go with 3.5 oz corn sugar to bottle carb since I used 5 oz last time and they were too carbed for the style IMO.

Let me know what you think.

I would just dry hop the nibs, i think people have reported less than desireable from boiling them. Ive just spritzed them with stansan and dropped them in the carboy.

IIRC, 4 oz wasnt a huge chocolate flavor / aroma, it was there but not huge (like i was wanting.)

First, you're not partial mashing. Nothing you're steeping has the ability to convert. If you do go ahead with this as written, you will get precious little from the flaked oats but sticky glop, but you will get brilliant goodness from the other specialty grains. Flaked grains of any type require conversion in a mash in order to provide any potential benefit. Add a pound of pale malt to that grist and mash as you plan and you're golden.

Second, stout of any type requires Roasted Barley, of which you have none. I'd substitute RB for the "black malt" and increase the proportion to at least six ounces, probably eight. Black (patent) malt is very astringent, which probably contributed greatly to the flavors you found unpleasant in the previous batch.

Make sense?

Cheers,

Bob

The nibs won't give you much in the way of chocolate taste, they will give it more aromatics (I just used mine as a dry hop addition to a Dark Ale). If you want real chocolate flavor you need to use cocoa or chocolate syrup or you can add chocolate/cocoa liqueur in your secondary/keg or when you bottle. One of our local brewers does a Chocolate Peanut Butter Stout that he just adds dark chocolate syrup and peanut butter directly to the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm just learning the ropes of recipe formulation and appreciate the info.

Bob, thanks for pointing that out about the grain, I almost went down and picked up all this stuff up today... I'm going to cut the caramel malt down to 8 oz and swap out the black malt with 8oz of Roasted Barley and add the 1 lb of the 2-row pale. sound good?

Thanks for the tips!

I think that will be fine. You are going to have a chewy beer, but if that's what you're shooting for, go for it!

Bob

Pelican521 said:

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm just learning the ropes of recipe formulation and appreciate the info.

Bob, thanks for pointing that out about the grain, I almost went down and picked up all this stuff up today... I'm going to cut the caramel malt down to 8 oz and swap out the black malt with 8oz of Roasted Barley and add the 1 lb of the 2-row pale. sound good?

Thanks for the tips!

Click to expand...

So what's your proposed final grain bill? You want to have as much two-row as specialty grains, in general. So if you have 1.5 pounds of specialty grains, use 1.5 pounds of two-row, as an example.

Here's what I ended up with:
American 2-Row-----1.5 lb-----18 %----Mash-----38
Oats, Flaked----------1.0 lb-----12 %----Mash-----37
Chocolate Malt--------8.0 oz-----6 %-----Mash----34
Roast Barley----------8.0 oz-----6 %-----Mash----30
Golden Light DME----4.5 lb------56 %----Boil-----43

Should I reduce the oats to 8 oz or the choc and RB to 4 oz each?

Again, thanks for the help. Yooper, thanks for the 1:1 tip!

Nah. Don't reduce anything further. This sounds NOMMY.



Bob

I'm not a big fan of Oatmeal stouts as partial mash, would rather all grain. Glad you are lead on the right track to do a partial mash instead of doing it extract/steeping as you really wouldn't get anything from the oatmeal as stated. Make sure you get everything crushed, and make sure you keep the partial mash at the right temp. If you have not done a partial mash before be sure to look up a guide, as you have to be a bit more careful than just steeping.

Don't reduce anything if you can help it, better to up the 2-row or go with what you have. I do 1.5 lb Oats in my oatmeal stout, wouldn't want to go below 1 lb. (Love that silky smooth character) If you want to reduce something I'd drop 4 oz of chocolate, but leaving it in should be OK and tasty.

Ok, I think I'll leave the grain bill as is (for now), or maybe increasing the 2-row by .5 lb (if I can fit it in my mash kettle).

I've done a few PM kits before but this is my second try at formulating my own recipe.

I was thinking of mashing at 154° for an hour, with my strike water temp being 167°, does this sound right?

Yes. So long as you can maintain the temperature. Don't worry about mashing at ~150. You'll get everything you need in terms of body from the oats and Crystal.

Bob