Need stout help

OK gonna be doing a stout next. Been trying to put off brewing until I can make the leap to all grains BUT . . . thats not working out.

Next up is a stout, and I have been reading up on them. I do LOVE Guiness but would really like to try and get an older style of stout with the creamier, fuller body and with the higher ABV. I cant go with the milk stouts cuz the lactose will make me stink so bad even I wont want to be near myself. I also read up on outmeal stouts but want to avoid the oily mouth feel from lots of oatmeal and lean more towards the silky mouth feel lighter amounts of oatmeal.

I need help on this one, any comments or recomendations would be greatly appreciated

so here's the plan . . .

SRM = 40
IBU = 35
ABV = 8.1%
OG = 1.071
FG = 1.008
BOIL VOLUME = 4 gallons

GRAINS
.5 lbs American Crystal 90L
.5lbs Flaked Oats
1lbs Roasted barley
1.5lbs Flaked Barley
Steep 1 hour at 150 in 3 gallons, rinse with 1 gallon at 170

BOIL
6lbs light LME
2lbs light DME

HOPS
2oz Kent Goldings - 50 minutes 5%AA
1.75oz Fuggles - 20 minutes 4.75%AA

YEAST
Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast (LHBS only has wyeast)

Ferment in primary until it's done (1 week minimum) at about 68-70, dump in secondary until it clears and I get time to bottle (2 weeks probably), prime with 8oz DME

Gonna keep a close eye on the fermentation, my Wee heavy had a OG of 1.081 so I realize it can be a bit slow, also plan on letting it bottle condidtion for atleast 3 months b4 I start considering it "done". The Wee Heavy has been around that long and it's just starting to mellow out to where it is really good. It's was ok at 1 month but a bit sweet for me and is now starting to really get very nice and figuring this will be very simular with a OG so close to that one.

Hey Pumbaa! Have you ever had a founders double chocolate coffee oatmeal breakfast stout.Really strong but gooood. I do all grain but heres a recipe you will like.5 gal extract w/grains. This is oscars chocolate oatmeal stout replica. 6.6pnds light unhopped malt extract , 1lb wheat malt,4 oz roasted barley,4 oz chocolate malt ,10 oz flaked oats ,1 tea irish moss,1.5ozgoldings at 60 min. 1.0 oz at 5 min. enjoy!

You're going to need something in your mini-mash that has enzymes to convert the barley flake and oat flake.

Can you replace the barley flake with barley malt?

Can you replace the barley flake with barley malt?

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I dunno

what if I took out half a pound the flaked barley and added half a pound of just plain old 2 row? I want to keep the grainyness, head retention and creamy qualities of the flaked barley, but yeah I forgot about the enzymes.

I'll pulg it into the recipator and post wheat I get but gotta run for now, have a couple apointments I need to take care of

Denny's Brew said:

You're going to need something in your mini-mash that has enzymes to convert the barley flake and oat flake.

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With three gallons of water to 3.5 lbs of grain, and no base malt, that's steeping, not a mini-mash. IMHO I wouldn't worry about any base malt in the steep anyway, because it looks like you've got plenty of fermentable from the LME/DME.

For what it's worth, I brewed the Sam Adams Cream Stout from BC this weekend...that recipe calls for 1 lb of wheat dme (for head retention I'd guess) and 1 lb of Malto Dextrin (for the mouthfeel I assume).

Hey Pumbaa! Have you ever had a founders double chocolate coffee oatmeal breakfast stout.Really strong but gooood.

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I'll have to pick some up when I go on my next bottle run, sounds good

With three gallons of water to 3.5 lbs of grain, and no base malt, that's steeping, not a mini-mash.

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Yeah wasnt really looking for a mini mash but I like to keep the the sort of steeping schedual I have just to try and get as much fermentables outa the grains as I can. I figure why let them go to waste

that recipe calls for 1 lb of wheat dme (for head retention I'd guess) and 1 lb of Malto Dextrin (for the mouthfeel I assume).

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I was hoping to get those qualities from the flaked barely and flaked oatmeal, plus the wheat DME I use for priming


I did go back to the Recipator and reworked it out to be a mini mash. Take out half a pound of the flaked barely, add half a pound of 2 row. Used a 75% efficiency (sounded good).

the new values would be
OG 1.079
ABV 9.2%
SRM 40
IBU 32

I do have a extra kettle now since I got the turkey fryer for Christmas, and since I am going to move to all grain as soon as I quit screwing around I could try a mini mash - just may be a bit intimidating since I really dunno if I have the equipment for it, suppose a bit of cheese cloth or another grain bag couldnt hurt too much . . . I might want to up them fuggles to a full 2 ounces too.

Is a 75% efficiency too optimistic? or should I just be a chicken and stick with steeping? 9.2%ABV stout could be interesting

Pumbaa said:

Is a 75% efficiency too optimistic? or should I just be a chicken and stick with steeping? 9.2%ABV stout could be interesting

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I don't think it's too optimistic, but with a mini-mash I don't think it really matters, since most of the sugar coming from the extract anyway. I did a mini-mash Saturday, but I can't figure out just what my efficiency was because there is no malto dextrin in Recipator. Guess I'll have to fire up ProMash.

All Righty then sounds like thats gonna be the plan . . . unless anyone has any major concerns

Thnx guys this is gonna be the St Fuad "No Bullsh1t" Stout

time to bang out a label

Pumbaa said:

I did go back to the Recipator and reworked it out to be a mini mash. Take out half a pound of the flaked barely, add half a pound of 2 row. Used a 75% efficiency (sounded good).

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I don't want to be a pessimist, but I think for a home brewer, 1/2 lb of two row should be able to convert about an ounce of flaked grain.

If the malt extract is diastitic, you may be able to disolve some in warm water, and use that for the mash, but then you would probably have problems sparging the sugars off the flakes and into the wort.

-a.

how much you think it would take?

Pumbaa said:

how much you think it would take?

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According to Papazian, pale malt can convert 5% - 20% of it's weight in adjuncts depending on the enzyme content. For 2 lbs of flaked serial, this would take 10 - 40 lbs of malt to complete the conversion.

-a.

10 lbs is hardly a mini-mash...I'd just relax, have a brew, and steep them grains.

Depends on the malt. Some pale malts are very low like 60dp while there is one out there that around 160dp.

If I were you I'd just do an AG of this. Just take your kettle, mash in it. Then use a peice of copper with slots cut in it from a hack saw, jigsaw or dremel tool, think copper racking cane with a 'foot' with slots at the bottom, and siphon the wort out of the kettle/mashtun.

Shouldn't be too difficult.

Think I am just gonna stick to the original plan and hold off on the next batch until I get my mash tun build and kettle finished