PM Oatmeal Stout

I tried DeathBrewer's partial mash method this afternoon (thanks DeathBrewer for all the help ). I did an oatmeal stout recipe from iXanadu (thanks iXanadu for the updates ). Things went well. Here's the recipe I used:

4 lbs. 2-row
2 lbs. Oats
1 lb. Chocolate Malt
.75 lbs. Victory Malt
.75 lbs. Roasted Barley
.5 lbs. Crystal Malt
2 lbs. DME (1 lb. amber, 1 lb. dark)
2 oz. Golding hops
1 WLP 002 English Ale

I mashed the grains in 3 gallons of water at between 149 and 151 for an hour. Man, 9-pounds of wet grain is HEAVY!! My arms and back were burning. I than added it to 175 degree sparge water (just barely fit in my brew pot). I ended up with close to 4 gallons I think. The boil started a bit slow since I was brewing on the kitchen stove (10 inches of snow in Cleveland). I don't have a scale so I had to eyeball the 2 oz. of hops (did 1.5 oz at the start of the boil and .5 oz. with 20-minutes left). Cooled in an ice bath in about 30 minutes and pitched the started after mixing the wort between two buckets.

Overall, a pretty good brewday!!

Please keep us informed. I have been planning a toasted oatmeal + brown ale recipe that I got from the book Radical Brewing. I too am planning on the DeathBrewer partial mash when I get my act together and get the ingredients together... tons of substitutions are needed due to lack of stuff available in Japan

I will not clog up your thread with my questions and instead will open my own when the time is right.

I'd be interested in your results too. I plan to brew an Oatmeal Stout the weekend after this weekend. Here's my tentative recipe:

8# Maris Otter Pale
1# Roasted Barley
1# Crystal 60LV
1/2# Flaked Barley
1/2# Flaked Oats

2-step infusion mash with a Beta Glucan rest @ 110 degrees F.

.5 oz. Cascade whole for 60 min.
.5 oz Saaz pellet for 60 min.
.25 oz Willamette whole for 20 min.
.25 oz. Willamette whole for 10 min.
.25 oz. Willamette whole for 2 min.

1 vial White Labs Irish Ale yeast with starter.

I'm still not sure how much bitterness/flavor/aroma hops to use...and since I always put brown sugar on my oatmeal I was considering a tiny addition of brown sugar.

I have been tapping into my Samual Smith's Oatmeat Stout clone for about a week now and seriously can't believe how good it is. I got the reciept out of Beer Clones. I also used Death Brewers stovetop PM method!!!

As I type I am tasting my brew side by side with the original. It is very close, I highly recommend it!:rockin:

I know I'm probably just being paranoid, but I haven't had any signs of fermentation yet I pitched on Sunday. I am not sure the optimum temp for WLP002. I have it between 65 and 70. Is this too high? I'm anxious about this one because I really like stouts and want this to turn out well. By the way, my SG was 1.057, a bit off the 1.060 I was shooting for.

Any help on the fermentation would be welcomed.

Well, you underpitched, for one thing. Long lag times are pretty common. A vial of White Labs yeast has about 100 billion cells; you needed about 270 billion.

If nothing happens tomorrow, I'd get a packet of S-04 or something.

Good luck!

Bob

I pitched a starter that I made two days before. Maybe I didn't give the starter enough time. I have two packets of Safale US 05, can I just rehydrate one and throw it in? Would that effect the WLP 002?

You pitched a starter? Day-um. Was the starter active and foamy and stuff?

If you get no activity by breakfast Wednesday, I'd say pitch the S-05 and write the 002 off.

Sorry, dude!

Bob

Johnny9 said:

I have been tapping into my Samual Smith's Oatmeat Stout clone for about a week now and seriously can't believe how good it is. I got the reciept out of Beer Clones. I also used Death Brewers stovetop PM method!!!

As I type I am tasting my brew side by side with the original. It is very close, I highly recommend it!:rockin:

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Any chance you could post the recipe for us? I have been looking for a clone of that beer...best beer ever!

The starter I pitched must not have been ready yet, cause I still have nothing fermenting as of this afternoon. So, I pitched a packet of Safale 05 directly to the wort (I didn't rehydrate). We'll see what happens. Could this get the WLP 002 going again and get the flavor benefits of it still?

Not likely. Theoretically, the US-05 should take off and you'll get the benefits of that.

I'm really surprised you had no activity at all from the WLP002. Hm.

Bob

Could a temperature fluctuations cause it not to take off? (mid 60's to low
70's)

Not those temperatures, I shouldn't think. Mid 50s, yeah, but not the mid-60s.

There is a thing called thermal shock. I wonder if that didn't have something to do with it. Theoretically and practically, it's best if the wort to be pitched and the starter/slurry are the same temperature. At the very least, they should be within five or six degrees F of each other. Too large a temperature variance can be a deadly shock to the yeast. The same phenomenon can happen if the wort is pitched at, say, 85F and the wort continues to chill - rapidly - to, say, 70F. The yeast can go dormant and never wake up again.

Yours, my dear sir, is an interesting and diverting little problem. I shall devote my mind to it.

I shall keep you abreast of the situation.

After 4 days and two doses of yeast FERMENTATION HAS BEGUN! I was wondering though, how much flavor character does the yeast provide?

Depends on the strain and temperature of the ferment. US-05 is pretty clean unless the ferment gets quite warm indeed.

Cheers,

Bob

What's your mash efficiency? Just curious... I'm still debating if I need to get a $20 cooler and start conversion.

I only have a 4 gallons and 2 gallon pot.. I think it will be ok for the partial mash.

I don't know how to calculate my efficiency yet. My SG was 1.057 though, if that helps. Any suggestions on how to calculate my mash efficiency would be greatly appreciated.

Blackhawkbrew said:

I don't know how to calculate my efficiency yet. My SG was 1.057 though, if that helps. Any suggestions on how to calculate my mash efficiency would be greatly appreciated.

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Ok if you have say 4# of malt that has a potential of 1.036 that is a total # of points 144 (36*4) and mash with 3 gallons of water. Lets say you get 2 gallons of water from the mash since the grain absorbs some. lets say the SG of that 2 gallons is 1.050. The formula to get you mash eff. is 50/(144/2) = 69.4%. So take the last 2 numbers of your SG of your MASH only and divide that by the total potential of the grain divided by the volume you got out of the mash.

Man I hope that is clear. I'm not an expert, but that is the way I understand it.

Once you add the DME all bets are off and you can't find the mash eff.

10 inches of snow in Cleveland

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Cooled in an ice bath in about 30 minutes

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Anyone ever just plop their kettle in the snow?

fivehoursfree said:

Anyone ever just plop their kettle in the snow?

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Never done it, being in Alabama and all, but why not?

I tried cooling a batch in the snow and the snow actually acted more like an insulator than anything.

Blackhawkbrew said:

I tried cooling a batch in the snow and the snow actually acted more like an insulator than anything.

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Really, that is surprising to me. Maybe the lack of water (like in an ice bath) just slows the heat transfer. Maybe moving it to fresh snow and agitating it every few min would help. I can't believe that snow insulates. But hell I'm not a thermodynamics kinda guy.

I have cooled in the snow before, works ok.

I had it out there for about 10-15 minutes and it seemed as if the snow around the bucket was melted and the temp went down but did not keep going down. Perhaps if I moved it to fresher snow, like evandam was saying, would have worked better. Of course today I could probably cool a batch down in a matter of minutes (-18 with wind chill) :rockin:

evandam said:

Ok if you have say 4# of malt that has a potential of 1.036 that is a total # of points 144 (36*4) and mash with 3 gallons of water. Lets say you get 2 gallons of water from the mash since the grain absorbs some. lets say the SG of that 2 gallons is 1.050. The formula to get you mash eff. is 50/(144/2) = 69.4%. So take the last 2 numbers of your SG of your MASH only and divide that by the total potential of the grain divided by the volume you got out of the mash.

Man I hope that is clear. I'm not an expert, but that is the way I understand it.

Once you add the DME all bets are off and you can't find the mash eff.

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that's pretty good there...

My airlock is STILL bubbling! I pitched the Safale 002 on the 14th and began seeing activity the next day. Although the activity has been slow, it has been consistent. I've never had airlock activity last this long. I hope it's not a bad sign. The temp has been ranging from 64 to 68.