beertroll
Well-Known Member
I have a batch of oatmeal stout that's great up front, but has a bit of an acrid, bitter finish. It definitely doesn't taste like hop bitterness. If it's a problem with my recipe, I'd like to correct it before the next time I brew a batch of it. However, I had so much trouble with it on brew day that I think my process could also be to blame.
I made the mistake of not using rice hulls. When the mash finished and I tried to drain it, I couldn't get a drop out of the tun. I hadn't noticed at the time, but my false bottom was slightly askew when I mashed in. I ended up with about a cup and a half of grain under the false bottom. On top of that, the oats turned the whole mash into a giant plug. I ended up scooping the thicker portions out into a bucket while using my sparge water to try to thin it out enough to get something flowing. That didn't work, so I ended up pulling dumping everything into buckets, cleaning my mash tun completely, and adding everything back in slowly from thinnest to thickest. Even then, I had the mix up the mash periodically to keep the wort flowing. I never did a proper sparge, but the mash sat in the hot sparge water for quite some time while I did battle with the tun. All told, it was about 3 1/2 hours from when my mash timer went off until I had all the wort in the kettle. I'm thinking that the dark grains being in hot water for so long may explain the bitter aftertaste, but I also had quite a bit of dark grains in my recipe, so I wanted to bounce it off some of the more experienced folks.
My recipe was:
5lbs Muntons 2-row
3lbs 4oz Maris Otter
2lbs 10oz Quick Oats
1lbs Crystal 80
1lbs Victory malt
12oz British Chocolate malt
5oz Black patent malt
4oz Roasted Barley
1oz Northdown (7.2%AA) @ 60
1oz Crystal (4.1%AA) @ 10
WLP002
Mashed for 90 min at 153
I made the mistake of not using rice hulls. When the mash finished and I tried to drain it, I couldn't get a drop out of the tun. I hadn't noticed at the time, but my false bottom was slightly askew when I mashed in. I ended up with about a cup and a half of grain under the false bottom. On top of that, the oats turned the whole mash into a giant plug. I ended up scooping the thicker portions out into a bucket while using my sparge water to try to thin it out enough to get something flowing. That didn't work, so I ended up pulling dumping everything into buckets, cleaning my mash tun completely, and adding everything back in slowly from thinnest to thickest. Even then, I had the mix up the mash periodically to keep the wort flowing. I never did a proper sparge, but the mash sat in the hot sparge water for quite some time while I did battle with the tun. All told, it was about 3 1/2 hours from when my mash timer went off until I had all the wort in the kettle. I'm thinking that the dark grains being in hot water for so long may explain the bitter aftertaste, but I also had quite a bit of dark grains in my recipe, so I wanted to bounce it off some of the more experienced folks.
My recipe was:
5lbs Muntons 2-row
3lbs 4oz Maris Otter
2lbs 10oz Quick Oats
1lbs Crystal 80
1lbs Victory malt
12oz British Chocolate malt
5oz Black patent malt
4oz Roasted Barley
1oz Northdown (7.2%AA) @ 60
1oz Crystal (4.1%AA) @ 10
WLP002
Mashed for 90 min at 153
