Evan!
Well-Known Member
Giggity-giggity! I finally got to brew. It'd been like 3 weeks! WTF is that?
I decided to try out another oatmeal stout (the first one was papazian's recipe, and he told me to dry-hop it, and that ruined it!). This time, I went all-grain (except for some malto-dextrin added right at flameout ), and I made it into an Imperial version.
I did quickly-stepped mash, just to see what kind of efficiency I could get...and because I used carapils and maltodex, I knew it could only get so dry. Figuring on 72% efficiency, which is what my last AG was, I was expecting an OG of 1.074. I took a sample from the kettle just before adding the maltodex at flameout, and ended up with 1.080 or so, or 78% efficiency! This thing should rock faces!
Used a couple pounds of quick oats, some carapils, a bunch of roasted barley, chocolate, and debittered black patent for really dark color. I'll post the recipe below, but keep in mind that the reason I had so many different base malts is because I was cleaning out stragglers in my grain bin. pound here, couple pounds there.
Anyway, brew went great. Woke up at 4:45, mashed in by 5:30. Good god, getting 1.080 from all grain is crazy. I used 5 or 6 gallons of strike water! Brought it up to 135f for 25 mins or so, then brought it up to 150 or so for 55 mins, then 158 for 20, then sparged. Unfortunately, as it turned out, my second runnings were still 1.030, so I had to sparge AGAIN with another gallon. This batch sparge thing isn't the best, but it's all I got right now. So I ended up using two separate brew pots because I had so much liquid, and I also ended up with like a 90-minute boil in order to bring the volume down to 5 gallons. I mean, I probably used 10 gallons all-told, and ended up with 5 in the fermenter. That's alot of evap! Anyway, so, the boil took longer, but I was still done with everything by 11.
I strained the wort onto an existing cake that I saved from my imperial stout last week. Whitelabs British Ale. This stuff is odd, though. I got it from a local brewmaster, straight from his conical. But it's weird because it never gets much of a krausen. RIght now, as I type, the airlock has like 2 or 3 bubbles per sec, but hardly any noticeable krausen. Wierd. The last stout did that too---took like 2 weeks to finish fermenting, and never got much of a krausen. I swear, I still wonder if he didn't goof and accidentally give me a lager yeast, because it sure acts like one.
So, yeah, there it is. I'm happy. I now have 30 gallons in carboys. Go beer! :rockin:
I decided to try out another oatmeal stout (the first one was papazian's recipe, and he told me to dry-hop it, and that ruined it!). This time, I went all-grain (except for some malto-dextrin added right at flameout ), and I made it into an Imperial version.
I did quickly-stepped mash, just to see what kind of efficiency I could get...and because I used carapils and maltodex, I knew it could only get so dry. Figuring on 72% efficiency, which is what my last AG was, I was expecting an OG of 1.074. I took a sample from the kettle just before adding the maltodex at flameout, and ended up with 1.080 or so, or 78% efficiency! This thing should rock faces!
Used a couple pounds of quick oats, some carapils, a bunch of roasted barley, chocolate, and debittered black patent for really dark color. I'll post the recipe below, but keep in mind that the reason I had so many different base malts is because I was cleaning out stragglers in my grain bin. pound here, couple pounds there.
Anyway, brew went great. Woke up at 4:45, mashed in by 5:30. Good god, getting 1.080 from all grain is crazy. I used 5 or 6 gallons of strike water! Brought it up to 135f for 25 mins or so, then brought it up to 150 or so for 55 mins, then 158 for 20, then sparged. Unfortunately, as it turned out, my second runnings were still 1.030, so I had to sparge AGAIN with another gallon. This batch sparge thing isn't the best, but it's all I got right now. So I ended up using two separate brew pots because I had so much liquid, and I also ended up with like a 90-minute boil in order to bring the volume down to 5 gallons. I mean, I probably used 10 gallons all-told, and ended up with 5 in the fermenter. That's alot of evap! Anyway, so, the boil took longer, but I was still done with everything by 11.
I strained the wort onto an existing cake that I saved from my imperial stout last week. Whitelabs British Ale. This stuff is odd, though. I got it from a local brewmaster, straight from his conical. But it's weird because it never gets much of a krausen. RIght now, as I type, the airlock has like 2 or 3 bubbles per sec, but hardly any noticeable krausen. Wierd. The last stout did that too---took like 2 weeks to finish fermenting, and never got much of a krausen. I swear, I still wonder if he didn't goof and accidentally give me a lager yeast, because it sure acts like one.
So, yeah, there it is. I'm happy. I now have 30 gallons in carboys. Go beer! :rockin: