I committed a classic blunder

Right up there with going up against a Sicilian with death on the line...

I recently ordered some grain form Austin Homebrew. Since I don't have a mill, I use their "custom packaging" feature to get all of the grains for a given brew packaged together.

Only problem is, instead of 2 oz of black patent in the oatmeal stout I'm planning to brew this weekend, I apparently ordered 1 lb 2 oz.

Since it's packaged all together with the two-row, crystal, roasted barley, etc, it's going to be almost impossible to pull enough of it out. I figure if I can pull about half the black grains out (there's something like 14 oz of roasted barley in there, too), it'll be drinkable.

Ugh.

cweston said:

Right up there with going up against a Sicilian with death on the line...

I recently ordered some grain form Austin Homebrew. Since I don't have a mill, I use their "custom packaging" feature to get all of the grains for a given brew packaged together.

Only problem is, instead of 2 oz of black patent in the oatmeal stout I'm planning to brew this weekend, I apparently ordered 1 lb 2 oz.

Since it's packaged all together with the two-row, crystal, roasted barley, etc, it's going to be almost impossible to pull enough of it out. I figure is I can pull about half the black grains out (there's something like 14 oz of roasted barley in there, too), it'll be drinkable.

Ugh.

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CALL THEM ASAP. Tell them you F'd up.

They SHOULD call you and let you know you f'd up, but just in case, give them a call and modify the order.

Cheesefood said:

CALL THEM ASAP. Tell them you F'd up.

They SHOULD call you and let you know you f'd up, but just in case, give them a call and modify the order.

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It's already been shipped and received...

In an ideal world, someone there might have caught the mistake, (it obviously doesn't make sense to have that much black patent in a recipe), but I don't really fault them for not catching it.

cweston said:

It's already been shipped and received...

In an ideal world, someone there might have caught the mistake, (it obviously doesn't make sense to have that much black patent in a recipe), but I don't really fault them for not catching it.

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Burn and learn. It's a lesson for us all. Don't waste a $6 yeast packet on something you're 99% sure is going to be awful.

That makes me think of when I'm bartending and I get drink orders for stuff like gin and diet coke or bourbon and bloody mary mix. I like to check because some combinations are just obviously not right, but sometimes people drink them anyway.

What if you ordered two more identical batches, minus the black patent, then mixed it all together and divided it into three batches? You could just save the others for later, or brew three batches in quick succession, or whatever.

I think I'd want to split it over 5-10 batches myself.

Well, I suppose 6oz of BP in a batch is a bit high, but I used 8oz in my oatmeal stout and it came out okay. Plus, five batches of oatmeal stout is a lot. On the other hand, you could do the three batch split thing, brew one batch, and if it's too black patenty, re-divide what is left, etc.

That's the one thing I do not like about Austin Homebrews web site. You have to select your grain then de-select 1# if you want less than 1#. You can make this mistake very easily if your doing a multiple recipe order. My last order I thought was right but low and behold I had 1/2# of Crystal malt individual from the recipe order because I did not change the tab to recipe #2. Lucky for me it came separate from the others.

LarMoeCur said:

That's the one thing I do not like about Austin Homebrews web site. You have to select your grain then de-select 1# if you want less than 1#. You can make this mistake very easily if your doing a multiple recipe order. My last order I thought was right but low and behold I had 1/2# of Crystal malt individual from the recipe order because I did not change the tab to recipe #2. Lucky for me it came separate from the others.

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Yeah--that's obviously how this happened. I guess I'm going to start getting everything individually packaged for this reason. If I had ordered it that way, I could just weigh out 2 oz of the black patent and I'd be in business.

The worst part is that I don't have a LHBS (or else I'd just go buy more grain), and this weekend is the window I had for brewing this batch.

cweston said:

In an ideal world, someone there might have caught the mistake, (it obviously doesn't make sense to have that much black patent in a recipe), but I don't really fault them for not catching it.

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Seriously, I know what you mean. I had an order for about 7 different types of grain. I ordered all of them to be crushed except for 1/4 lb of biscuit malt that I forgot to click the crush button. You would ofthought they would of saw that all the rest were crushed, and crushed that one too......but did they? heh nope

I'm wondering how you will get the black patent out of the mix. I don't see a good solution unless you can dilute it with more grain. That sucks. Let us know what you are going to do or how it turns out,

I just want to say that it was very cool of you to use a Princess Bride quote.

Very cool.:rockin:

I say spread it out and pick 'em out.

mysterio said:

I say spread it out and pick 'em out.

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That's what I just did.

It seems that, on the whole, the black malts (black patent and roasted Barley) were a little more finely milled than the other grains. I was able to pick a fair amount of it out (with the help of a colander) without losing too much of the other grains. I'm guessing I removed about a lb (the target amount) + maybe a 1/2 lb of other grains I didn't mean to pick out. I have no idea if I picked out the right proportion of black patent to roasted barley, but oh well.

I was planning to repitch this on the yeast cake from an IPA that's in primary, so I'm not wasting any extra money on yeast (just hops) to give it a go. I'll throw some extra two row in there to make up for what was lost in the culling process.

I hope it works.

I couldn't throw the unwanted grain out. I'm cheap so would mix it with other brews.

Update: I brewed this yesterday--I'm calling it "Classic Blunder Oatmeal Stout."

I hit my target gravity dead on after collecting wort, so I couldn't have screwed up the grainbill too much. We'll see about the taste. It may be a little more roasty and bitter than anticipated, but I don't mind lots of roasty flavor in a stout, so I think it'll be OK.

Well, hopefully it will be good and hopefully it won't lol. I'd hate to see you reproduce it using those steps