First Oatmeal Stout

[Surveyor06]

For my second ever brew I decided to do a Oatmeal Stout Partial Mash.

The recipe was.
5-Gallon Batch
6.6 lbs LME
1.5 lbs Six-Row Malt
1.5 Lbs Rolled Oats
0.5 lbs roasted barley
0.5 lbs Choc. Malt
1.0 lbs Crystal 60

I mashed the grains in a kettle with 2.5 gallons of water @ 155 for 60 mins in a muslin bad. The OG was 1.062.

The brew process went smooth. Its been fermenting now for 2.5 weeks. At the 2 week mark I took a hydrometer reading that was 1.018. My concern is that the muslin bag kept the grains too tight and i did not get all the goodies from the grain. My beer that i tested was dark brown, not the black that you would expect from stout. The beer taste great, on the sweet side, with a nice roasting flavor. I think it will taste good, just not exactly what I wanted.
At the stage of the brewing process will the beer get darker, or is the beer destined to be a dark brown? Was the muslin bag a bad idea? Could the recipe be improved to make the beer darker? Thanks.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

A pound of dark malt should have made a 5 ballon batch this as dark as a moonless night. Next time get a paint strainer bag from Lowes and stretch it over the mouth of the kettle, secured with binder clips. That will permit your grains to swim unfettered throughought the kettle.

 

[Surveyor06]

Yeah I thought the grain bag felt tight. I stired it the best I could with a spoon every 15 mins. Beer might be more of a Brown Ale than a stout. Still taste good. I'm think of making a 5-gallon MLT to practice with before I eventually go all grain.

 

[JLem]

I just plugged your recipe into BeerSmith and it estimates an SRM of 29, which is a "deep brown"...for black you need to get closer to 40 SRM. For inputs, I was conservative with the color of the chocolate malt and roasted barley - only 300L each - so your actual color will be different if the grains were more or less than 300L.

Sounds like a good beer, regardless of color!

 

[Surveyor06]

Just an update on this beer. This stout came out great. My wife took the first sip and the look on her face said it all. She was very impressed. The color was very dark, almost black. If held to the light there are some ruby colors there. I've seen a lot of threads about people worried there beers may not be the color they were hoping for. What I learned is that you cant judge a beer before its done. You would never believe this beer would have turned out so dark if you saw it when i first put it in the fermenter. Thanks for every ones responses.