Help me out, How do you THINK this would taste?

[clayof2day]

Hey all,

Just cracked the first bottle of my Oatmeal stout, and I was a little dissapointed, to tell you the truth. It didn't really have any roasted character and tasted way more like a brown than a stout. Color was actually a little lighter than I expected as well. Modified the BYO recipe a bit, I used the following:

3.0 lbs. Light LME
3.3 lbs. Coopers Extra light DME
1 lb. crystal malt, 60 Lovibond
1.5 lb. American six-row pale ale malt
18 oz. oatmeal (flaked)
0.5 lb. chocolate malt
0.5 lb. roasted barley
1 oz. Fuggles hop pellets (4.2% alpha acid), for 60 min.
1/2 oz. Fuggles for 30 min.
1/2 oz. Fuggles for 2 min.

Batch size was about 4.5 gal. so OG was a little higher than expected at 1.065. Used White labs irish ale yeast (with starter) which got down to about 1.023. Seemed a little high, but I haven't calibrated my hydrometer and I think it gives readings a little on the high side.

Anyways, anyone else done this recipe, how was it? If you haven't done it, how do you think it would be?

Matt

 

[david_42]

I like some Victory or biscuit to backup the special roast. Another pound of six-row would have helped. I've found a mini-mash really need to be 1/2 pale, even if you are using six-row. For a stout I'd have used 120L.

Most of my early stouts ended up more like porters. Not bad, but not what I wanted.

 

[Sasquatch]

Don't take this the wrong way, but why would you make a stout with extra light DME and then wonder why it is lighter in character than one might hope? Amber or dark DME have a place there, and I would up the roasted barley to maybe a pound or more.

There is a tendency for stouts to come out like porter (my last stout is doing just that). I would say the difference in taste between the two is that there is an underlying sweetness of unfermented malt in porter (and maybe a touch more hops? .. in my porter, anyhoo ) whereas in a good stout the flavours are much more integrated. In my mind, this means less of a standout malt base in the flavour profile of stouts (as opposed to porters) which means if you are mashing fermentables, you better do a good job, or you could wind up with a bunch of unfermentable sugars in there that you will detect in the flavour.

My $.02

 

[clayof2day]

Don't take this the wrong way, but why would you make a stout with extra light DME and then wonder why it is lighter in character than one might hope? Amber or dark DME have a place there, and I would up the roasted barley to maybe a pound or more.

No offense taken, the guy at the HBS I was at actually advised me against using amber or dark DME. He said that all the company would be doing was add some Crystal Malt to darken it, and since it was already included in the recipe, it would be unnecessary. I think it may have been because he didn't carry anything except the Coopers Extra light, however , and that was my only option for ingredients that day (I was out of town and away from my local HBS). Anywhoo, thanks for the advice, notes taken, up the ammounts of roasted and/or chocolate for the next round and will experiment using other extracts.

 

[Sasquatch]

Just keep on brewing!

 

[Beer Snob]

When I made my chocalate stout I used some Black Patent malt. I do not have a lot of experence with many different speciaty malts, but I really liked how it came out and believe the BP malt made a big difference. Perhaps someone here can comment on whether it would or not?

 

[Janx]

When I made my chocalate stout I used some Black Patent malt. I do not have a lot of experence with many different speciaty malts, but I really liked how it came out and believe the BP malt made a big difference. Perhaps someone here can comment on whether it would or not?

BP is non-traditional, but it does give a nice flavor, and who cares about tradition when you're a homebrewer. Technically, the defining flavor of a stout is the Roasted Barley.

As far as using Light Extract, I agree with your homebrew store guy. Use light extract and add adjunct grains for the color you want. That's closer to the way all-grain brews are made with the bulk of the fermentables coming from pale malt with colors, sweetness and other flavors coming from other malts. If it was too thin for your liking, try adding some dark crystal or BP as suggested by others.

Cheers!