Help with Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Imperial Milk Stout?

[DifficultRun]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my recipe for an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Imperial Milk Stout. I really want to brew something similar to Wicked Weed’s Milk and Cookies if that gives you an idea of the flavors I’m going for. Basically, I want a beer that’s full of oatmeal, raisin, vanilla, and cinnamon flavors. I’ve tried searching around for a clone recipe or other milk stout/oatmeal stout recipes, but it seems like the vast majority of them feature very prominent chocolate/coffee/roast flavors, which is not really what I’m going for. I want something that’s a bit sweeter and chewy, like you’re biting into an oatmeal raisin cookie. I’ve read through my copy of Mastering Homebrew by Randy Mosher, paying close attention to his suggestions and flavor profiles of the various malts. This is what I’ve come up with so far, with his tasting notes in parentheses beside each malt.

For reference, I’m shooting for a volume of 30 litres in the fermenter. Plugging these into Brewer’s Friend gives me an OG of 1.108, an FG of 1.039, and an ABV of 9.07%.

9kg Pale 2-Row (crisp, nutty)
1kg Lactose (milky sweetness)
1kg Rolled Oats (smooth creaminess and mouthfeel)
700g Victory (biscuit, toastiness)
500g Caramel/Crystal 80L (toasted raisin, burnt sugar aromas)
500g Chocolate Malt
400g Roasted Barley
255g Golden Raisins

25g Magnum hops @ 60 (for an IBU of 21.62)

3 Vanilla Beans
4 Cinnamon Sticks
~30ml Maker’s Mark Bourbon

White Labs – Irish Ale Yeast WLP004

Notes:
Toast oats 2-3 days before brewing. Leave in paper bag at room temperature to allow bitter compounds to dissipate.

Add lactose with 10 minutes left in boil. Puree golden raisins with two cups of wort in a food processor and add with 10 minutes left in boil. (This step is from a clone recipe I found of Dogfish Head’s Raison D’Etre).

Split vanilla beans with a knife and scrape out the pods. Soak the beans, pods, and cinnamon sticks in ~30ml of Maker's Mark (or similar bourbon) for one week. Add to secondary and rack beer on top for one week.

I'm not 100% sure about the roasted chocolate/barley malts as I'm not sure if they'll add too much roast flavor. I was thinking about substituting them for some Carafa but I'm not sure about the quantity to use. Thanks everyone.

 

[NickersonC]

If you're that worried about the roasted malt flavors, why not use all chocolate malt and axe the roasted barley? Your thought to use dark Carafa would probably be fine as well, you can probably sub in the Carafa for the roasted barley in just about the same amount. I'm not 100% familiar with the whole litres/grams measurements as opposed to gallons/ounces being a red-blooded American, but doing the conversions it seems like that would be fine.

If you really wanna get different you could exclude all roasted malts and just make it a strong brown-dark brown ale, unless you really want to make it a 'stout'.

As far as the vanilla and cinnamon goes, 3 vanilla beans will give you a pretty prominent flavor. Not saying it's bad, but it will definitely be fairly strong. For the cinnamon, you could look into making a tincture separate from the vanilla and adding it to taste around bottling time. Again, not saying 4 sticks in secondary is wrong, but it may give you some more control.

If you want big raisin flavor and aroma, you could also consider adding them to secondary as well, but this may result in some serious floaties. Tying a hop bag or paint strainer bag to the end of your racking cane would help with this if you decide to go that route.

 

[DifficultRun]

Thanks for the reply. I mainly put the roasted barley in there because I haven't seen an oatmeal/milk stout without it, so I assumed it was a fairly important ingredient. I've also heard that chocolate malt is misnamed as it also delivers roasted flavors with very little chocolate coming through. As for the cinnamon/vanilla, I simply scaled up from the 5 gallon recipes I've been using as a guide (5 gallons = 19 litres). Thanks for the ideas about adding raisins to secondary. The only recipe I've found that incorporates them is the Raison D'Etre clone I mentioned, so I definitely am open to other ways of adding them to the beer.

 

[tobiasbeecher]

Did this ever progress? Sounds excellent.

 

[DifficultRun]

Did this ever progress? Sounds excellent.

Unfortunately not. I ended up getting a job with an actual brewery shortly after this post and haven't found the time to home brew anymore! I do intend to make this in the future though! Perhaps with some Special B malt added for the raisiny flavor.

 

[GJaundrell]

Did you ever brew this difficultrun?
Sounds great and would love to do something similar in the future