Oatmeal and milk stout too dry

[pursuit0fhoppiness]

Hey all, so after making an extract w/ specialty grain oatmeal stout, and all grain milk stout, both have turned out to be quite dry for the style and only a little sweet. Used lactose in the AG batch but not in the oatmeal stout. Maybe AG batch was mashed a little low? Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[BigCrazyAl]

Are there recipes and brew notes you can share to help nail down what happened? It could be quite a few things contributing to a lighter bodied stout.

 

[Kent88]

The recipe and gravities would be helpful

 

[pursuit0fhoppiness]

All grain milk stout: 2 row, roasted barley, crystal 60, chocolate, munich, flaked barley, flaked oats. Lactose last few mins of boil. Magnum and EKG hops, WLP001 yeast. Mashed an hour at 66-67C (151-152.5F). OG was 1.047 which was lower than expected, FG was 1.018 for abv of 3.8%.

 

[BigCrazyAl]

All grain milk stout: 2 row, roasted barley, crystal 60, chocolate, munich, flaked barley, flaked oats. Lactose last few mins of boil. Magnum and EKG hops, WLP001 yeast. Mashed an hour at 66-67C (151-152.5F). OG was 1.047 which was lower than expected, FG was 1.018 for abv of 3.8%.

Was this the Left Hand clone in the ale recipe section? I just brewed this last Saturday. If you used the same quantities then the only difference I see is mash time. I did 75 minutes and you did 60. I don't know how long full conversion takes though.

Mine was also at 151° in the mash ending in an OG of 1.066. Your yeast strain is different but you hit the FG that people in the thread are typically getting. I still think you didn't get full conversion.

 

[Kent88]

Thank you.

Do you also have weights of ingredients, or perhaps the percentages, and the batch size?

How sweet do you usually like your sweet stouts?

 

[mr_stout]

Add some honey to the brew is what I would do.

 

[pursuit0fhoppiness]

Yes it was the Left Hand clone. I understand that an hour mash is usually long enough, don't think that would account for such a low OG would it? I'm a new AG brewer so think my efficiency just isn't quite good enough yet. I like my stouts a bit sweet and creamy, but both mine have been a bit dry which is what I'm confused about. I forgot to add lactose until last 2 mins of boil but didn't think that would have much effect.

 

[chris_the_goat]

An hour is usually more than enough time. I have done a starch test at 20 minutes that came up negative.

Have you done an AG batch before? How was your OG then?

When I first started, I was making good tasting beer, but my efficiency was horrible. I traced the issue to my grain crush. The mill at my LHBS was not crushing fine enough (this is a common problem). I got my own mill and went from 65% to 80% efficiency on the next batch.

 

[pursuit0fhoppiness]

I've done 4 AG batches now and 3 of them had an OG around 1.047. IPA was 1.057ish I think. Would a low OG cause dryness and less sweetness in a milk stout though?

 

[chris_the_goat]

I don't think it would cause less sweetness. Given your FG of 1.016, I wouldn't call it dry. The lack of alcohol could contribute to a thinner mouth feel, though.

 

[Jtk78]

Add some honey to the brew is what I would do.

Wouldn't this just intensify the problem? My understanding is that honey is nearly 100% fermentable, therefore adding almost no sweetness and drying it out even more.

Unless you mean adding it to the glass of a poured beer now, after the fact???

 

[RM-MN]

Was this the Left Hand clone in the ale recipe section? I just brewed this last Saturday. If you used the same quantities then the only difference I see is mash time. I did 75 minutes and you did 60. I don't know how long full conversion takes though.

Mine was also at 151° in the mash ending in an OG of 1.066. Your yeast strain is different but you hit the FG that people in the thread are typically getting. I still think you didn't get full conversion.

The actual conversion takes less than 2 minutes. What makes the difference in mash time is how long it takes to fully gelatinize the starches. That time depends on the size of the grain particles as it takes time for the water to reach the center to gelatinize the starch. While I can get by with less than 30 minutes for my mash, yours might take 60 and another person with a poorer crush might need 90 minutes and with a really poor crush even that much time may not be enough. Typically, a 60 minute mash would be sufficient for a decent mash efficiency but one cannot make a blanket statement and say that is the right amount of time.

 

[RM-MN]

Yes it was the Left Hand clone. I understand that an hour mash is usually long enough, don't think that would account for such a low OG would it? I'm a new AG brewer so think my efficiency just isn't quite good enough yet. I like my stouts a bit sweet and creamy, but both mine have been a bit dry which is what I'm confused about. I forgot to add lactose until last 2 mins of boil but didn't think that would have much effect.

The length of time for the mash to get good efficiency is dependent on the quality of the crush of the grain. Unless you have your own mill and always do your own milling your mash time/mash efficiency will vary depending on who mills for you and how the mill is set that particular day.

Part of the sweet/creamy is in the ingredients, part is in the mash temperature, and part is in the choice of yeast. Adding more Crystal (also called caramel malt) will increase the sweetness because it contains unfermentable sugars. You can vary the unfermentable sugars contributed by the rest of the grains by changing the mash temperature, and finally the amount of sugars eaten by the yeast depends to some degree on the yeast strain.

 

[Kent88]

About that full conversion thing: Check out this podcast, Part 2.

 

[mr_stout]

After the yeast is done fermenting and it is used up. It will not have the power to keep fermenting the honey that you put in it. Just make sure the yeast is done. You can cold crash then add the honey. How about that?

Wouldn't this just intensify the problem? My understanding is that honey is nearly 100% fermentable, therefore adding almost no sweetness and drying it out even more.

Unless you mean adding it to the glass of a poured beer now, after the fact???

 

[Kent88]

Just looking back through some posts and saw this "add honey" recommendation. Sounds like a recipe for bottle bombs. Honey is pretty much completely fermentable, and those yeasts will eat through all that if given a chance (see Mead). I've heard of people making high-gravity beers who try to dry them out by adding a little honey.

When people want to sweeten things with fermentable sugars, like when winemakers want a sweet wine, they typically don't let the wine sit for so long that the yeast is "used up" (yeast will go dormant under beer for months or even years in the right conditions, which is most of the conditions we homebrewers create for them, and become active when there are more fermentable sugars to consume), they kill it or render it unable to ferment further with stabilizers. But this is not helpful to homebrewers who typically don't add stabilizers (especially homebrewers who bottle rather than keg). I have heard of some homebrewers who will filter the yeast from their beer and keg it, but I have never heard of attempting wine-like backsweetening in beer.

To remedy a dry Oatmeal/sweet stout you add lactose and/or add more of certain specialty malts / adjuncts (non-base malts) to the mash, and/or mash at higher temperatures for a shorter amount of time, and/or use a yeast that doesn't attenuate so well.

 

[Calder]

I've done 4 AG batches now and 3 of them had an OG around 1.047. IPA was 1.057ish I think. Would a low OG cause dryness and less sweetness in a milk stout though?

A 1.018 FG is sweet. It may taste dry from the fine particles from the roasted grains. Roasted Barley and Chocolate are very dry grains, and can contribute a fine powder into the beer. This fine 'dust' takes a long time to drop. This is why a lot of dark beers taste 'smoother' after a while, when these fine particles have dropped.

A bigger beer with the same FG will have a more residual sugars and taste sweeter if not properly balanced. That is; a beer that goes from 1.080 to 1.020 will have a lot more remaining sugars than a beer that went from 1.050 to 1.020

After the yeast is done fermenting and it is used up. It will not have the power to keep fermenting the honey that you put in it. Just make sure the yeast is done. You can cold crash then add the honey. How about that?

That just seems to be bad advice. The yeast is never used up; how do you think a beer manages to carbonate in the bottle. Even with cold crashing, you will still have Billions of healthy yeast cells ready to work on any fresh simple sugars. Adding honey will only restart fermentation, resulting in a dryer product. Eventually the yeast will die ... maybe a couple of years.

 

[mr_stout]

You are right Calder.