Oatmeal Stout Help

[KyBrewing]

Hey guys I posted this in the extract section too, then I saw this section and didn't know how to move or delete the other post.

I'm still pretty knew at forming my own recipes. So I was hoping to get some advise on this recipe in order to try and prevent a disaster. Most everything is leftover from a Fat Tire clone and I don't want to waste the grains.

Estimated OG: 1.087
Estimated FG: 1.026
Estimated Alcohol Content: 8%
Color: 44 SRM
Bitterness: 41 IBU

Ingredients
7# Briess Dark LME
2# Muntons Amber DME
0.5# Crystal Malt(20L)
4 oz Biscuit Malt
15 oz Chocolate Malt
0.5# Carapils Malt
1# Flaked oats
0.5# Munich Malt
4 oz Coco Powder (15 min)
1 oz Cluster Hops (60 min)
0.5 oz Chinook Hops (15 min)
0.5 oz ChinooK Hops (5 min)

I plan on steeping the grains for 30 min. at 155F then toping off to 3 gallons and boing for 60 min. Also should I mill the the oats like I would my other grains. And should I add maltodextrin as well I have seen a few stouts that use this.

Any advise or suggestions would be great.

Ben

 

[hoppybrewster]

This is almost the same as mine. Personally I don't think you need a pound of oats. Recipe uses 1/2 lb of regular quaker oats. What yeast are you pitching?

 

[KyBrewing]

Less oats, I might try that. I'm going to be using White Labs British Ale yeast, I have never used White labs before and my LBS just got some in so I figured I would give it a shot.

 

[hoppybrewster]

That's the yeast I use also. White labs has a great product. Yea, you don't need alot of oats, they are mainly to provide a mouth feel, good luck
Let me know how it turns out

 

[Bob]

Observations:

You cannot use oats without mashing. It is not possible to glean anything useful from flaked grains without mashing. You will end up with a pile of useless, gooey glop. I really need to get someone to sticky that somewhere...

The good news is if you have the skill and equipment to hold your steep at 155 for 30 minutes you have the skill and equipment to conduct a small mash. Simply add a pound of 2-row pale malt*, restrict the amount of liquor used to 1.25 quarts per pound of grain, and that's it! See here for an excellent tutorial.

Drop the CaraPils. Your extracts already have a significant proportion of Crystal and other body-enhancing specialty grains; you don't need to add more. If you added CaraPils for foam enhancement, you don't need it. First, the darker extracts have ingredients which will enhance foam. Second, roasted grains (i.e., chocolate & biscuit), oats and Munich malt also enhance foam. With the ingredients listed you're already running the risk of making this thing thick and bittersweet as chocolate cake; don't go too far.

Good luck!

Bob

* Reduce the amount of extract used accordingly.