Gearing up for a beer tasting party next month and need to cap it off with a good stout. Was planning on doing my old stand by Oatmeal Stout, which I love, but I wanted to do something bigger. Something better. Something…. imperial!
Ingredients (minus the grains)
So, here’s what I came up with for a recipe:
2 lbs quick oats
3 lbs light malt extract
6 lbs liquid dark malt extract
1-1/2 lbs 60L crystal malt
1/2 lb chocolate malt
1/2 lb roasted barley
1/4 lb black patent
4 tsp gypsum
1oz Centennial hops (boiling)
1 oz Cascade hops (boiling)
1/2 oz Cascade hops (10 minutes left)
1/2 oz Cascade hops (2 minutes left)
1/4 tsp Irish Moss (10 minutes left)
Irish Ale Yeast
Oatmeal for stout
So I made a tea with the grains by putting them in a grain bag. Had about 2.5 gallons of water and held it at 150 degrees for 30 minutes. My boys enjoyed splashing the grain bag around.
Tea-Bagging grains
Once I got the kids to bed I began the boil. I added the light malt extract and my bittering hops. Once I had 10 minutes left I added the liquid dark malt extract and the Irish moss. I also added my flavor hops. About this time I realized that I forgot to add my gypsum to my water. Oops. There’s always next time.
Hops in Oatmeal Stout
With 2 minutes left I added the remaining hops. Finally my boil was done, so I removed the wort from heat and began to strain out the hops. This didn’t take too long. Then I poured my hot wort into my fermenter, burning my finger in the process. Topped it off to 5 gallons and cleaned up my mess, which wasn’t too bad this time.
I’m so looking forward to this being done. I’m going to enjoy this one!
Edit: Just took the initial gravity and pitched the yeast. Initial gravity was 1.090. I started to wonder if I shouldn’t be more scientific and precise when I take the gravity readings, given how my readings seem off sometimes. Tonight’s was probably right. I got it from pretty much dead center of the beer.
Also, this beer already tastes AMAZING! Oh, I so can’t wait for this to be done! My wife even liked it, and that says a lot.
Brett aerating the beer
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