Split batch oatmeal stout / peat smoked stout

[biertourist]

I'm pretty excited; I've got a group of people coming over to my house for a class on home brewing (I donated a "learn to home brew class" to a charity auction a while back) tomorrow and I'm brewing a 10 gallon split batch oatmeal stout; half with peat-smoked malt and half with.

-I'm actually just mashing 6 oz of peat-smoked malt in a pan that I'm putting in my oven for an hour and then I'm giving it a 10 min boil and I'll ferment it separately in a 1 gallon demijohn and I'll add the resulting 100% peat smoked beer to one 5 gallon fermenter in secondary to taste -because I'm so scared of the peat-smoked malt.  I know the efficiency of the minimash will be TERRIBLE this way but I'm really just going for the peat flavor and I want to avoid adding starches.


Next: the recipe

[biertourist]

Basically I'm resurrecting my Bog Oak smoked recipe and I'm trying to create a Franciscan Well Shandon Century stout-esque beer.  -EXCEPT I'm keeping the gravity lower so I can actually enter the base oatmeal stout into a BJCP competition (Cascade Brewer's Cup,-I'll be helping with the cellar for the competition, too!).

Stats:
OG: 1.059
FG: 1.017
SRM: 28
IBU: 31.7
ABV 5.63%

Batch Size: 10 gallons into 2 corney kegs
Kettle volume pre-boil: 13 gallons (49.2 liters)
Kettle volume post-boil: 11.52 gallons 43.6 liters
-I lose probably 1 gallon in the bottom of my whirlpool kettle and then I slightly overfill my Better Bottle fermenters so that after losses to trub and yeast I still have a full 5 gallons into each corney keg.

Grist:
19 lbs (8618 grams) NW Pale Ale Malt -Great Western Malting 71.7%
2 lbs flaked oats toasted in oven until golden; let rest 4 days, then add into malt mill hopper with base grain and crush- 7.6%
1.5 lb Crisp Pale Chocolate -5.7%
1.5 lb Victory malt (biscuit is similar)- 5.7%
1.0 lb Caramel 80L - 3.8%
1.3 lb Roasted Barley - 4.9%
Peat smoked malt- Thomas Fawcett - added to taste

Hops
1.5 oz Columbus 13% AA Pellets (Hop spider decrease utilization) -60 min addition -31.7 IBUs

Yeast
American Ale mixed culture of 3 yeasts for peated fermenter
Wyeast 1272 American II for the regular oatmeal stout because I have both and I'd like this lower attenuating strain for the main oatmeal portion

Mashing
60 minutes @ 68C



I really wish I had my counterflow chiller for this beer as I could just run off the first 5 gallons for the main oatmeal stout, then add the liquid from the peat minimash+mini boil directly into the main boil kettle then and then transfer straight to my peat stout fermenter.


Adam

[biertourist]

Update:

Kinda crazy but the batch with the Wyeast 1272 ended at 1.015 while the American blend ended at 1.019. Neither finishes sweet; it's mostly just beta glucans.  I wonder if the beta glucans settle to the bottom of the fermenter so the first 5 gallons that I pulled out of the kettle ended up with a higher FG/ from more beta glucans??!?

The Wyeast 1272 is more estery and actually slightly hoppy on the nose with noticable, English-like esters.
The American blend is just clean with a bit of chocolate and roast flavors as you'd expect.

I far preferred the American blend fermenter to the 1272 fermenter; I will NOT use 1272 again.



I performed a mini-mash on my stove top for 60 minutes and ended up with 700ml of beer after pitching yeast and letting it ferment out; I added the 100% peat smoked beer (very odd tasting in a bad sort of way) to the 1272 batch 200ml at a time until it was where I wanted it.  It honestly wasn't intensely peaty this way even using 6 oz of peat smoked malt.  I ended up using the full 700ml.


The regular oatmeal stout batch is just a bit too light in color and is just a bit low on roast flavor.  Next time I would add more highly roast malt; I was scared with all the oats and roast malt that I'd get a stuck mash and I generally prefer a bit lower on the roast barley.  -I think I'm going to enter both into the Cascade Brewer's Cup but I'm afraid that it looks more like halfway between a brown porter and a robust porter; luckily appearance is only 3 points and I think they could only knock one point off for that...



Adam

[biertourist]

Got my score sheets back from the Cascade brewer's cup and this one didn't do so well.

Got dinged for not being roasty enough (you can clearly see that from the grist %s) and the toasted oat notes.

-Many of the books recommend this step, but I'll reiterate it: If you're going to be toasting oats, ESPECIALLY if you're going to be toasting them a lot, let them sit and mellow for a few days before you use them.  PLAN AHEAD.

I think it tastes fantastic, but obviously toasty oat notes aren't "to style"... SDF@#$%@#$#@ "to style" brewing!



Adam