I’ve had Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout a few times before and was pretty impressed with it. I decided to do a clone of it, and found a few different recipes online. I made a few changes suggested by people who had tried it before, such as adding the flaked barley to improve head retention and letting the oats rest at least overnight after toasting them.

Process:

The night before, I spread out my oats on a cookie sheet and toasted them in the oven. I only had Quick Oats available, and since these are already cooked they didn’t take very long to toast. The toasting was done in about 12 minutes at 300 F, turning the oats about halfway through. The recipe said that if you use flaked oats (which aren’t cooked) it can take up to 75 minutes. However, several people who commented on similar clone recipes said it only took 25-30 minutes to toast their oats.

On the brew day I activated the yeast pack. Put 1.5 gallons of water into my cooking pot and heated it to 160 F, at which point I added my grains in a grain bag to steep for 50 minutes, which brought the temperature down to 155 F. After steeping I rinsed the grains with another gallon of warm water, and then I heated the wort to a boil. As it was heating I added my liquid malt extract to dissolve. I also rinsed out my malt container with another gallon or so of water and added that to the wort. Then I began making some Spent Grain Bread until the wort began to boil.

When the boil began I started my timer for 90 minutes. With 60 minutes left, I added all the hops I am using for this beer. I then let the boil continue until the full 90 minutes was up. I then poured my wort into a primary bucket. I added about 2 gallons worth of ice and a bit of cold water, bringing the temperature down to 77 F. I pitched my yeast, attached a blow-off tube, and sealed up the bucket.

1-28-12: Put into primary and pitched yeast. OG measured at 1.058 giving an alcohol potential of 7.6 %ABV.

2-4-12: Racked to secondary carboy. SG measured at 1.019.

2-26-12: Bottled into 51 12-ounce bottles. FG measured at 1.019 giving a strength of 5.1 %ABV.

3-23-12: This beer is taking a long time to carbonate for some reason. I’ve been trying one every week and the carbonation is still extremely light. I guess I’ll just keep letting it sit and testing it weekly until it gets to where I want it.

Categories : beer, brewing, recipe
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