Brewing Notes, Oatmeal Stout (Sat 14jan)

The recipe for the oatmeal stout I made was:

6.6lbs. dark liquid malt extract
0.5lbs. flaked oats
0.5lbs. 6-row barley
0.5lbs. black roast barley
0.5lbs. Simpson's chocolate malt (added in extra)
0.25lbs. Crystal 120L malt
1.0 oz. East Kent Goldings (60)
0.5 oz. Fuggles (30)
Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast

I used dark malt extract because that is what came with the kit I ordered a while ago. For recipes from now on I'll mostly be using pale/light/gold extract and getting all the colors and flavors from steeping/mashing grains. Unless I'm trying to make a batch on the cheap and trying get some flavors from the extract instead of buying extra grain.

This was my first try at a partial mash, here's the procedure I used:

1 - Heated a little less than 3 quarts of water to 168F (limited by pot size, would have done at least 3). I figured that the temp would be brought down to around 150-155F when the grains were added. Added 1/2 tsp of calcium carbonate to balance the acidity of the roasted grains that I used.

2 - Steeped in bag of grains. Mashed down into the water and put the pot in a cooler and stuff it with towels.

3 - After 50 minutes dumped the juice plus the bag into the colander over my brew pot. Sparged with about 1.5 gallons of 170F water. I tried to pour as slowly as possible.

4 - Topped up to about 3.5 gallons for boil.

I ended up with a larger boil volume than normal because I smartly added the extra water before the extract. Luckily I had enough room in the pot. It probably actually helped the hop utilization anyhow.

It also helped me get closer to optimum pitching temp of 68F because I had to add less cold water at the end and there was more warm wort. I ended up pitching at about 75 degrees which wasn't perfect, but was close enough.

Initial specific gravity was ~1.047

Fermenting at 66-68F. Showed signs of fermentation between 5-12 hours, foam in drum tap when I got up.