Are my ingredients still good?

Brewski · Post by **Brewski** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 7:55 am

thanks for the input. so i think i'm going to brew within the next week or two. i still have a few decisions to make. first one is which recipe to use. i have two different recipes for stouts that i'd like to try, one is an oatmeal stout, and the other is a chocolate stout. i like both styles of beer, but i'm leaning towards trying the oatmeal stout this time around. i'll probably just keep it in the primary fermenter, and pitch the Windsor yeast first. i'm leaning towards using my other strand of yeast, the cooper ale yeast, after about a week or two. also, i was thinking about adding some oak chips at some point, any suggestions as to when i should put them in? should i do this when i pitch the yeast to the wort this first time, or wait until the second round of yeast is added? after i pitch the second round of yeast, i was thinking about letting it sit in the fermenter for at least two or three weeks. any thoughts?

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:20 am

If prefer oatmeal stouts myself so I think that's a good choice

You should only really need one packet of yeast for the fermentation (if making 5g batch) so I don't see the need for other yeast unless you run in to problems.

Oaking it is a great idea and if you already have the oak chips, I would first make sure the beer completed in primary (2-3 weeks - best to check gravity though) then rack over to secondary. Add this chips while in secondary. If you have oak cubes, use those instead but if you already have the chips, then use those and check the flavor maybe once a week or so? I've never used chips so I'm really not sure how quickly it goes to work.

Are you brewing all grain or extract? Sorry, I didn't check earlier posts before replying. If you're going all grain, then I would recommend bumping up your recipe to 5.5 or even 6 gallons to count for the loss to trub and all the sampling you'll be doing. It's always nice winding up with a full 5 gallons going to keg / bottles.

Brewski · Post by **Brewski** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:34 am

i'm brewing extract. alright im going to stick with my oatmeal stout recipe, and just use the windsor yeast in the primary fermentation, ill keep it in the primary for at least two weeks, then transfer to a secondary and add the oak cubes. i haven't purchased the oak cubes yet, ill probably just buy them online. how much would i need, 2 oz? what are your thoughts on soaking the oak cubes in bourbon?

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 12:03 pm

Brewski wrote:i'm brewing extract. alright im going to stick with my oatmeal stout recipe, and just use the windsor yeast in the primary fermentation, ill keep it in the primary for at least two weeks, then transfer to a secondary and add the oak cubes. i haven't purchased the oak cubes yet, ill probably just buy them online. how much would i need, 2 oz? what are your thoughts on soaking the oak cubes in bourbon?

I'm not real sure how much of the bourbon flavor will carry over to the final product. I would think simply adding bourbon would be easier. Since your adding the cubes to a stout, I would add the full 2oz and check for flavor every couple of weeks. Rack off when it's where you want it. You shouldn't need to oak longer than a month or two unless you really want the oak to come through. Let's see if Lars will chime in - he just oaked an oatmeal stout that came out really nice.

Brewski · Post by **Brewski** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 4:02 pm

i just got home and looked over the ingredients that i have for my oatmeal stout. i ordered the ingredients based on a recipe i found in a brewing magazine for a oscar's chocolate oatmeal stout. it's not exact, but close to what they suggest for the clone.

6 lb. light liquid malt extract
16 oz. munich dark malt
16 oz. wheat malt
4 oz. roasted barley
4 oz. chocolate malt
10 oz. flaked oats

2 oz. fuggle hops 6% alpha acid
2oz yakima golding hops 4.8% alpha acid

the main difference between what i have and what the recipe calls for is 1) recipe calls for 6.6 lbs. light malt extract for a 5.5 gallon batch, i have 6lb. for a 5 gallon batch. 2) recipe calls for 7.1 AAU Goldings hops for 60 minutes, 4.75 AAU Goldings hops for 5 minutes.

do you think i will be alright using what i have, or should i buy more malt extract, or different hops? any suggestions?

thanks again

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 4:41 pm

I'm still not good with the malt bills myself but I would think you could go with more flaked oats although what you have might be fine. I believe the oats only really add mouthfeel to the beer but I've heard of people toasting their oats to try and add a little more character.

As far as the hops go, I don't really think you need anything other than a 60 bittering addition. The style range is 25-40 ibus so as long as your within range I'm sure it's fine. If you want to go with a 5min addition I would scale back as you really don't want much (if any) hop aroma.

Brewski · Post by **Brewski** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:37 am

thanks rezzin, one followup question on the the hops though... how would i go about staying within the style range of 25-40 ibus? ibus is international bitterness units, i believe, but i'm not sure how to convert the weight/alpha acid content into ibus.

you make a good point about not wanting hop aroma on a stout, so it makes sense to eliminate or at least scale back the 5min addition. how about the 60 bittering addition though. which variety (fuggle 6% or yakima golding 4.8%) would be more appropriate and how much would you suggest to stay within the ibus range?

thanks again

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:49 pm

Brewski wrote:thanks rezzin, one followup question on the the hops though... how would i go about staying within the style range of 25-40 ibus? ibus is international bitterness units, i believe, but i'm not sure how to convert the weight/alpha acid content into ibus.

you make a good point about not wanting hop aroma on a stout, so it makes sense to eliminate or at least scale back the 5min addition. how about the 60 bittering addition though. which variety (fuggle 6% or yakima golding 4.8%) would be more appropriate and how much would you suggest to stay within the ibus range?

thanks again

I just plugged your recipe into promash and noticed 2 things. The color is only 1/2 of where you probably want to be. I don't know exactly how dark that munich LME is but right now it looks as if your around 17SRM. BJCP says an oatmeal stout is between 22-40SRM so I guess you're not too far off the low end. Also, after checking a few stout recipes, it seems as if you're going light on the dark roasted malts - most seem to use anywhere from 1#-1.5# or so. Also, all used at least some Crystal malt in their recipes although I'm sure you can make a great stout using just pale and roasted malts.

I'm not trying to get you to change your recipe, I'm just typing 'out loud' with stuff I'm seeing here. I'd stick to your recipe and see how it turns out before making any changes.

After checking "Designing Great Beers". here are some tips for brewing Stouts in general that pertain to you:

* Use Pale malt / pale extract for 70-90% of the grist
* Use roast barley (or other dark grains) for about 10%
* Consider 3-6% oatmeal

If you used a 2oz addition at 60m with your fuggles at 6%AA, then you're looking at around 47IBUs using the Tinseth formula in Promash. This was all based on a 5g batch.

I've only brewed a stout once so hopefully others with more experience can chime in or correct any bad advise I may have given.

Hope this helps!

Brewski · Post by **Brewski** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:06 pm

thanks a lot for the advice rezzin, great input. i actually went with the original recipe just to see how it went, the only alteration is that i used 2 oz. of the yakima goldings hops for 60 minutes, and didn't use the fuggles at the end. i also added irish moss, gypsum, and yeast nutrient at the end... not sure if that makes much of a difference.

so i brewed on saturday, and it was bubbling by saturday night. it bubbled for about a day or two, and then stopped. it was around 75 F at first, but it got cold out and dropped to around 68 F and stopped bubbling. so i put a warming belt around the fermenter and raised the temp back up to around 72 F, but the yeast hasn't started back up. i'm wondering if the yeast has done it's thing, or if it died from the temperature drop. so, i did a hydrometer reading. the OG was around 1.051, and the reading i just took was around 1.021. do you think i'm cool, or should i add more yeast? i was thinking about letting it sit in the primary until the weekend regardless before transferring to the primary.

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:20 pm

Brewski wrote:thanks a lot for the advice rezzin, great input. i actually went with the original recipe just to see how it went, the only alteration is that i used 2 oz. of the yakima goldings hops for 60 minutes, and didn't use the fuggles at the end. i also added irish moss, gypsum, and yeast nutrient at the end... not sure if that makes much of a difference.

so i brewed on saturday, and it was bubbling by saturday night. it bubbled for about a day or two, and then stopped. it was around 75 F at first, but it got cold out and dropped to around 68 F and stopped bubbling. so i put a warming belt around the fermenter and raised the temp back up to around 72 F, but the yeast hasn't started back up. i'm wondering if the yeast has done it's thing, or if it died from the temperature drop. so, i did a hydrometer reading. the OG was around 1.051, and the reading i just took was around 1.021. do you think i'm cool, or should i add more yeast? i was thinking about letting it sit in the primary until the weekend regardless before transferring to the primary.

Big swings in temps are generally not good for yeast - especially swings going lower. 4 degrees isn't too extreme though and I'm sure the yeast is still alive. I would definitely let it sit for a lot longer. I primary for 3 weeks with all my beers and skip secondary. If you want to secondary, I would go at least 2 weeks in primary before racking over. Try and keep the temps steady if you can but at this point, I don't think it makes much of a difference. Most of the flavor profile from the yeast gets produced early on from what I understand. Even though you don't see anything, the yeast is still working. Wait another day or two before checking the gravity again. If worse comes to worse you can always pitch another packet of yeast but I'm pretty sure it's still fermenting.

dhempy · Post by **dhempy** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:33 pm

Not to confuse things but here is my 0.02.

At .021 you're probably not too far from FG anyhow .. activity from .021 down to .014-.016 (where I typically target my O' stout) will be slow. Like Rezzin indicated, temp swings aren't good. As he also mentioned and IMHO, yours are minimal and I don't think they'll affect your final product too much. If anything, I would think that 75 was a bit high but I don't know anything about your yeast ... the English and or Irish Ale yeasts I use tend to like the temp around 68. I think I'd try to keep the temp around 68-70 for the next couple of weeks and let the yeast finish up its work. Keep an eye on the gravity (and use your taste buds! ... if it gets to a place where you really like the taste, then bottle / keg and start having a homebrew!!!)

Keep good notes ... brew it again (with changes) and compare to your notes from this batch. That is where the real learning comes.

EDIT: I see that you're on the opposite coast ... I had assumed you were among us. Anyhow, take the info below and apply it you your locale .. find some local "experts" and have them sample .. or ship some to us ... we're always up for it! Below was written before I saw you're in PA ...

Enjoy

Oh and also be sure to share with your clubmates for their feedback

that is another learning opportunity ... there are some really sound tasters in this club that can really give you great feedback. I'll probably miss a few but off the top of my head, Lyn, Pete, Mike, Lars, Brad N, Brent, Patrick, Robert, Tim, Derrin (sorry to those I didn't mention) ... as you can see, for a six pack and a half, you can tap into some serious brewing experience (5 of which are BJCP judges).

Good luck and keep us posted.

Dan

Brewski · Post by **Brewski** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:12 pm

thanks again for the input

two more questions for you guys...

in the secondary, should i use an airlock? or should i cap it with a rubber stopper?

also, does temperature matter during secondary? since the yeast has pretty much done its thing, does it matter if the temp is warm or cold? it's getting cold here in PA, so it's hard to keep the temp above 65. i have a heating belt, but i can't set the temp on it so if i use it the temp goes to around 75 or so. would i be better with the temp at 75, or 65 and below?

Post by **brahn** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 4:05 pm

I definitely wouldn't put a rubber stopper in your secondary unless you're trying to paint the room with beer. Unless you've done a long primary the yeast are probably still producing co2. For secondary I'd probably go with an airlock. Personally, I don't do secondaries or airlocks, just a 2-3 week primary with aluminum foil crumpled up in the hole of my lid.

Temperature doesn't matter *as much* after primary fermentation is complete. However, I've had a few batches get some bad flavors from letting them get too warm after the primary fermentation has finished. You probably won't have any problems letting it get cold. I've had good results with ale yeasts down into the low 50s.

dhempy · Post by **dhempy** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:45 pm

Brewski:

Here are a couple of things from my experience.

I keep airlocks on for both primary and secondary (when I do secondary ferms). Like Brent said, I think it is better to go colder rather than warmer. For longer secondaries, I take my wort/beer over to a wine cellar that is set for 57 degrees ... I've even done this for Belgians that like the 70+ temps. Because of the colder temps, I will sometimes let a beer sit for a while. For example, I've got an oatmeal stout (in tertiary I think ... racked off secondary yeast in prep for a longer sitting period) that has been there for 2 months absorbing flavor from oak chips. I'll be racking it in the next week or two into a keg.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Dan

Brewski · Post by **Brewski** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:49 am

sounds good, ill keep using the airlock. i'm doing a secondary b/c i wanted to add oak cubes. i'll probably let it sit for at least a month or two. i bottled two 12 oz. bottles after the primary so i will be able to compare the difference between the recipe with and without the oak cubes/secondary fermentation.

my hydrometer reading was still around 1.022, so my ABV is still under 4%. i would have liked it to be a little higher, but oh well. in general, does more malt extract lead to more alcohol? i'd imagine so, since that would give the yeast more sugar to work with. i guess that's part of the art, balancing a recipe with good flavor and appropriate alcohol content... ill keep working on the former before worrying about the latter