Ingredients:
7.5 lbs
Pale 2-row
.5
lb Crystal
Malt (60L)
.5
lb
Chocolate Malt
.5
lb
Flaked Oats
.25 lb Roasted Barley
2
oz Kent Golding
Hops
1 pkg Irish Ale Yeast
This
beer is my wife’s favorite. Every fall she will start dropping hints. When I
start to see the flaked oats piling up in the pantry, I dust off this recipe.
In the name of full disclosure, I
tend to shy away from excessively malty and excessively dark beers. This one is
dark in color, and contains a fairly decent (and strong) malt bill, but the end
result is a mellow, creamy, sweet and full of roasted goodness. It has become
one of my favorites as well.
This
makes a great brew for the colder months, and it makes a great starting point
for experimentation. Most recently, I’ve decided to branch out with this
recipe. I used it as a base for my breakfast stout – I added some coffee to the
beer and made it a oatmeal/coffee stout. I love it. I’ve also got less
conventional with the recipe, adding things such a melted chocolate! This is a
great bear standing alone, and a great base to hold up against other bold
flavors. Brew it once, and go from there. Make it your own. It is sure to be a
crowd pleaser every time!
The
first step is simple, and it will make your house smell great. Toast the oats
on a baking sheet at 325 degrees for an hour and fifteen minutes. The oats will
start to turn a golden brown and smell delicious. Remove the oats when you’re
happy with the smell. It will become more nutty and intense as the process goes
on, but be careful to remove the oats before they burn! I used the same process
to make roasted barley.
Roasted
barley, generally speaking, is not malted. Malting refers to the process of
germinating (aka sprouting) the barley seed. After the seed has sprouted, the
seed is dried – trapping the sugars. Roasted barley does not undergo this
process. I used leftover seed barley (I plant it as an ornamental grass – try
it!) and roasted it in the oven. Not to go too far down the rabbit hole here,
but you can also save money by buying 2-row in bulk and home roasting it to
make caramel and other specialty roasted (or smoked!) malts. If you are the
type of brewer that likes control of the process and starting from the most
basic ingredients, give it a try. If consistency is your thing, you may want to
shy away from this method.
First
step is to heat up your water in your mash tun and add the grains. I allowed
for a protein rest at around 120 degrees. I think we allowed it to rest for
slightly under a half hour. This rest will help your enzymes convert starches
at higher temps. For the non-eggheads, it helps your mashing efficiency. It isn’t necessary, but recommended.
I also added some pH stabilizer – which I often don’t, but my
friend had some sitting around. (I did this brew in a friend’s garage – try to
brew with friends and you’ll learn twice as fast!)
After the rest, I raised the
temperature in the mash tun to 165 degrees and allowed the mixture to rest for
an hour and fifteen minutes. Heat up your sparge water. Drain your wort into
the brew kettle. I heated the sparge water to about 170 degrees and sparged
through a colander in order to minimize disturbance to the grain bed. If you’re
wondering about how much water you should be using step to step, there are many
calculators available online. This grain recipe is meant for a 5 gallon batch,
but your water numbers may vary depending on your equipment (boil-off, etc).
I boiled for 60 minutes. I added a
half once of hops at 15 minutes. I added a full ounce of hops at 30 minutes. I
threw in some yeast nutrients in the last 5 minutes of boil, and I added the
last half-ounce of hops at flameout.
Use a chiller or ice bath to cool
the wort to about 70 degrees. Pitch the yeast. Oxygenate the beer (aka shake it
up a bit). I only did a primary fermentation on this – I left it for two weeks
at 65 degrees. I kegged and force carbed it, and was enjoying it soon after. I
apologize that I don’t have gravity readings, but I’ve made this beer enough
times that I don’t even measure. Assuming an 80-90% efficiency,
you should end up with a beer in the 5%-6% range. Happy brewing!
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