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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Brewing Discussion --> Roasted grains for an oatmeal stout?

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homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I'm currently simplifying and revamping my recipe for my oatmeal toffee stout. 

Previously, I had three different roasted grains - black barley, carafa III, and pale chocolate malt. 

I enjoy roastiness, but I like it to be moderate.  I had gone with the carafa III as it gives lots of color, but nowhere near the flavor of some roasted malts.

Still, three seems like a lot.  I want to keep the pale chocolate, as I like the chocolate notes I get from it.  What do you think... delete the carafa and split it between the pale chocolate and the black barley?

What about swapping black barley for plain roasted barley?

Thanks for any input.


Edit - please see post #15 of this thread for current recipe.



Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by homebrewdad

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


Just pale chocolate and a pinch of good black malt. The black malt gives depth and quality of old leather, don't have to use much. Carafa is strange stuff, crafa spezial (norit) is even worse, "Germans" don't like roasted notes in their beer. With carafa the kick is missing.

If you like more chocolate, add a fair amount of brown malt.




Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


To me, three roasted grains in a stout is not too many. I like to have a roasted grain, a chocolate malt, and a black malt. Basically, I feel like you get more chocolately notes from the roasted grain, then you get more coffee notes from the chocolate malt, and then you get some of those roasted, campfire, leather, other odd complexity notes from judicious use of black malt. you kind have that here, but you have pale chocolate instead of roasted barley like I would probably have. I generally split my chocolate malt addition between pale chocolate and chocolate.

One thing here though, are you using black malt or Briess Black Barley? I don't know how I feel about briess black barley, but I think that's the one Briess claims is color only no flavor, but I'm not a briess fan, so I pretty much stick to Crisp and Simpsons specialty malts. I know they are of exceptional quality. I find black patent malt is not the offensive beast everyone makes it out to be. I'm still afraid of using it in large quantities, but in small quantities, it's delicious.

Oh, and Brown Malt is awesome. I need to work it into a stout sometime. One of my next few beers will be brewed almost exclusively so that I can use brown malt just because I like that malt so much.

Looking at your recipe, I would sub brown malt in for the victory. Or maybe seek out Dingemans Biscuit Malt. It has a much stronger biscuity flavor compared to Victory. Again, not a Briess fan.

My stouts pretty much all follow this formula:

7.5-10% Crystal
7.5-10% Roasted
5-7.5% Flaked Oats
5-7.5% Flaked Barley
65-75% Base Malt

Higher the gravity, the closer to the higher end of those percentages. Feel free to split crystals, roasted, and base grains between different types. A mix of marris otter and 2 row can be really nice.




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by testingapril

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Last time, I used the black "stout" barley.  I had not considered black or brown malt at all.  Hmm.

Well, here is what I'm looking at this time around.

1. toast all of my oats. 

2. delete flaked barley - oats do plenty for head retention and such.

3. go with some darker crystal - split between 40L and 120L

4. delete victory altogether

5. condense grain bill overall.

6. currently, I have deleted the carafa III, and am looing at simply using regular roasted barley and pale chocolate. 



Grain bill looks like this right now:

9 lbs maris otter (67.9%)
1 lb 4 oz flaked oats, toasted  (9.4%)
12 oz C40L (5.7%)
12 oz C120L (5.7%)
12 oz roasted barley (5.7%)
12 oz pale chocolate (5.7%)

I am strongly considering slightly upping the overall amounts of the roasted malts, and cold steeping them. 

I will still reduce a gallon of first runnings to a quart of syrup - hoping for strong caramel flavor.  Switching to Ringwood yeast for diacetyl production (caramel + butter = toffee).
 





Posted 34 days ago.

nickosuave311
Charter Member
Saint Paul, MN
18 Posts


Personally, I don't like dark crystal malts in stouts. I get too much dark fruit out of it. I'd switch that c120 out for something else, especially if you're looking for a strong caramel/toffee flavor. Maybe even some English Crystal malt over just a Caramel malt. Hell, perhaps you should just drop it altogether and rely on C40 + caramelization to get you where you want. That will definitely simplify your grain bill, which is what you want to do.

Also, what degree of roasted barley are you using? 500L? I prefer 300L over 500L, can you get this instead? I can't remember which maltster produces 300L roasted barley...




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I'm looking at 300L roasted barley; last time, I did the 500L.

I don't love the idea of the 120L in this beer for the exact reason you mention.  I went with it specifically because of Kristen England's recommendation.





Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


There's so many relative new dark malts nowadays I could spend a year just brewing porters&stouts to try them all. Crystal/caramalts get darker and darker even double roasted and an experimental near black version. The pale chocolates, chocolates, chocolate rye & wheat malt, roasted rye, roasted wheat (two colours), dark spelt malts, dark rice malts. Dark aromatic malts (100 & 150EBC) are very nice as are the Amber malts.  And then there is my beloved but near impossible to find red rye malt, gonna make me a porter with that this week :)




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by ingoogni

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Hah.  Ingooni, I KNOW there are so many options out there, it's nuts!  What I was hoping for was specific feedback on the grain bill I'm looking at.  :)



Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


Uhm, ah, just contemplating, uhm, sorry.

Brew it as it is. No steeping.

For toffee you could substitute the Cara120L with brewers invert #2. Toffee is kind of brewers invert plus milk. Mmmm if it gets too roasty to your taste in the end, you could add just a little lactose though not so much that you get real sweetness from it. The syrup thing works well I often use it instead of the cara's.

The dark malts will keep the attenuation on the lower side, could even mash in on the higher side.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Ah, crap.  Invert sugar.  We have come full circle.  The draw is strong, I admit it.

I could totally see dropping the C120 back down to C60, maybe dropping the total amounts of c malts.  Going with invert sugar and a touch of lactose.  That actually sounds... delicious.

I'm a glutton for punishment, I'd want to make my own sugar, I'm sure.  Ho boy.



Posted 34 days ago.

KidMoxie
Charter Member
San Elijo Hills, CA
405 Posts


I get toffee out of C80, so I'd use that instead of C120, which is more burnt sugar/raisin IMO. The oatmeal stout I made yesterday was:

* 7.5 lbs Maris Otter (67%)
* 1 lb 2 oz Flaked Oats (10%)
* 9 oz C50/60 (5%)
* 9 oz Victory (5%)
--- Cold Steeped ---
* 14 oz Blackprinz (8%)
* 9 oz Kiln Coffee (5%)

I'm a weirdo and try not to use Roasted Barley in my stouts, I'll let you know how the cold steeping character turned out.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Thanks for the input!



Posted 34 days ago.

brewcrewkevin
Charter Member
Appleton, WI
66 Posts


Another opinion for you!

* Don't drop the roasted barley. I LOOOOVE that 300L. My dry stout is almost a DMaSH with it (some unmalted for a bit of body, but that's it). To me, that's a staple in any stout. It's what defines stout to me (vs porter).
* I also reccomend dropping the 120L to 80L. I like the character there better. The 120 gives more raisin/prune-like character, where 80L gives a more... expected... sweetness I guess. Sort of a caramel/toffee flavor.
* Since you dropped the flaked barley (good call), maybe a pound of something to round out the toastiness, like a Munich or Victory malt? just a thought. I think you're fine without it, but it's one component that yours is lacking. Whether you want it or not.

Again, everybody has their opinions. Take it or leave it.

Cheers!




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Don't worry, Kevin - I'm keeping the roasted barley.  I'm just leaning toward 300L, not the 500L version.

I used to have some victory in this recipe, but I dropped it in an effort to simplify a bit.


Update: I've decided to not do invert sugar this time.  I'm going to push the crystal malt, do the "first runnings to syrup" process, use WLP005 to emphasize a little diacetyl, maybe add a small amount of lactose to the bottling bucket.  I am really considering a little brown malt.





Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


All right.  Here is where my head is currently at.  I think that I am very close to the final version.

Grain:
9 lbs maris otter (67.9%)
1 lb 4 oz flaked oats, toasted (9.4%)
12 oz Crisp crystal 45L (5.7%)
12 oz Crisp crystal 77L (5.7%)
8 oz roasted barley (3.8%)
8 oz brown malt (3.8%)
8 oz pale chocolate malt (3.8%)

Hops:
1.06 oz target (11% AA) - 33 IBU @ 60 min

Yeast:
WLP005 British ale (aka Ringwood)

I may bump up the roasted malts and cold steep them.  I will definitely take a gallon, gallon and a half of first runnings to reduce to a syrup. 

I intend to underpitch a bit, ferment cool, and maybe even (gasp) transfer this beer as soon as gravity is stable in an effort to retain some diacetyl.  I'll taste this in the bottling bucket, and - if necessary - may add a little lactose to sweeten it a bit.


So, how crazy am I?





Posted 34 days ago.

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