Breakfast Stout '22

Full pour off the stout tap

I've brewed several versions of an oatmeal stout in the past, usually with very good results. For this batch I decided to repeat the coffee version that I made in my second attempt for a nice breakfasty stout. This recipe is extremely similar to Yooper's Oatmeal Stout and it's easy to see why that's such a popular recipe. The differences between the recipes are that I have increased the amount of oats and switched from flaked to rolled, cut the flaked barley, replaced the chocolate malt with more pale chocolate, added a small dose of Golden Naked Oats, and changed the yeast. Ok, that seems like a lot but I think the essence of the beer is probably still very similar to that recipe.

I did make a mistake when ordering for this batch and bought crystal 60 instead of 80 and this will probably lead to a little more sweetness and less dark fruit character but should still make for an enjoyable silky smooth stout. This is my first all-grain batch at my new house/with my new setup so repeating a previously enjoyable recipe should help me continue to dial-in my processes.

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Pours jet black with some mocha and garnet highlights in the light, so it's not entirely opaque. Large off-white to tan head off the stout tap. Looks like a solid stout.

Smell: Coffee up front with a blend of roast, ash, chocolate, and a light green pepper note. Hard to pick out other characters from the coffee since they are also mostly coffee/chocolate/roast but there is some toffee and graham cracker sweetness. No noticeable yeast or hop derived aromas.

Taste: While the roasty characters of chocolate/coffee/burnt marshmallow dominate the coffee is less apparent here and blends in more to the toffee/caramel sweetness and blend of earthy and subtly vegetal/fruity notes. There is a bit of a medium malt/oatmeal character in the middle before finishing with a slightly acidic and moderately bitter finish that is both coffee like and vegetal.

Mouthfeel: Fairly thick and smooth with moderately low carbonation. In a lot of ways the mouthfeel seems to be where it should be but the finish feels long and awkward rather than silky and enjoyable, possibly due to the calcium carbonate additions.

Overall: Not the best oatmeal stout I've made but it has certainly improved a lot over time. With the other half of this batch still sitting in the carboy and having not received the coffee, oak, or mineral additions I am interested to see how that compares and if what I had earlier perceived as issues were merely due to drinking it too young. If I were to brew this again I would probably switch back to the WLP002 or similarly clean English yeast, switch the Magnum hops for Target or another English variety, and maybe reduce the golden naked oats to simplify the malt bill. I also won't use the Trader Joe's Colombia Supremo coffee again as I found this batch to not be great in this beer or when drinking my morning cup of joe.

3/13/22

Weighed and milled malt in preparation for brew day.

3/14/22
Brewday:

Scheduled a vacation day to be able to recover from a busy weekend/week/month and also to get an extra chance to brew. Collected 4 gallons of tap water in two separate pots, added a quarter Campden tablet to each and began heating one for initial mash in. Missed mash in temp hitting only ~148F with the first ~3.5 gallons of 170F water but added about half a gallon of boiling water after 5 minutes to bring up to 156F. Ran off slowly after 1 hour while heating sparge water to 170F. Used the first half of sparge water on a fly/hybrid sparge that was added while first runnings were still running off. Put pot holding first ~4.5 gallons of first/second runnings at 1.052 OG onto burner and performed batch sparge with last ~2 gallons of sparge water. OG of last runnings was 1.027, giving a combined pre-boil OG of ~1.044, a little lower than expected but not terrible (depending on the boiloff this would give an efficiency in the low 70% range rather than the near 80% anticipated).

I had a slightly smaller amount of Magnum hops than anticipated (.6 oz rather than .75) but added them pre-boil to try to get the maximum extraction of alpha acids. Given the slightly lower gravity this beer appears to have and the slightly higher alpha acid content of the hops (14.8 vs 12.6) the smaller amount of hops might be better for balance.

Refractometer measured OG of 1.057 ended up being only a touch below expectations. I find the pre-boil often measures much lower than expected when measuring pre-boil and post-boil OG and so I generally don't make any adjustments based on the pre-boil gravity.

3/16/22
One carboy blew its bung and was allowed to open ferment. About 12 hours later I found the other carboy's airlock had overflowed with krausen. Clearly this is a traditional top fermenting yeast and needed more room than provided in each carboy. I cleaned, sanitized, and re-applied the airlocks and bungs to each but placed on loosely so they could easily be pushed out by the yeast if it again gets that active.

Not sure how this photo got in here but I do love Spanish Love Songs and saw them the night before brewday so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3/17/22
Fermentation activity seems to have calmed down. While one bung was dislodged overnight the krausen on both carboys has fallen back down and the bungs were re-inserted fully. Still a decent sized layer of thick yeasty krausen and plenty of bubbling in the airlock but not nearly as active as 24 hours earlier.

3/22/22
Gravity reading shows 1.013, slightly lower than expected. Taste is a little astringent and muddled, hoping it just needs some time to settle down.

3/26/22
Gravity still showing 1.013. Less yeasty taste in the sample but still a bit astringent, with some acrid ashy roast. I probably should have capped the mash with the roasted malt but hopefully it’s not too aggressive once carbonated. Added .25 oz Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend and .5 oz Trader Joe’s Colombia Supremo to one carboy along with 1.2 oz of boiled oak cubes. Should be ready to keg in a couple of days. Unlikely to get much oak character in that short amount of time but hoping it will help to round it out a bit.

3/28/22
Transferred coffee version to keg. Coffee aroma is fairly strong but coffee flavor is a little subdued. There’s still some astringency and acidity that I assume is from the dark malts in the mash and not adjusting water chemistry. To try to resolve these issues I added the coffee and oak to a mesh bag and added it to the keg. I also boiled 4g Chalk (CaCO3) and 1g Calcium Chloride in 1 cup of water and added it to the keg. Will taste from here and remove the coffee when flavor seems right and add additional water salts if needed.

4/2/22
One of the four beers on at a housewarming party. Not the most liked by most but a few people enjoyed it. The coffee does seem pretty strong at this point and the off characters seem to have subsided (or been hidden).

4/7/22
Tasting day.
Not part of the tasting but I will note that the Intertap stout faucet seems to work about as expected causing a lot of the carbonation to be released during the pour. While this give a good looking pour that resembles a nitro stout, reduces the carbonation in the beer for a good mouthfeel, and produces a big (usually too big) head, there are some downsides to the faucet. My main issue with it is that the design of it seems to cause a lot of beer to stay trapped inside leading to a large amount of splashing and dripping later on when it does finally fall out. While this isn't a huge deal it does seem to cause more lost beer and more of a mess than the other Intertap faucets that I am otherwise very happy with. Probably more of a novelty than something I'll regularly use, I did this tasting with a beer poured off the stout faucet but might change it up in the future to see how much of an effect it has.

Parti-Gyle Oatmeal Stouts

Oatmeal stout has been a style I have made a yearly tradition with variations in 2014 (plain), 2015 (coffee), and 2016 (coffee and coconut). Something about a full bodied dark beer really hits the spot in the late fall / early winter. This year I decided to return a bit to my original recipe with a tad more crystal 80 malt and a tad less roasted barley than the past couple batches. I did however keep the trend of splitting the batch, this year by doing a parti-gyle with an Imperial(ish) half and a Smoked Session version.

 A little about the thought process and ingredient selection: I had been considering brewing an imperial stout for a while but with just a few months left living on the East Coast I felt that a full batch of high gravity beer would be difficult to consume. On the other hand, while I really enjoy my Oatmeal Stouts I always like experimenting and didn't want a full batch of it. As I've done in the past I determined my target gravity/ABV of each half of the batch, used this simple Parti-Gyle calculator in order to determine the target gravity of the "total batch", then worked backwards to write the "total batch" recipe and estimate percentages for each half, before lastly making adjustments to the smaller half as needed.

The smoked malt was chosen based both off of my last smoked beer and what I had on hand (Applewood smoked malt that I'd received way back at the Baltimore NHC). I also used 3 types of oats (flaked, golden naked, and malt) because I had all of them on hand. The choice to use pilsner malt was also due to having a sack of it, I would probably opt for Maris Otter or a different characterful pale malt were I to do it over.

As I did with my Of Greater Things smoked helles I was able to add the smoked malt to the second "mash" of the Parti-Gyle.

The decision to use Imperial Organic Yeast's A04 Darkness and White Labs 095 Burlington Ale were last minute decisions when at the LHBS due to lack of Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale yeast and their descriptions seeming close to what I was looking for in each.

Both batches took off extremely fast and had blown out their airlocks and were overflowing carboys with krausen within 12 hours. I switched to blowoff tubes and let them keep going for two weeks, at which point each one was exactly at their estimated FG. Primed to have 2.0 volumes carbonation the beers seemed pleasant and promising at bottling.

Imperial Oatmeal Stout:

Appearance - Pours jet black and seemingly opaque with a half finger tan head that quickly fades to a ring. The head retention might be negatively impacted by proteins and oils in the oats and the high alcohol, along with the low carbonation level.

Smell - Dark fruits (cherry, dried cranberry, cabernet sauvignon) and toffee swell as soon as the bottle is opened with notes of toffee, toast, and dark chocolate in the mix and becoming more present as it warms. No distinct hop aromas, but there is a light touch of woodiness and a hint of ethanol booziness.

Taste - Less complex than the aroma with the roast malt dark chocolate character leading with some nice toast and biscuit malt character filling out the rest. Light toffee and fruit characters blend with moderate bitterness (seemingly from both malt and hops) and a warming booziness that leaves a lingering dark chocolate covered raisin meets rum finish.

Mouthfeel - Low carbonation, not bad for style but maybe a touch lower than expected/intended. The mouthfeel is somewhat lighter than the 1.022 finishing gravity would imply with the lingering heat and dryness keeping it from feeling as full bodied as it may otherwise feel.

Overall - This beer got positive reviews at a recent DC Homebrewers meeting with one member asking for the recipe and others praising the balance and complexity, especially as it warmed. While the booziness is a touch higher than I'd like and the carbonation a touch lower I think the beer is a solid offering.

Session Smoked Oatmeal Stout:

Appearance - Almost identical to the Imperial half except for a touch lighter head color.

Smell - Again fruits are big but this time they lean more orchard (apricot/peach and a touch of orange). The smoke melds in as a prominent but not overwhelming (to my senses) component. Baked muffins and a touch of yeasty/fresh dough character also show through. The roast malt seems to be lost. No hop character. No booze apparent.

Taste - Mild smoke blends with light orchard fruit and a finish of semisweet chocolate. There is flavor to the beer but nothing very strong, mild toast, mild currant, mild apricot, mild chimney fire. Finish is equally balanced between low sweetness and a touch of bitterness. Chocolate and toffee come through more as it warms and the beer seems best at fairly warm temps.

Mouthfeel - This beer is more in need of higher carbonation than the imperial version due to the lower body and lack of power in the flavors. The beer comes off as fairly watery and lacking, with just a touch of the creaminess expected from an oatmeal stout. The very long mash and low for the style 1.011 finishing gravity keep it from really feeling like an oatmeal stout, or a stout at all. 

Overall - Perhaps session smoked porter would be more accurate due to the lack of body, but even then this beer would be lacking. There's nothing too offensive about this beer, but there just isn't much of anything to this beer. It's fairly easy to drink, and the smoke is nicely integrated, but this beer would need more oats and more roast to be entertaining at this strength.

General Impressions:

While I'm not in love with either of these beers I'm not unhappy with either as they are both free of off flavors, are balanced and drinkable, and have enough difference to make the split batch worthwhile. I probably would not do this again with these styles but could see doing something similar with either an increased malt addition for the second beer or taking the smaller beer in a completely different direction (Schwarzbier, Black IPA, or Black Saison?). For my next oatmeal stout I intend to use a more characterful base malt, a slight increase in roasted malts, and maybe even a little more caramel or toasted malts.