Breakfasty Beer?
The last batch of ingredients from my first homebrew shipment was a Cooper's Stout kit. It wasn't a grain kit like the Brupaks Craftsman, as grains are best used fresh and I knew it would be a few months before I could make this last batch. This Cooper's kit was the same kind of kit and kilo ingredient pack that I used to make the Cooper's IPA. With this kit, I decided to do some monkeying with the recipe with some ingredients I had around the house.I began the same way I usually begin when making a beer kit. With the usual brown sugar and water starter, I hydrated the dry yeast packet and set it aside to get started in the growth phase.
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| Rehydrating Yeast |
The new ingredient I wanted to try was oatmeal. Many homebrewed and some special craft stouts are made with oatmeal as a brewing addition. Before anyone panics, I must explain that the oats are not actually in the beer, so no spoon will be required when this batch is ready. The oats are soaked in hot water to extract the starchy goodness and strained out. The oatey starchy goodness adds some non-fermentable sugar and protein to the beer, hopefully (if I did my math correctly) adding just enough creamy mouthfeel and head retention.
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| Cooper's Kit Ingredients |
To extract said starchy goodness, I gave one cup of oatmeal a long soak in water at 165 degrees F. I maintained the temperature throughout the extraction. I can't really call it a mash, as I don't believe I was actually converting any sugars.
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| Oatmeal Extraction |
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| Straining Oatmeal |
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| Starchy Goodness and Spent Oats |
After straining, the spent oats were nothing but overcooked mush. I thriftily saved the oats for breakfast the next morning, but they had lost some of their oatey umph in the long extraction. At least they didn't go to waste...
I watered down the goopy starchy goodness and boiled it for 5 minutes. I was now ready to do the rest of the standard kit mix. Pour in can 1, rinse can 1, pour in can 2, rinse can 2, top off, etc.
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| Mixing Extract and Oatmeal Starchy Goodness |
Final Numbers
Brew No. 044
- Brown sugar yeast starter (Cooper's yeast 17613 15- 7g)
- 1 cup oatmeal extracted at 168F
- "Sparged" (rinsed the oats) with warm water
- Boiled 5 minutes
- Mixed 1.7kg Cooper's Stout, 1.5kg Light malt extract
- Topped off to 25L at 68F
It's off and fermenting!
I am curious how this turned out. Even if it is 2 years later...
ReplyDeleteActually, quite nice. I might have added a bit too much oatmeal starch, as the beer had just a little bit of grain/cereal flavor. The body and mouthfeel were exactly what I was looking for.
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