How's this recipe look?

I've never made an Oatmeal Stout, but 151 seems pretty low for something that's generally fairly chewy. It seems like that low temperature and the oats would be working against each other. It depends on what you're going for, but I thought I'd point that out.

 

If you're looking for a traditional oatmeal stout with a rich, creamy mouthfeel, I'd go for something more in the 154-155 degree range. I'll let others comment on the grain proportions, as I haven't done enough in that area to really critique.

 

While I agree in this case, I also think another option would be to mash at 151° with a lower attenuating yeast strain. 1028 will attenuate pretty high though, so this recipe (as written) does look like it would come out thin for an oatmeal stout.

Otherwise, the recipe does look good to me though.

 

That's true, though I generally prefer to rely on mash temperature as a constant, rather than depend on yeast to behave in a particular manner. That may change with a recipe I've done a few times and can somewhat-reliably predict how the yeast have behaved in the past.

 

I don't try to get my opinion in the way too often, but I generally start on the lower end when mashing (maybe to a fault). Or, my mash temps seem to go up as the OG goes down, but I rarely go over 153-154°

 

Yes, if you're looking for it to be creamy, mash at 154 or a degree or two higher. If you only want semi-sweet, I would stick to 154 and not go any higher. Hope that helps.

 

I'd suggest a flavor hop addition. It can be conservative if you like. I find hop flavor complements roasted grains and adds to the body of the beer.

As far as getting a creamy, sweeter beer - don't be afraid to up that mash temp even more. 158 wouldn't be out of the question to me.

 

My experience with oatmeal and sweet stouts is that it's hard to mash too high. I would definitely go up to at least 155F.

 

Use table sugar which is much cheaper, and weigh it (weight it most accurate) out yourself. The 5oz. packs are WAY too much sugar for most beer styles in my opinion.

Here is a bottle priming calculator that will help: http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

 

How did you get 2.3 ounces of table sugar?



When I use the calculator (5 gallon batch, Oatmeal Stout, and 68 degrees F) I obtain an ‘answer’ of:



- 3.4 ounces table sugar

- 3.6 ounces corn sugar



I use 4 ounces of corn sugar for my Oatmeal Stouts and they do not come out highly carbonated.



Cheers!

 

Sure...but I'd throw it (gently) in my fermenter bucket with the lid on instead of my mashtun and kill two birds with one stone.

1800 ml starter = ~ 1 3/4 cup DME...not exact because it's a volume measurement, but close enough

Why not activate the smack pack?