Thoughts on my first stout recipe?

Sure sounds good, but remember oak by itself is tasty too as long as you like the oak notes in the beer.
You do seem to like brandy

 

The recipe looks good, here are a couple of notes:

Your three different base malts are very similar and I think any subtlety will be lost in this beer. It won't be worse with 3 but I would just save time and chose one.

I would cut down the flaked oats/barley to around 1 pound total. Fine to use both or just one.

Other than that your recipe looks good. You might consider brewing the beer first with out the oak, or doing part of the batch with oak since this is your first stout.

 

If you're serious about wood aging, I would consider making a bigger version of this beer. Bigger beers (7.5% ABV and up) handle the aging process better, and you're definitely going to need to let this sit around for awhile to really let the oak/brandy flavors mature.

To echo @ericj551, you might consider just brewing this recipe once without wood aging to decide if you like the recipe, then experiment with wood aging on a future batch once you've worked out the kinks.

 

anything I oak usually sits in the cellar for 6 months min befor I open one. oak needs time to mellow and blend. its amazing to see how the brew and oak notes change after 1 year.

 

@ghostinthemachine I say this with love, but it's a clusterfuck. You've got 3 types of base malt and 2 types of flaked malt. You won't need carapils in a stout. Adjust your mash temp higher if you want body, or pick a low attenuation yeast.

For me a stout is 1 base malt and a pinch of other base malt, 1 flaked malt, 1 or 2 crystal malts, some RB, chocolate, (and patent malt. Optional.) I pick a moderately to high attenuative strain, (usually Euopean), and I come out solid. Just about half the beer I brew is in the porter/stout range.

Band-Aids: I think I got really pissed off when someone tried to correct my first dark beer. I'm not saying your beer won't come out great. It might. I think there's a lot of effort there for muddling flavors. For me, stouts are all about finding the chocolate flavor that you want, be it subtle or heavy, and pitting that against the roasty flavors.

A late hop wouldn't be out of place at all. Something at the 10 min mark. Fuggle if you got it.

 

Are you putting this brandy in the pint glass, or are you putting this in a bottle/fermenter? I'm curious to know if the brandy undergoes fermentation. I always cheer people on if they are putting things directly into their pint glass. It's for science!

 

MO makes great beers. It's notorious for keeping a biscuity malty sweetness in beers. Excellent for English style beers. You can make a great beer with 2 row too. I' ve made plenty with subbing some cheap American 2 row into a recipe. If you go with 2 row, I'd get 1/2# of 40L or 60L in there. It tends to sweeten things up a bit, where the MO would have otherwise.

I'm going to start drinking Guinness again, aren't I?