Chocolate Milk Oatmeal Stout

Origin:

No clever name for this one. I was going to go with Milk Steak Stout becasue of the added lactose but it was too obscure of a Philly reference to go with so I decided to just call it what it is.

Ingredients:

• 8 lbs Amber Malt Extract
• 2.0 oz. Northern Brewer hops (7.9% alpha-acid, whole leaf)
• White Labs Irish Ale Yeast
• 1 lb. Flaked Oats
• 1 lb. American Chocolate Malt
• 8 oz. American Crystal Malt (80°L, Crushed)
• 8 oz. Roast Barley
• 4 oz. German Dehusked Carafa II
• 8 oz. Lactose Non-fermentable lactose.(To be added during bottling)

Procedure:

On Sunday July 11th I purchased the all my ingredients through Main Street Homebrew Supply Co.. Something came up so I put my yeast and hops in the refrigerator. The other ingredients would keep for a while in my cool house.

I decided to finally brew on Wednesday the 14th of that week. Unfortunately I couldnt find the camera but you should know what the brewing process looks like, it was a pretty standard malt extract brew. I placed the specialty grains into a nylon bag, since there were several pounds I had to use two grain bags, and began to heat the water. Once the water reached 180°F I removed the bag and squeezed as much of the water as I could out of the bags. The after the boil began I added hops according to the following schedule.

Hops/Ingredients Schedule:

Quantity	Ingredient	Boiled for
1 oz.	Northern Brewer	Entire 60 min. boil
1/2 oz.	Northern Brewer	Last 15 min. of boil
1/2 oz.	Northern Brewer	Last 5 min. of boil

After the boil is when I tried out the wort chiller I had purchased earlier that day. The only time I had used a wort chiller before was the first time I brewed, but that was several years ago and did not remember the intricacies. All in all it worked fine it took longer that it should have because, forgetting basic thermodynamics, I did not stir the wort to increase convective heat transfer for the first 5-10 minutes. After I remembered to stir the wort was near pitching temperature.

When I strained the hops from the wort it was more difficult that I thought it would be. I believe that this is because the wort had cooled and was no longer as viscous and because it's just a thick beer to begin with. Eventually, it was all poured into the fermentation vessel and water poured over the hops rinsing the wort and bring it to 5 gallons.

After pitching the wort, the tub lid was placed on, aerated, and sealed with an airlock. I placed it in the brewing closet and there it waits for either secondary or kegging, depending on if I decide I'm rich enough to expand my kegerator. If not I will have to bottle but that is 2-4 weeks away so I have time to decide.