Double Toasted Oatmeal Chocolate Too Many Adjective Stout

Target Gravity -- 1.083

Original Gravity = 1.084
55 IBU
Oak Aged 1028 1.084 - 1.015
Chocolate Draft 1968 1.084 - 1.025

Malt Bill

27 lbs Marris Otter
1.5 110 - 150L Crysta
1.5 135 - 165L Crystal
3 Roasted Barley
1 Chocolate Malt
2.25 lbs Toasted Quick Oats

Hop Schedule -- 55 IBUs

6oz Willamette (4.8) -- 60
2oz Willamette (4.8) -- 30


10 gallons strike water (all jugged drinking water)
8 gallons sparge water (Crawford)

Yeasts:
Half will be fermented with 1028 slurry
Half will be fermented with 1968 slurry

326 - tun closed and mash begins after stirring for a long time.
345. - mashing around 150 more stirring. This is close to the grain limit for this tun.
455 - runoff begins
617 - weigh a normal sip of beer: 1.5oz
725 - back from short shutdown for oliver's bedtime.
756 - boil begins.
856. - boiling ends / chilling begins.
1013 - gravity reads 1.084
1111 - all ice baths over, cleanup finished.


Reflections: second time in a row the water machine screwed me. Things went pretty smoothly otherwise.

3.19.10 -- Earlier this week I was treated to one of the worst stenches I have ever experienced. While the 1968 half of this beer was fermenting, it was getting a little vigorous, so I popped the top a little off the fermenter to allow the gas to escape more quickly. A good bit of foamy wort and yeast oozed out into the water in which the bucket is sitting to maintain temperature. After a couple days of this, I thought "well enough", snapped the lid back on, and left town for a week. It did not occur to me that the spilled wort would be kept at a balmy 70 degrees by the aquarium heater in the water, which is a great niche for something really stinky. I promptly racked the beer into a secondary and cleaned up the mess. I hope none of the bacteria found its way inside the beer -- possible, but probably not. The gravity read about 1.027, which is a bit under-attenuated, so I hope it moves a little bit more in the secondary.

In other news, the rules for the next club contest have been made public, and it calls for a single addition of something not extract after fermentation is complete. The chocolate extract I had would have not fit the bill, so I put it in the 1968 carboy today, and will probably add oak chips to the 1028 so I can enter it in the contest.

3.27.10 -- racked the 1028 version into the secondary. Gravity was 1.015, which is much lower than the other one was. I hope the 1968 has been dropping more in the past week so it won't be terribly sweet. The sample from the hydrometer tube tasted great, and I having mild doubts about messing with this one any more by adding the oak. We'll see.
4.7.10 -- Tasting after being oaked for one week (2.5 oz medium toast French chips): The oak flavor is there, but in more of a woody way than a vanilla way. It is hard for me to tell what is exactly going on when the beer is warm and flat.
4.8.10 -- Racked beer off the chips (8 days), then bottled
4.14.10 -- measured the gravity if the draft chocolate 1968 version. It was 1.026, just at 70% attenuated. I wonder why it was so low. The sample tasted very good, and the chocolate flavor was at a good level too.