I brewed my second batch today. It’s the Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. It was an interesting one. I did a mini-mash of 2 pounds of grain. I don’t think I did it right, but this is a learning experience. It wasn’t quite as easy as I would have thought to keep the temperature steady. I have a feeling it was too hot (not sure what effect that will have). Regardless of anything that went wrong, I came out with an original gravity of 1.060. I was shooting for 1.064, but anywhere between 1.057 and 1.066 would have been good. Looks like it turned out just fine. It smelled pretty sweet for a while, but after tasting it, it might not be too bad. It was a relatively easy process because everything got dumped into the boil right at the beginning. I just had to make sure it didn’t boil over.
All in all, it was pretty successful. I need a better airlock. I have 2, but one of them is the snake-like type and I just don’t like it (not to mention it’s a little loose in the bucket). I have to bottle the first batch tomorrow. I’ll swap airlocks then (assuming this is safe to do as long as I sanitze the one I pull out of the first batch). I’m also considering a wort chiller. It took forever to chill the wort today (probably about half an hour in a constant ice bath).
I will have to taste this one when I rack to secondary. It may need some more cocoa. It didn’t taste a whole lot like it when I tried it, but none of the sugars had fermented out. It’s also not very dark. It’s a dark brown, but by no means black. It looks like a dark brown ale. I doubt the color’s going to change at all (will it?). I wonder if I should have used all dark extract rather than 3 pounds of pale DME and 3.3 pounds of dark LME (it’s what the guy at the homebrew shop gave me).
As usual, I’ll report back in a week. And tomorrow, I’ll report on the bottling of the first batch.
Even though wort chillers tend to be kinda expensive, they’re definitely worth it. When I finally bought one it made such a difference. I can’t believe I lived without for so long.