BrewDay: Oatmeal Stout

I've been on a heavy wheat beer diet for a while now, and so why not mix it up with something that is in a lot of ways the compete opposite? I'm adding the oatmeal for sweetness, though, to help ease the transition.

The grain mix is an adaptation of Palmer's stout:

• 8 lb two-row base malt
• 1 lb crystal [muntons - 64L]
• .75 lb flaked barley
• .40 lb roasted malt [675L]
• 1 lb store-bought oats
  

I increased the recommended amount of flaked because I wanted more body, and also decreased the amount of roasted because the L value on the black stuff I got was very high.

If you're curious, this is how the recipe differs from the the common Guinness proportions:

Thanks to some helpful discussion at homebrewtalk I realized my store-bought oats needed gelatinized; so that was done just prior to mash.

Strike temp was 165F, which put my mash at 153F, about one degree higher than I wanted. For my second sparge I added 180F water, although I probably shouldn't have gone higher than 175F because of one the 2,463 things Palmer knows about that will lead to non-ideal wort.

Efficiency went like this:

1.047 grav X 6 gal / 11.15 lb grain = 25.3

So not great, I was really hoping to get closer to 28, but I had the boil down to fall back on.

To get the water a bit more Irish-like (I use bottled to avoid the poison that is DC city water) I added 2 teaspoons of gypsum.

The hop additions:

• 0.8 oz Nuggest (60 min)
• 1.0 oz Fuggles (20 min)

I sparged a total of 7 gallons of water and ended up with 6 after the mash. Post-boil I ended up with almost exactly 5 gallons of wort and on OG of 1.060.

My biggest concern right now is the yeast. I used the smack pack for Wyeast, Irish Ale #1084, but for the second time in a row I couldn't get the pack fully inflated; it rose maybe 30% of full. Now last time this happened fermentation went fine, but with three hours to sit I don't understand what the issue is.