Oatmeal Stout with melanoidin, candied orange peel and no roasted barley

[The Green Man]

Hello again fellow brewers. Back to pick your brains, if you don't mind. This time my mission is to make an Oatmeal Stout with an orangey edge. The area I live is also known as Satsuma, where the small orange fruit come from. This recipe is a kind of nod to that. I have used what I can I get a hold of and I think the bill seems ok for an Oatmeal Stout. What do you think of the Melanoidin malt? Good idea, or not appropriate. Plus, when would be the best time to put in the peel? I have used S04 as I have some left, plus I think it might compliment the orange peel. I'm not going for a super dry stout. Recipe is below for your perusal. Any and all feedback welcome.
Due to the lack of Roasted Barley I suppose this could be described as a very dark porter. Do the brewers concur that Roasted Barley, makes or breaks the Stout definition?
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[Myndflyte]

I think it looks good. I'm more interested in your hop schedule. Stouts are supposed to be malt forward (which would complement your Melanoidin malt) with very little hop character. I think at the very least you should get rid of your 5 min addition. But I think you should just add all your hops at the beginning and don't let the hops interfere with the malt profile. Unless you're going for a little bit something different then just disregard.

 

[J A]

Even though it's designed to be a fairly sweet stout, I think you may end up with something a little cloying with that much specialty malt and also doubling down on malt sweetness with Melanoidin. I'd want a touch of Roasted Barley just for the slight astringency that would offset some of the residual sweetness and full, slick mouthfeel. I'd sub a point or so of the Melanoiden for Roasted Barley or some other dark roast. I think the Chocolate will come through, and make an interesting combination with the orange.
Personally, I think adding some hop character to the mix will offset some of the strong, sweet flavors. This would be a perfect recipe for some UK Phoenix along with your Fuggles.

 

[jmcnamara]

You might be able to use some coffee to help make up for the lack of roasted barley

 

[J A]

I just picked up on the fact that you can't get Roasted Barley...Okay...so my recipe advice isn't quite useful.
But...you have heat, you have malt....Roast your own. Take some of your Chocloate and put it in an oven to roast a little further. You have to be really careful and take it slow, but it'll get some dark, burnt flavor pretty quickly.
The Coffee is a really good idea, too.

 

[Nosybear]

Coffee or cacao would give you the same effects as roasted barley and perhaps some different flavors. I'd lean to cocoa because coffee sometimes gives this weird vegetal flavor reminiscent of green pepper. As to the Melanoidin, a little goes a long way and at higher concentrations, the flavor can go to "inky". I'd be inclined to leave it out and to up the chloride concentration to move the needle to the "malty" side. Given the notion of orange in the stout, cocoa definitely comes to mind, perhaps a touch of vanilla to change from a "cocoa" flavor to a chocolate one. I'd balance my minerals toward malt-sweet, chloride.

I don't think there's enough difference between most stouts and porters for mortals to notice, in fact, stout was originally stout porter. This is a beer you can have a lot of fun with and unless you want to enter it in a competition, I wouldn't worry much about the stylistic distinction.

 

[The Green Man]

Thanks all for the input. Always much appreciated. Like the idea of switching of cocoa in for roast barley. May well drop the melanoidin and last hop addition and up the the early addition hops along with the chocolate. It is designed to be a fairly sweet stout, think Beamish rather than Murphys or Guiness. But, that said, I want to avoid cloying. Can only get Fuggles as an English hop, sadly.
When is the besy time to add orange peel? The tartness should also help to balance it out. I'm thinking late boil.

 

[J A]

When is the besy time to add orange peel? The tartness should also help to balance it out. I'm thinking late boil.

For orange zest, 5 minutes before flameout is common. Your candied peel will probably work just fine at that point, too. Don't forget that you're adding some sugar when you add that since it's candied, but I doubt that the amount is substantial. The other thing to remember is that the candied peel may use more of the bitter inner peel than adding zest. Since you've got a lot of sweetness in the malt, a little bitterness there may not hurt, but keep it in mind. I'd definitely try some of that to see what it tastes like and even boil a little to see what sort of flavors will result .

 

[chub1]

Thanks all for the input. Always much appreciated. Like the idea of switching of cocoa in for roast barley. May well drop the melanoidin and last hop addition and up the the early addition hops along with the chocolate. It is designed to be a fairly sweet stout, think Beamish rather than Murphys or Guiness. But, that said, I want to avoid cloying. Can only get Fuggles as an English hop, sadly.
When is the besy time to add orange peel? The tartness should also help to balance it out. I'm thinking late boil.

Fuggles are finea good staple for stouts

 

[The Green Man]

Thanks again for all the feedback. The grist has been changed a little and I've added cocoa powder and changed candied peel for zest.
My question now roughly how much of zest and cocoa for my 9 litre (not far off 2 gallons) batch?
Any experiences to share out there?

 

[jmcnamara]

I've used about an oz of orange zest in wits before, that was for a 5 gallon batch. The orange was very noticeable. Not sure how it'll play with all the other stuff going on in yours

 

[J A]

I used a spice grater to scrape the zest off of one lemon for a 4-gallon batch of a saison I did. It was very lemony, though it mellowed out over a couple of months. I think if you zest half an orange that way, it'll be plenty for you. And 10 minutes in the boil is a good addition time. It's possible to get a good quality orange extract, too so that you could add a few drops for a little extra flavor before bottling if you though it was out of balance. In other words, easy to fix too little, not possible to fix too much.

 

[The Green Man]

Brewed this yesterday. Did my now usual split mash and sparged more than usual and boiled a strong wort. Watered back to get 9 litres...and bring the temp down speedily. I added 20g cocoa powder and the zest of one Satsuma. Pitched 10g of S04 at 18c ish. My OG was lower than I expected at 1.050 but my attenuation has been very strong, so I'm not expecting a big impact on the abv. Will let you know initial thoughts on OG sample if wort later.

 

[J A]

What you should have done is checked the OG before you topped up. From an accurate reading of gravity and volume, you can put it spot on at whatever OG you want going into the fermenter. The 1.050 OG isn't a problem, but if you attenuate fully, you start to lose some of the stout character. A stout isn't just about ABV, it's usually somewhat under-attenuated, very full flavored, heavy bodied beer. As long as your attenuation stays at abouit 75%, you'll be fine.
Just curious...the way you've described it, it sounds like you added cocoa and orange to the cooling wort and not in the late boil. Is that the case?

 

[The Green Man]

I added both the satsuma zest and cocoa at 10 mins, so they both got a good boil. You're right, I should havr tested the gravity before I watered it all down. That would have made sense, doh!
I did notice that I needed about three litres of sparging before the colour changed. That shows me how important sparging is to efficiency in my mind.
For some unknown reason I added the sugar to the mash. Should have been the boil right?

 

[J A]

I did notice that I needed about three litres of sparging before the colour changed. That shows me how important sparging is to efficiency in my mind.

I sparge about 3 gallons for a 5.5 (into the fermenter) gallon batch. NIce and slow...20 to 30 minutes. It allows the sugars to enter into solution and efficiency is really boosted.

 

[The Green Man]

Thanks to my schoolboy error of adding sugar to the mash my OG was a bit lower than expected. However, I may have been strangely fortunate...The ambient temp has dropped like a stone since the weekend and my FV is now reading 14c with the Fermenter inside reading 15-16c. The air-lock stopped bubbling yesterday after pretty vigorous bubbling for about 24-36 hours. It may have finished or the temp drop may have prompted flocculation.
Is this a good thing? Has fortune smiled or merely blown a raspberry in my face? Perfect full-bodied stout or just bottle bombs?
Just took the gravity. Reading 1.018 from an OG of 1.050. The ABV calculator is giving me 4.2% with attenuation of 63%.
What do the honorable Brew Friends think? Should I attempt a cold-crash by dropping my temp further or try to raise it somehow (though I don't have any facilities for warming yet)?

 

[chub1]

Think i would leave it alone for a while yet.

 

[The Green Man]

Think i would leave it alone for a while yet.

I've taken it out of the fermentation chamber and let it warm up a little. Might have to just let it run its course. Fingers crossed it doesn't end up too thin.

 

[The Green Man]

Hello again, back with an update on this stout. So, after about 5 days it is now reading 1.016, 2 points lower. It is now at 67% attenuation and The target for 75% attenuation is 1.012. At this rate it will take another two weeks...
What do the brewers advise? Leaving it another two weeks, or give it another 5 days and bottle with less priming sugar than planned?
Any and all ideas welcome, within reason...