Irish Oatmeal Stout (adapted from beerrecipes.org)

Ingredients:

• 0.5 lb. Flaked Oats
• 0.5 lb. Special B
• 0.25 lb. Crystal Malt (1200)
• 0.25 lb. Chocolate Malt
• 6.6 lbs. Dark LME
• 4 fl. oz. Dry Flaked Oats
• 5 oz. Malto Dextrin
• 1 oz 5.5% AA Fuggle (Bittering)
• 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss
• .5 oz 4.5% AA Willamette (Aroma)
• Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast
• 5 oz. Corn Sugar (Priming)

Primary Ferment: 6 Days 

Secondary Ferment: 4 Days

This is a great stout, folks, for those of you who prefer a drier, Irish-style oatmeal stout. We’re going to start by adding the grains slowly and evenly, while we raise the heat to 150 degrees. Now, ideally this should take about an hour, but it’s hard to be patient, right? And, if your hands are shaking like mine were because you just quit smoking, it’s going to be difficult to control that pour. I suggest lighting up just one last cigarette to steady the old hands.

Now, after you let that simmer for about 20 minutes (or, as I like to call it “two scotches”) you’re going to remove and rinse the grains over the brew pot with a half gallon of hot water. The water should be about 170 to 180 degrees, but you’ll know it’s hot enough when you accidentally spill it on yourself and scald the shit out of your torso. Next time you’ll have another cigarette, and steady those hands up, now won’t you?

Go ahead and discard the grains, and add the malt extract, oats and malto dextrin. Bring this to a boil, and add the Bittering Hops. Let that boil for a while. At this point, you might want to take a nice cold bath to take care of those burns. Also, a cigarette and a scotch helps to take the edge off. By the time you’re done with that, you’ll probably be ready to add the Irish Moss and Aroma Hops, boil for twenty minutes, and add cold water.

You’ll want to let the wort cooled down to at least 70 degrees, so now is probably a good time to run out for a pack of cigarettes and a…let’s see…yeah, you’ll need another bottle of scotch. Probably the cheaper stuff this time, since you spent a lot of money on that Irish Moss, and that malto dextrin isn’t too cheap, either. Old Smuggler is a decent blended scotch, right? Anyway, you can get a lot of it, cheap. So get that. Get Old Smuggler.

When you get back, and the wort is sufficiently cooled, transfer it to your fermenter, and dry pitch the yeast. You’ll want your starting gravity to be about 1.05, or whatever. At this point, it’s always very difficult to time the primary and secondary fermentations, but you’ll know it’s done when you wake up in a handicapped stall Koala Kare changing station, in the women’s restroom of a local public pool. About twelve days or so, judging by the number of cigarette cartons around you.

Now, recipes vary on this next step, but my personal advice is to not try to figure out the horrible things you’ve done over the last fortnight, and just go ahead and add the priming sugar and five ounces of corn sugar to the ferment. For a smooth, even finish, you should bottle condition the stout for about two weeks, but I’m willing to bet you won’t be able to resist drinking it straight from your five-gallon fermenter with a turkey baster, and weeping into the living room rug. A great all-seasons stout!