Electric BIAB Oatmeal Stout

Monday we had the day off.  What better reason to brew!  Reviewing the competition schedule, I choose a stout.  An oatmeal stout in this case.  Mainly the recipe is straight out of Brewing Classic Styles.  I upped the hops a bit due to their age and brewhouse familiarity.  Oh, and I upped another 1/2 oz or so to finish off a 1 lb bag.

Flaked oats toasted 350­°F for 15 minutes

Improvements since last brew

• Temperature sensor is potted and sits smack in the middle of the kettle.  Much faster response time.
• Calibrated temperature sensor against a very nice thermometer
• Calibration table based proportional temperature control
• SS screen around element to prevent bag from burning
• Wrung out the BIAB

This was the second batch made in the electric kettle.  It went pretty smooth.  I wrung out the bag to collect a bit more wort.  The potential gravity hit PERFECT.  Too bad the recipe and the brewhouse only made 70% PP.

Electric BIAB kettle

The data logging was really cool.  This is the wort temperature cooling curve.  5 gallons of 1.063 wort going through a convoluted counter flow chiller using 58F tap water.  The jiggers at the beginning were due to the bag getting sucked into the plumbing.  From 212 to 58 in 32 minutes.  Wow.  I had to let the wort "warm up" a bit to pitch ale yeast!

Wort cooling chart

After about 44 hours, the fermentation is going nicely.  WLP005 (British Ale), straight from vial.

Oatmeal stout fermenting for 44 horus