A Beer Worth Celebrating

We had a great time celebrating National Stout month in February! We reached out to our friends at Raised Grain Brewing Co., who designed a special recipe to brew on our Spike+ System and we documented the entire process from grain to glass. We pushed our 15 gallon mash tun to the brim, but this beer was certainly worth the brew and turned out fantastic. If you weren't following our updates on the Spike Instagram page and want to brew the recipe, or see the process and results, check out our recap below! 

The Recipe

Raised Grain/Spike Chocolate Oatmeal Stout—10 gallon batch:

Grain Bill

• 22 lb Maris Otter
• 4 lb Dark Chocolate Malt
• 2 lb Belgian Special B
• 2 lb Cara 20—Caramel Malt
• 2 lb Carafa Special Type IIII
• 2 lb Brown
• 1 lb Roasted Barley
• 4 lb Oat Flakes (don't mill)

Hops

• 1.5 oz Warrior

Yeast

• London ESB

Adjuncts

• .625 lbs Cacao nibs (secondary)

How We Brewed It

• Hold the mash at 152°F for 60 minutes
• Sparge and move to boil kettle
• Begin boil and add hops at 60 min left in the boil
• Chill the wort to 68°F after boil, aerate and pitch your yeast
• Add cacao nibs post yeast dump

Brew Day

We enjoyed a smooth process using our 15 Gallon Spike+ Electric System. After milling our grain on site, we mashed in and recirculated for 60-minutes and held temperature with ease. We then sparged and began our boil with a small measure of bittering hops at 60 minutes.

Yeast Dump

After 12 days of strong fermentation, we hit our final gravity. We’ll let the beer sit for another 48-72 hours to let any remaining yeast clean up after itself. For the dump, we added our gas manifold with a few psi of pressure and very slowly eased the yeast out of the bottom dump port into our 2” sight glass. We also dropped the temperature in the fermenter, and added our sanitized cocoa nibs for some chocolate flavor! 

Cold Crash

After dumping the yeast and adding the coca nibs, we lowered the temperature of our fermenter to 35F to drop any remaining sediment before packaging. This process will also help our cocoa nibs settle below our racking port. We made sure the conical was still filled with 5 psi and set our temp controller to 35F.

Carbonation

Once the beer was fully crashed for two days, we used our CF10 Conical Fermenter for carbonation to save time and ensure the beer is ready to drink as soon as it hits the keg. We selected our PSI, sanitized our carb stone, and let our CO2 tank do the work overnight! This beer should be medium to full in body and average in carbonation when ready to drink.

Kegging

After 24 hours of carbonation, our stout was ready to transfer. We used pressure to ensure we didn’t let any oxygen into the keg. Once the beer fell below our racking port, we rotated the racking arm to get that last few gallons. Nothing left to waste with this beer! All that’s left to do now is plan for the tasting.

The End Result

Great success! The stout turned out just as expected; we love the chocolate, coffee flavors that this beer offers. Much appreciation to our friends Raised Grain Brewing for their help with the recipe. If you’re ever in the Waukesha, WI area, make sure you pay them a visit. Lastly, a hearty thanks to all of you for following us on our Stout Month adventure! Our reward is being able to raise a few pints of this tasty brew with friends and make a toast to a beer well done. Cheers!