Milk Oatmeal Vanilla Stout

Haven't made a stout since my second brew ever. I think it was a Mr. Beer brew. Our fav local brewery is the one on Kernville. They serve a milk oatmeal imperial stout. I always thought it would be awesome with some vanilla. I'd rather pass on the imperial since I'm too lazy to deal with the amount of fuss needed for the yeast. Plus, I like to drink more than one.

I got the oatmeal stout recipe from Jamil and then just added the lactose. Here is breakdown:

9.5lbs English 2-row
1lb flaked oats
0.75lbs Chocolate malt
0.75lbs Victory malt
0.5lbs Crystal 75L (they didn't have 80)
0.5lbs Roasted barley

1lb Lactose

2oz East Kent Goldings 5.6%AA

WLP002 x2 Lot number - TECOBITEP761-62

Whirlfloc
Servomyces
5.2

I drove to MoreBeer in Riverside the day before Thanksgiving to get the grains. Got the Jamil and John Palmer recipe book while there. Also got a little upgrade for the mash tun (stainless ball valve). The crush from the mill in the shop appeared to crush the grain too fine. Way more powder than I am used to. I'm concerned about a stuck mash. We will see.

12:57 - Heating up the strike water now. I replaced my stainless braid in the mash tun. The other one was over a year old and was looking really beat up. Also bought new vinyl tubing. Got these at Home Depot and I really wanted to build a manifold of CVC (high temp PVC) for the mash tun but they didn't have any. So I bought the new stainless braid. Ellie is gone to her sisters. I'm alone for now. Maybe the Pooley's will stop buy. Maybe my dad. I'll call Kevin too.

1:44 - Hewh laudy. What an adventure. When the grain and water got all in the tun the temp was too low. So I thought I could warm it up by connection a wort chiller to the sink and put it in the tun and turn it as hot as I could. Well it seems the water is heated to 150F in the hot water tank. Not boiling. So I was not winning. So I kind of did a decoction. I pulled off 1.5 gallons of thick mash and put it in the boil pot and warmed it up to about 190F. Stirred like hell to keep it from burning on the bottom and added it back to the mash. That warmed it up to 156 and I added just a little cool water from the spring water in the fridge and got it down to 153F. I called it good. I felt good about this. In the past I would have freaked out and achieved nothing. In this case I really didn't sweat it that much. I just came up with a good idea, it didn't work, moved onto another idea and it did.

Kevin will be here in thirty. Better get some food. I plan to eat it fast. Ellie would hate it. Ohh, the Pooley's just pulled up.

2:57 - Thermometer problem. You could see the mercury just hanging out on top of the glass. This means that the 153F mash was really 158F. Ouch! What will happen. I don't know. Remains a mystery. Drinking beer with the homies though so that's good.

Also didn't eat in a way the Ellie would disapprove of. I invited the Pooleys in and we ate leftovers on plates and took our time. 

Next day now. I focused on drinking for the rest of the brew. Everything went as expected. I added the lactose at flameout. I split 3 vanilla beans down the middle and put them in the fermenter and siphoned the wort from on top. Had a little trouble with the oxygen stone. The O2 kept leaking from it. I may need a hose for next time. OG was 1.068.

The noteworthy thing for the night really was that the Budweiser Project 12 beers are all good. And that Pooley drank himself sick.