Raspberry Oatmeal STOUT - My best scored beer in a contest! Recipe included.

April is very close, and this is when the international competition of the Bulgarian homebrewers’ association is held every year. I’m pretty excited already, because I’m thinking of my beers, which will compete this year. It’s the perfect time now, considering that the beers will need some time to balance their flavors and aromas.

One of my competitors this year will be an Oatmeal stout, fermented on Raspberries(secondary fermentation).
And what better, than having a Raspberry Oatmeal stout, while preparing the same?

For this one I’m using fresh frozen raspberries, but now let’s see the grain bill:

Quantity(kg)	Grain type
2,0	Pale ale malt
2,0	Munich malt
1,0	Caramunich malt
0,5	Carafa
0,7	Flaked oats (300g of them baked for 1 hour)

For the mashing I added 16,5 l water for water:grain ratio =2,7:1
Mashing was completed at about 68,5 degrees centigrade, because I wanted the sugars in the wort to be unfermentable in order to have thicker beer. After all it is an oatmeal stout, right?

Fermentation was perfectly completed after about a week and I gradually raised the fermenting temperature from 19 to 23 degrees. The final gravity of the beer was 1.022, being 1.053 in the beginning, which means about 4,1% alcohol. After adding some sugar for carbonation, and having in mind, that raspberries also have some fermentable sugars, the final alcohol content should be about 4,6-4,7 I think.

And after primary fermentation is complete it’s time for the berries!

I put the raspberries in secondary. That way the vigorous fermentation is over and there is no danger of losing these precious raspberry aromas! I will keep them in secondary for about one week and after that will be time for bottling.
The quantity for the Stout is 800g for 10l beer, according to my recipe! And I can assure you, that the amount of aroma is tremendous!

I forgot to mention, that the hopping for the beer is like an ordinary pale ale. The bitterness is about 25 IBU and I used Perla, Aurora and Citra hops for aroma. Now it’s like a light IPA, but the strong hop aromas will fade a little after some time, giving an opportunity for raspberries to get in front.

This one definitely should be better than the first edition and I’m very impatient about the final result. My target for this year’s competition is to get at least one prize in the top 3 in some category.
And I really hope this one to be close to perfect!
The competition will be held on 21th April, which is exactly 2 months from now. And of course everyone is welcome. Homebrewers from all over the country will bring their beers for degustation!

Until then I will enjoy my Raspberry Oatmeal Stout!

Cheers and have a nice #beersaturday !

P.S. maybe @irreverent-dan will have a chance to try a bottle of these even before the competition!