Hair of the Dog (Oatmeal Stout)

Ok, so I've been slacking posting - sorry. Perhaps we'll appoint a club scribe?

At any rate, we had a great time at the Bachman's (thanks for hosting), and had a very successful cooking of a 10ga. Oatmeal stout recipie Wes was good enough to pick up for us. We seemed to be "in the money" on the numbers, and it was already showing good promise when we pitched the yeast. I for one, am really looking forward to a nice meal-in-a-glass brew again.

Here's a couple specifics from Greg, for records keeping:

Name: Hair of the Dog Stout
Original Gravity: 1.049
Volume: 9.6 gal
IBU (bittering units): 40
Notes: We hit all of our targets. Mash temp was within 1 degree, starch conversion was excellent, mash efficiency was perfect, gravity was slightly under only because we aimed for 9 gallons and got 9.6 (we didn't boil off quite as much as planned, so it is minutely diluted). Our brew time was down to 4 hours and we were done early!
-Greg

We also sampled the light ale from Guhr's (bottled at Regier's), and it seems to be progressing nicely. For a very light brew, it's good to see very little (if any) off flavouring appearing. We'll have a few cases at the next club meeting.

This past week we also bottled the brown ale from the previous brewing at Regier's - seems to be coming along nicely (or "looking well", as some said). Should be available in a couple months. Following several hours of bottling (also packaged up 10ga. of Greg's personal batch), it was agreed by Greg, Tim and I (and others at the Bachman's later) that the next purchase for the club should be a cornelius keg system (pop machine type), to aleviate the bottling labour involved. They can be had relatively cheaply, due to the availability of hardware, etc, and are easy to handle/move. The current plan is to try to get a starter package in time for bottling/kegging this stout or perhaps the next batch (IPA - not sure where - volunteers?), allowing us to keg some of it, and bottle the rest. This will allow for easy access at club meetings, and for folks to take some home in bottles. Let us know what you think of the idea.

And of course, when time comes to drink the Hair of the Dog, post your comments here if you like. We're working on the "select" list for attempting repeats of the most popular brews. To date it includes the Brewbonic Plague, Scotch Ale, the IPA, and Fire in the Hole (small batches?).