Today was secondary day for the Smoked Oaked and Stoked stout. This beer started from The Brewing Network’s can you brew it version of Terrapin Brewing’s Wake-N-Bake Stout. An awesome coffee oatmeal stout which I have brewed in the past and it actually won me a 2nd place in the babble brew off. Now I have decided to do my own little twist on this beer. I guess you could say this is my homebrewers version of a kitchen sink beer. Take the Terrapin W-N-B replace half the base malt with smoked malt, mmmmm smoked beer, then kick it up a notch by adding oak. There you have it Smoked (malt) Oaked (a little aging on oak) and Stoked ( dry coffee hopped).

So gravity at the time of transfer 1.014 and SG if you have beer following you would know was 1.070 which should give us an ABV of about 7.19% a little lower than what I was shooting for but not too bad.

This is one of the few times I will use a secondary fermenter. The only times I will use a secondary is 1.) For additives ie, oak, dry hops, fruit flavorings. 2.) If the beer will be on the yeast for more than 4 weeks to avoid autolysis flavors. Those are about the only times. This is one of them. This will be my first time using oak spirals. I plan on leaving them in for a week, adding the coffee about two days before that is up. If I dont feel the oak is strong enough then I will transfer the spirals to the keg for further aging.

Now some people will say to boil your oak before adding. I just think that takes too much flavor from it. I will usually just dip it in Star San before using. Yes I am taking a chance of microbes deep in the wood getting into my beer. Ok the beer contact time will be short before chilling and I guarantee it will not last long enough in the cold keg for too many bugs to take over. Also the 8% alcohol should slow down the inital growth of any microbes.

So now we leave this rest in the fermentation fridge for another week and another update. Untill then good brewing. Here is a link to my favorite brewing book. Probably the best brewing book of our time. A must have for all homebrewers.