"It's a bit Nutty"

Nut Oat Pale
O.G. 1.050
Recipe

Ever since having tasted a Hazelnut brew from local brewsters Alpine Brewing Co., I have wanted to try using some kind of nuts in a beer myself. The process of deciding what type of nuts came down to finding a dry roasted version of something to minimize any nut oils. Since peanuts were the easiest dry roasted nut to find, and having had a Peanut Butter Porter in the past, I figured it would be something I could make work. My local healthy food store sells bulk so I filled a couple bags up which turned out to be just over 6 pounds worth of nuts.

Now came the decision as to how to incorporate the nuts with the rest of the grain. Originally I was going to grind them fine in my Corona Mill, but I didn't want to deal with 6 lbs of peanut dust or have them get creamy as if I was making Peanut Butter. I decided to give them a whirl through the food processor.



Using the pulse feature I tried to make small pieces while keeping the fine particles to a minimum.



On brewday, I mixed just over a gallon of water with the 6 lbs of nuts.



I set the stove to simmer this while I prepped the rest of my mash.



With the expected goo from the peanuts and the addition of 2 lbs of oats  to this recipe, I decided to use some rice hulls to help filter the mash and keep from having a stuck sparge.



When I use rice hulls, I put them in the cooler with some hot water prior to doughing in. This serves a couple of purposes. The water pre-heats the tun so I don't have any temp loss after doughing in. Any water the hulls might soak up won't take it out of my grain/water calc and helps me hit my strike temp. Also, if you're worried about the hulls adding flavors or color to a lighter brew, when you drain the pre-heat water, it washes them of these things.



Having drained the pre-heat water I mixed my grain and strike water. Meanwhile, my nut soup has been simmering on the stove for 30-40 minutes. The entire house smelled like peanut butter.



As I mentioned I was adding 2 lbs of oats to the batch. Good 'Ole Quaker Oats - I can drink my cholesterol lower!



Once the mash had stabilized, I added the nut soup, nuts and all, to the mash. The rest of the mash process was standard.



Even after vorlaufing almost 4 gallons of wort, it was still quite muddy looking as you can see in these first runnings. I allowed the wort to drain rather quickly to keep from sticking, but the large amount of rice hulls pretty much kept that from happening anyway. 1 lb of rice hulls is a LOT.



I lit the flame on the kettle and added my "First Wort" hop addition. 1/2 oz of Nugget hops. Since they are a bit earthy, they should match with the nuts and oats. This was the only hop addition keeping the bitterness low at approx. 28 ibu's, but extracting some flavor from the hops that you get with this addition.

I let it get a nice rolling boil for about 90 minutes, tosssing in two whirlfloc tabs towards the end to try and help out with all the protien gunk.



As you can see there is a LOT of trub. This is about 2 hours past chilling. I'm hoping this settles out a bit more. I kept the yeast rather neutral and went with Danstar Nottingham dry yeast. If anything it will leave it a touch bready which is fine. The sample from the hydrometer tube was unique tasting. A bit nutty, with a weird buttery/creamy finish. We'll see how it is when it ferments out and gets carbonated.