Dry molasses stout

Based on Edme's bitter stout kit, but with a few extras. I like thick sticky oaty stouts, so here's my attempt.

Ingredients

• 1.8kg Edme Irish Stout malt
• 500g rolled oats
• 500g pure molasses
• 50g irish moss
• Edme kit yeast

Primary

Standard stuff - boil the oats for 60 minutes, in plenty of water and with a little malt, adding the irish moss about 15 minutes before the end to help clearing in secondary fermentation. Pour into FV. Mix warm water with the kit malt to make it easier to pour, and add that into FV too. Top up FV, get the temperature right (18-24°C), and pitch yeast.

I think I messed this up a bit - I put 23L water into the FV earlier on to let it de-chlorinate, with a little bit of sodium metabisuplhite. Needless to say, the wort sank, and OG from the top of the barrel was only 1.016 even after a vigourous stir - doesn't sound like a very accurate reading. Let's hope this yeast isn't too bad as a bottom fermenter! The FV's also topped up really far, much too much for my liking. To rescue it, I'm going to try a secondary fermentation after 6-7 days.

Secondary

Siphon fluid from initial fermentation into a clean FV, leaving dead yeast and decaying materials behind. Add 500g molasses; seal with airlock and leave to ferment to dryness. Kit claims final abv of 4.5% - we'll see how it tastes!