The first step for bottling is to prep the corn sugar solution that will be used for carbonation. The range for oatmeal stouts is about 2 to 2.5 vols of carbonation, so we went with a target of 2.2. Using BeerSmith software, we calculated that out to 16g of corn sugar per gallon of beer. After mixing the corn sugar in with some water, we boiled it up in the microwave and then threw it in the freezer to cool it down so that the heat isn't hard on the yeast.
The next step is getting everything sanitized and putting all the bottles on a big "tree" where the sanitizer can drain from the bottles. After that was done we poured the corn sugar solution into the bottling bucket, then siphoned the beer from the secondary into the bottling bucket.
Once all that prep is done, it's time to bottle! Amy filled the bottles while I capped them and handed her more empty bottles. We got nine bottles out of the first carboy, then ten bottles out of the carboy with the bourbon oak, including one 22oz bomber.
We marked the bottles that had the bourbon oak with "B" to make sure we could keep track. Finally with all the bottling done comes the best part - tasting! The regular (non-bourbon) oatmeal stout tasted really good. Nice hint of roast and maltiness you'd expect from an oatmeal stout. The oatmeal stout that had the bourbon-soaked oak spiral definitely had a strong bourbon flavor with some oak. It'll be interesting to see if it mellows out at all while bottle conditioning. If you like your bourbon-aged beers very bourbon-forward and strong though, at the moment this beer has it in spades. Can't wait to crack open a bottle or two on Christmas Eve and see what everyone thinks and how Craig likes the beer he helped brew!
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