Goatmeal Stout update

This time was my first attempt with dry yeast, since they were out of the regular. After a week nothing had even started, so I gave up on that and bought a regular Irish ale yeast, and things got kickin! I also decided at that point to make a heavier beer for the winter, so I added 2 lbs of light brown sugar right to the primary fermenter. It was bubbling there for almost 2 weeks! A quick estimate brought the OG up to 1.061, which is a nice start. Friday night I put it into a secondary, just so I could add some oak chips. I measured it to be 1.012 at this point, so a good finish as well. I wonder how the brown sugar in fermenter will affect the flavor. I also soaked a bag of oakchips in bourbon and threw them in, so that should be a nice experiment as well.

I have noticed a theme as well. The beers that I brew with grains from one brew store always seem to have a much lower OG than expected. The color is usually fine, as well as taste. And this specific brew shop, all the specialty grains are crushed on site, but the pale malt comes pre-crushed in big bags. If their crush isn't up to snuff, that would give me a much lower yield. I wonder if this is throwing me off. I'm going to do the same steps next brew with same temps/times, etc, and see how my yield is with grains from the other brew shop.

Speaking of which, this coming Saturday right after Thanksgiving should be the next brew. Not sure what will be brewin, but an announcement should come later.