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Special Ingredient: Brewing with Oysters + Oatmeal Oyster Stout Recipe
Whether you’re using fresh oysters, oyster shells, or powdered oysters, the perfect oyster stout offers a balance between roast and brine.
Oysters, when carefully picked, shucked, and served fresh can be a decadent treat. The same is true for a well-made stout. The combination of the two is a celebrated beer style that has taken a backseat in recent years to the sweet-forward stouts.
On the rare occasion when you come across an oyster stout in the wild, it has an almost irresistible pull. The sweet roasty stout mixed with the briney savory taste of the mollusk is a combination that just works. Brewers have known this for a long time and have worked to find the right balance of flavors—not too brackish, but retaining the flavors of the bivalve.
There are several different ways to get the flavor into the beer. There’s using the meat, of course: freshly shucking the oysters, getting them into a mesh bag, and then adding them to the mash, whirlpool, or bright tank. Adding them on the hot side has its benefits—cooking the protein helps keep the beer unspoiled for longer. Plus, you have a snack to munch on during your transfer. Adding them on the fermentation or finishing side might produce a brighter flavor, but time to consume becomes a factor.
And then there are the shells. Brewers like using the shells because of the salty exterior, along with some of the remaining liquor. In fermentation, the shells double as fining agents.
Oysters, when carefully picked, shucked, and served fresh can be a decadent treat. The same is true for a well-made stout. The combination of the two is a celebrated beer style that has taken a backseat in recent years to the sweet-forward stouts.
On the rare occasion when you come across an oyster stout in the wild, it has an almost irresistible pull. The sweet roasty stout mixed with the briney savory taste of the mollusk is a combination that just works. Brewers have known this for a long time and have worked to find the right balance of flavors—not too brackish, but retaining the flavors of the bivalve.
There are several different ways to get the flavor into the beer. There’s using the meat, of course: freshly shucking the oysters, getting them into a mesh bag, and then adding them to the mash, whirlpool, or bright tank. Adding them on the hot side has its benefits—cooking the protein helps keep the beer unspoiled for longer. Plus, you have a snack to munch on during your transfer. Adding them on the fermentation or finishing side might produce a brighter flavor, but time to consume becomes a factor.
And then there are the shells. Brewers like using the shells because of the salty exterior, along with some of the remaining liquor. In fermentation, the shells double as fining agents.
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At Schlafly in St. Louis, they do things a little differently, says Head Brewer Jared Williamson. Each year, the brewery hosts a stout and oyster festival. A few years ago, to mark the occasion, they made a proper oyster stout with their oatmeal stout as the base. (The oatmeal stout helps contribute to the mouthfeel component that is important with the oyster-stout style.) At first, they used fresh oysters for small batches on their pilot system, but when it came time to scale up, they looked for different methods.
“We worked with our kitchen and made a broth of fresh oysters that we then added to the finished beer. It was briney, salty, and hit all the notes we wanted,” Williamson says. The year after that, they were met with a new challenge. They wanted to scale up the recipe even more, but the kitchen couldn’t handle the gallons of broth needed, and even if they could, it would be cost prohibitive. So, the brewing team turned to powdered oysters. Fresh oysters are dehydrated and then powdered and can be reconstituted in water. Williamson adds the powder in the whirlpool and makes sure it’s well incorporated so that there are no lumps or leftover bits. Using the powder also means less worry about spoilage.
As with any ingredient, balance is important. “We wanted to taste the saltiness and brine and a little fresh ocean-seaside essence, but we didn’t want it to feel like a mouthful of oysters in a stout. You still want to taste the stout.”
Shucking on Film
Want an inside look at what goes into making an oyster stout? Head online and check out The Local Oyster Stout, an 8-minute
documentary about the collaboration among a brewery, an oyster farm, and a shucker that led to Maryland’s first farm-to-table oyster stout. Find the documentary online here.
Oatmeal Oyster Stout Recipe
This is Schlafly Brewing’s classic Oatmeal Stout infused with oysters.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallon (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 85%
OG: 1.0603
FG: 1.0177
IBUs: 40
ABV: 5.7%
MALT/GRAIN BILL
10.25 lb (4.7 kg) 2-row malt
12.8 oz (363 g) roasted barley
11.2 oz (317 g) C60 caramel malt
11.2 oz (317 g) flaked oats
HOPS AND ADDITIONS SCHEDULE
0.8 oz (23 g) Pilgrim hops at 60 minutes
4.75 oz (135 g) oyster powder at whirlpool/flame-out
YEAST
Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast
DIRECTIONS
Mash for 15 minutes at 154°F (68°C), then vorlauf until your runnings are clear. Fly sparge with 170°F (77°C) water and run off into the kettle. Boil for 60 minutes following the hops and additions schedule.
After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 68°F (20°C). Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 68°F (20°C).
BREWER’S NOTES
For our initial 20-gallon (76 l) trial, we had the kitchen make an oyster broth with fresh oysters that we added to the whirlpool. But once we had to scale it up for canning production, we moved to using the oyster powder. If you’re feeling adventurous, make your own broth and adjust to taste.
