yes. i use oatmeal fairly often. it impacts the body and makes it much oilier. id go easy on it. i used oat malt for the first time recently and i didnt like the flavour, though others seem to.
Yes, you can use Quaker. You can toast them a bit in an oven for a few minutes if you like.
In my opinion, they should be cooked first in a little water, brought to a boil to gelatinize and break out the starches. If you don’t cook them first, they’ll just kind of sit in the mash and not break down too well. “Quick oats” should be boiled 1 minute. “Old fashioned oats” take longer, 5 minutes. If you can find “instant oats” like the ones in little single-serve packs, those probably don’t need to be boiled but it wouldn’t hurt.
+1. Great advice. I’d even suggest first cooking as per the directions on the box with a little extra water, then add to the mash.
Has anyone found the sweet spot for the smooth, silky mouthfeel? I’ve used quick oats to 9% and found the creaminess noticeable…but I’ve seen recipes where the oats get pushed to 25-30%. Maybe it’s personal preference or maybe it’s style dependent?
My “oatmeal” stout won a gold medal in its category… without any oats at all. I used rye malt instead, in the amount of 6.4%. Personally I don’t think oats are even 10% as effective as rye for adding body and creamy mouthfeel. If you really want to know what oats will do, try brewing a 100% oat beer sometime. It’s not at all what you think it will be. Now rye, on the other hand…
If you add a little of the malt to the oats and rest it at mash temps for a bit before boiling, you’re conducting a cereal mash. The mini-mash keeps the oatmeal from getting too gummy when boiled.
There are recommendations for a step infusion mash, with a 30 minute rest between 105F and 115F, to break down the gum producers, beta-glucans. A 10% bill of oats should not impact the lautering.
Oatmeal has early roots in brewing as well; oatmeal beers were brewed for a short time in the 1500s, but quickly died out due to the overpowering bitter taste of primarily using oatmeal in the grain bill. Oatmeal made a comeback when Scottish brewer James Maclay produced an “oatmalt” stout in 1895. In the early 1900s, oatmeal was used as an adjunct, but in very low quantities and sometimes less than 1 percent of the grain bill.
Today, this cereal grain is becoming almost paramount in English-style oatmeal stouts enjoyed by craft beer fans. Oats add smooth, rich, enjoyable textures to a stout. This is due to the starches, proteins and gums in the oats that have a tendency to thicken up the mouthfeel of the beer.
Agree on the toasting. It adds more flavor and smells great when you are toasting them!
However, I have always heard that Quaker Oats are basically rolled oats and do not need to be gelatinized in a cereal mash. Please correct me if I am wrong. That said, whenever I use oats in a beer I use flaked oats They can be added directly to the mash without doing the cereal mash step.
Yup, never done a cereal mash with oatmeal and never noticed any more gumminess in the mash than normal. Dave’s right about mouthfeel though, I couldn’t begin to tell you which beer has oatmeal in it and which doesn’t, but 15% or more rye and you’ll definitely notice.
I just brewed another batch of my Imperial Rye India Black Ale yesterday and am going to reward myself tonight with one from the last batch - if the stuff wasn’t so exquisite to drink I’d never go through the misery of brewing it.
I’ve used Quaker rolled oats a few times in stouts. Just put them in the mash, no precooking, but I‘ll try that next time. I made a nice “farmhouse” saison this fall with a half pound of oats, flaked maize, and wheat malt along with the barley. Tossed in some sage, rosemary and thyme from the garden, it being a farmhouse ale and all.
My granddad worked for Blueseal feeds his whole life, and he ate Quaker Oats every morning. When he got into his nineties and his mind started to slip, he would endlessly regal me with stories about how they processed oats at the mill…my grand Ma would yell at him, “stop repeating”!