Tried using oats….

So on my second batch ever with brewing. I am just playing around with this and trying to find stuff I might like. I was trying to do a one gallon batch and used some oats to try and see what it would do haze wise. I think I did something wrong because when a racked the wort was thick! Like won’t run through a coffee filter thick.

My original water was too high so I took some water out, and I think I took too much water out.

Also I think I used way too much oats and left them in the entire time. I saw something after the fact that made me think I should have used a muslin bag and just steeped them like a normal grain.

Anyway, I’m using imperial citrus yeast, and fed it a pretty good amount of yeast. Will this syrup become drinkable? Or should I scrap it and start another batch?

My last witbier wort turned out gloopy thick like this.  As an experiment, I pitched the yeast anyway and allowed it to ferment out.  Miraculously, during fermentation the thickness disappeared and resulted in a good beer at the end.  So I say, let it ride.  If it doesn’t turn out, it’s only a 1-gallon batch, no big loss.  But based on experience, I think it might turn out just fine.

FWIW, I won’t be using oats anymore.  They are just a pain to deal with in the mash, and don’t offer any big advantages in the finished beer character.  From now on I will use wheat and/or rye instead of oats in any recipe that specifies them.

For my taste buds I didn’t like what oat malt brought to the beer.  I don’t like oatmeal without tons of sugar and cream
so that should of been a warning.  I’m close to the last bottles of it, good riddance.  The corn malt has potential,
but next time would used flaked in a small amount.  For some reason (or coincidence) the corn malt one was the clearest brew
(crystal clear) I’ve ever made, and didn’t do anything different.  I recall liking white wheat and flaked rice so trying them again.
Didn’t care for rye, rye bread is cut with other flour.  Personal tastes varies, but with my low ABV/IBU brews there’s no place to hide.

Cheers

Corn doesn’t have protein causing haze. That is why it was used in the PreProhibition era to reduce the amount of total protein in the beer using high protein 6-Row malt.  My PrePro pilsners are clear and light colored.

What types of oats did you use? Flaked oats are pretty common and come pre gelatinized. Some other forms of oats may need more specific techniques (cereal mash) to prep them.

The gumminess from oats can add up fast when the percentages get into the double digits and the beta glucans, starches and proteins add to the viscosity of the wort.

My guess is that your using flaked maize/corn ?
What percentages do you use ?

Thanks

I assume you didn’t mash the oats with a diastatic malt? Unconverted oats can set up like cement.

good notes on the corn tasting, and i agree on oat malt. maybe some people out there like it, but oat malt beers were always the cheapest in history.

jmoran582, what kind of brewing recipe calculator/program are you using? if you are just estimating and especially for a 1 gallon size batch that may have been the cause of adding too much flaked oats. there are lots of free programs to use out there as well as beersmith

Yeah just winging it with the recipe. And they were plain oats. I definitely think I used too much and too long.

OK, if they were plain oats then you needed to do a cereal mash with some of the grain. Flaked or quick oats don’t need that. But either type needs to be mashed with diastatic grains to convert starch to sugar. Otherwise all you end up with is starch.

If I may make a recommendation for trying new ingredients:  add the variable to your established standard recipe.  One thing about oats is they produce a bit of haze. Therefore, outside of a hazy NEIPA I like to use them in darker beers.

So, to use oats in a brown beer I would brew my standard run-of-the-mill brown style grain bill (71% base, 18% Munich or Vienna, 7% ‘C malt’, 4% dark-style malt) and add flaked, malted, etc. oats. I’d probably start somewhere between 6 oz to 1 lb in a 4-5 gal batch.

Using a routine hop bill and neutral yeast, I know what to expect from that combination so adding the oats should be easier to discern.

Just one perspective. Hope this helps.

I use flaked corn sometimes for expediency. If I have time I will cereal mash corn meal/grits.

For a PrePro Pils I have found 20% corn to be to my liking, and I use 6 row. Cluster hops early, and Noble hops to finish. WLP-833 really works well, though a dry yeast like Diamond would work well.

Yeah makes sense. I wanted something with a haze but clearly didn’t do enough research on how to use the oats. I am doing everything organic and haven’t really stepped off into running a mash etc.

What is insane is how much grub and yeast is at the bottom of the fermenter! Seriously think I have two inches of crap in the bottom!

2” is not unheard of and many would consider it routine depending on how they treat the wort prior to transfer.

For example, some brewers dump the entire contents of the kettle into the fermenter. In that case, a large qty of trüb is to be expected.

There are products and techniques you can use to limit the trüb in the fermenter. Regardless of how much I try, I normally end up with the cone of my fermenter full of hop debris, break material, and of course yeast.

If I could figure out how to add a picture I would. It’s almost to the top of the spigot on my one gallon bubbler

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