Akneebreeated

Recipes 

My first attempt at an oatmeal stout, I must admit that I have no idea what I am doing here either. I never have mashed and don't really know what all is involved there so all I did was basically steep my flaked oats with my specialty grain. Recipe is simple enough, 7 lbs DME, 1lb roasted barley and 1.5 lbs flaked oats. I steeped barley grain and oats at 150 F for 45 minutes, then did my full boil and added DME and hops accordingly. All went fine, pitched yeast and waited about 10 days to rack to secondary. Bubbling had seemingly stopped, while racking I noticed an excessive amount of sludge in the bottom. Basically I lost a gallon to this trubeish slime substance....

My OG was on target and the beer tasted GREAT at racking, did me not mashing cause all this slime? I should also mention that after racking bubbling picked up again in secondary, perhaps I just didn't give enough time to ferment....

flars

Recipes 

You don't know anything about mashing? You just did your first mash (partial mash), the specialty grains, to convert starches to fermentable sugars. You steeped the flaked oats for body and head retention. The slime, trub, is normal. The more grains and hops you have will increase this volume. Some add extra top off water to make up for the volume of trub which will not end up in the bottle or keg.

ericbw

Recipes 

Will the starch in the oats convert with only roasted barley and no base malts?

Scotty_g

Recipes 

No, you get the enzymes for conversion when the grain is sprouted and malted. The roast barley isn't sprouted, but more importantly it's pretty much charred. The oats will add starch, protein, etc. to contribute to mouthfeel and sweetness, but in this case it's going to be hazy beer from all the excess starch.

Adding a little base malt will do the trick. One pound of pilsner or 6-row will have plenty of diastatic power to handle a pound of oats. If it's further diluted with the roast barley, perhaps go to 2 lbs of pilsner/6-row.

__________________
Natural 20 Brewery

Yes, that *is* beer. Water, malt, hops, and yeast mean it's beer. Go ahead and try a glass...

Akneebreeated

Recipes 

From the little research I did I was assuming that there wouldn't be any conversion because of this.

Akneebreeated

Recipes 

What if I added a pound or so of the dark malt extract I used in the recipe prior to steeping grains and oats?

ericbw

Recipes 

Malt extract doesn't have enzymes. It's the sugar that was created in the conversion (then concentrated).

I think the way to get conversion for the oats is to mash it with a pound (maybe even a half pound) of a base malt like 2-row. I THINK 6-row might have more enzymes and this work better for this. You're just looking for enough enzyme to convert the starch.

You have to MASH it, not just steep, so an hour at 155 or something like that. Not the short steep for specialty grains.

Akneebreeated

Recipes 

Lesson learned, I don't mind the starches or the beer haze from not mashing. What I absolutely cant stand is losing an entire gallon to that sludge!