rwillride17

Recipes 

Hello, I am relativly new to brewing. I was wondering which grains that get steeped need to be crushed or do all of them? I have some Black Patent, Chocolate, Special B, CaraRed, Crystal 40, and crystal 15 on order along with 25lbs of LME and 6lbs of WME and a bunch of hops/yeast. What grains do I need to crush?

also, I am making a stout using "Homebrew formulator" for my mac, and plan on adding .75lbs of oats to the steep. I remember reading that oats need to be steeped with some extract or sugar to work properly. Is this true, Please explain! I am gonna add some brown sugar to the recipe, will this work to steep the grains with?

-Ryan

sconnie

Recipes 

from what i understand, you should crush basically all the steeping grains.
also, i've read that oats can be steeped with crystal grains and work just fine, but i've never done a recipe with them. maybe someone who has tried it will give you some more help.

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currently brewing:
Meridian IPA
On Tap:
Bohemian Pils
Bottled:
-Baltic Porter
-Belgian Brettanomyces Amber

Yuri_Rage

Recipes 

Crush all of those grains. Most grains need to be crushed in order for you to get sugars/flavors/colors from them. Anything that's "flaked" does not, nor do rice hulls need crushing (though you shouldn't be adding rice hulls to an extract recipe). You should be able to steep the oats with the rest of your grains without adding any sugar.

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rwillride17

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Ok, thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate it.

Beer Weevel

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CRUSH THEM ALL!!!!!

Chairman Cheyco

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With all due respect guys, oats won't do anything unless they are mashed with a diastatic malt such as 2-row malt. Oats don't contain any enzymes and their proteins will not convert to sugars unless properly mashed.

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Once the wind has been broken, it cannot be fixed.

Baron von BeeGee

Recipes 

Precisely. Mashing oats with crystal or roasted grains won't do anything positive. They really need to be mashed with 2-row as CC says since many diastatic grains such as Munich and Vienna only have enough diastatic power to convert themselves and no other adjuncts.

The negative of adding oats to a recipe without diastatic grains is that you will introduce unconverted starch into your beer which will result in a permanent, unfixable chill haze and will also make your beer less biologically stable, i.e., more prone to infection.

sconnie

Recipes 

you're right, i meant to say it could be steeped, but it must be steeped with a base malt in a mini mash. crystal malt and oats alone won't do anything.

__________________
currently brewing:
Meridian IPA
On Tap:
Bohemian Pils
Bottled:
-Baltic Porter
-Belgian Brettanomyces Amber

rdwj

Recipes 

...interesting comments here - have a follow up question.

I'm making an extract wit from a BYO recipe that calls for steeping...

1/3 lb. flaked wheat
1/3 lb. flaked barley
1/3 lb. flaked oats
0.5 lb. cara-pils

Mistake?? If so, what can I substitute?

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On Tap: Whatever I just brewed (got sick of updating it)

Chairman Cheyco

Recipes 

Nope, not a mistake, you'll just need to add a pound of two-row to that and hold it with a half-gallon of water at about 153F for 45 minutes.

__________________
Once the wind has been broken, it cannot be fixed.