Robust Oat Porter

This is for those of you who are gluten sensitive but aren't deathly allergic to gluten. I say that because the base of this recipe is malted oats, which in storage with Thomas Fawcett may have been cross contaminated too a degree with barley. I brewed this about 4 months ago and didn't take great notes so I'll try to see what I can remember. The recipe for 5 gallons is as follows:
12 lbs Thomas Fawcett Malted Oats
1 lb Buckwheat Honey
1 lb Chocolate Roasted Millet (not malted)
1 lb Thomas Fawcett Malted Oats, roasted to deep black
10 oz Molasses
2 oz Kent Golding @ 60 min
1 Packet S-04

I milled all the grains together to a coarse consistency. I did BIAB and added the grains to 5.5 gallons of 154º water along with 2 tsp of amylase powder. I wrapped my pot and kept it at that temperature for 3+ hours (oats always need a while to convert). After the 3 hours, I raised the temperature of the water to 170º and mashed out for 20 minutes. I then pulled the bag out, squeezed as much water as I could, and raised the temp to boiling. From there, I brewed as normal adding the molasses at 60 min and the buckwheat honey at 5 min to preserve flavor. My measured OG was 1.052. I never got a FG because my hydrometer broke, but I suspected it to be around 1.013.

I haven't actually tasted this recently so I'm going off of memory. The flavor had prominent coffee notes with subtle chocolate undertones. A moderately strong licorice flavor came through, likely because of the molasses. As with most dark gluten free beers, there was a prominent, pleasant roastiness. It fooled my regular beer drinking friends. I'd definitely brew this again. If I were to do so, I'd cut back a bit on the molasses, take out a pound or two of oats, and added a half pound of dark belgian candi syrup.

Interestng recipe. I like those flavors. EKG and molasses are my standbys.

How long to settle in secondary? I tried a mostly-oats GF recipe that took months to clarify. I used the oats for body, flavor, and color after roasting. 4# of oats of various roasts. And 4# of table sugar for 'base'.

Have to second the Thomas Fawcett oat malt, it sure is great for those that aren't bothered by it. I have had great luck with Golden Naked Oats too, though I'm not sure they'd fit well into this porter.

I haven't tried the Golden Naked Oats. How do they differ in flavor from the Thomas Fawcett?

I don't use a secondary, but I let it ferment and settle in the primary for about a month. I'd be wary of using 4 lbs of sugar as a your "base malt" with no maltodextrin. It seems like it'd dry out to much. That is what I like about the oats. It makes a relatively inexpensive gluten free beer and provides way more body than a simple sugar. Oats leave a fair amount to the final gravity. I'd like to play around with different roasts of oats though and make a more complex porter. I'm always surprised at the amount of enzymes in the malted oats. Though they do not have enough diastatic power to convert any adjuncts, they have enough to convert themselves with a long mash and amylase.

Golden Naked Oats have a kind of fruity-sweet-nut flavor. Most describe it as "berry". I used both golden naked oats and fawcett oat malt in my gluten free graff (which I happen to be enjoying as I type here) and it turned out fantastic. Worth noting that most say to use golden naked oats very sparingly, I used like 4 times as much as recommended and I think it was great.

I suppose a little hop adjustment would allow the golden naked oats to fit into most anything come to think of it, and they might help balance some sorghum syrup. I'll have to try that now...

As far as table sugar, don't do it! It's just not worth it. Not amount of maltodextrin is going to clean up the mess from all that sucrose. Malto will help clean up some of the body issues we end up with as GF brewers, but IMO table sugar is one of the worst adjuncts. Try some brown rice syrup, rice syrup solids, sorghum syrup (a little sorghum is often a good thing, a lot is usually bad), some candi syrup, etc. A combination is going to give you a more rounded flavor and prevent a single ingredient from having its way with your brew.

Link to my Oats and Sugar recipe, etc: <https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/gf-beer-malted-oats-sugar-192369/> Five gallon batch, 4# oats 4# sugar.

My thought was "Sugar is no problem for wine brewing, why should it be a problem in beer? ". And I proved that point o my own satisfaction with that batch. I think the HBSs are selling us a billl of goods on the down side of usign sugar to brew beer. It just glucose and fructose linked, and is used to make Belgian syrup. No problem there eh? 60¢/lb for 100% converted sugar, vs 2# of base at $1.50, 60¢ vs $3.

And I'm going to guess that the oats have plenty of body to make up for the pure sugar with no body. I'm going to take a stab that the usually amount of ats for addding to an aotmeal stout is probably less then my guesstimate of 1/3 of the grain bill.

Anyway, I see by re-reading that recipe that it did clear in a month in the primary, plus a couple weeks in secondary. Slower than barley, but not excessive.

I brewed/posted that 2 years ago. There seems to be more options available today, like rice syrup, choice of malted oats (that was from Northern, I don't have any other notes but it was my only choice of the ONE available.