Oatmeal stout

I am brewing an oatmeal stout tomorrow and want to get some feedback on the grain bill. I have done only two other beers and for my tastes, turned out fine but not great. I want this stout to be perfect.

6# Gold malt extract
8 oz flaked oats
12oz chocolate malt
16 oz crystal 60
4 oz roasted barley
1 oz Brewers Gold hops
Irish ale #1084

What can my boil size be and keep the OG? How long can I steep the grains? I have a 5 gallon kettle. It is a kit from a LHBS, should I just follow the directions? Thanks

With a five gallon kettle just boil as much as you can, then top off to five gallons with filtered (or boiled and cooled) water. Steep your grains at around 155 deg for 30 minutes.

I love oatmeal stouts. But I've never had good luck brewing a decent one. Oats are hard to work with. To use them correctly they need to be mashed, not just steeped. They make a mess of things, too...gooey film in the grain bag that makes draining a pain. Also, the lipids in the oats can destroy head retention. I might hold off on the oats just to guarantee a solid beer.

But...I could just be doing something wrong when I use them. There are plenty of extract oatmeal stout recipes out there. If you want to experiment with oats, then throw them in!

Is it possible to steep the oats separate? I like the ideas you have.
Cheers!

Good thinking. I suppose you could put the oats in a different grain bag than your other grains while you're steeping. That way the gooey oats wouldn't cut off the extraction from the other grains. But if you only have one grain bag, you're probably fine just putting all the grains in together.

Good luck!

Oats need to be mashed. Steeping them will accomplish nothing. You may as well leave them out.

The grains and oats are together in one bag, so I will give it a go. I will make beer or a big mess, either way, it will be done with grains and oats together.

I've seen lots of extract kits that just call for the oats to be steeped. Should these kits be ignored since steeping oats doesn't to any good?

This worries me because I have two Oatmeal Stouts fermenting right now and both of them used steeped oats. The first I bought an Irish Stout recipe from my local LHBS and they told me to buy a pound of oats and steep them in a separate grain bag/sock. The second I bought an Oatmeal Stout recipe from a different LHBS which came with a pound of oats and then I bought another pound of oats and steep two pounds for that batch. The first is in secondary right now and the second is still fermenting, guess I'll have to let you know how it goes.

ScottRMitch said:

This worries me because I have two Oatmeal Stouts fermenting right now and both of them used steeped oats.

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It won't hurt anything. The beer just won't have that silky mouthfeel that oatmeal stouts have. It'll still taste the same.

ScottRMitch said:

This worries me because I have two Oatmeal Stouts fermenting right now and both of them used steeped oats. The first I bought an Irish Stout recipe from my local LHBS and they told me to buy a pound of oats and steep them in a separate grain bag/sock. The second I bought an Oatmeal Stout recipe from a different LHBS which came with a pound of oats and then I bought another pound of oats and steep two pounds for that batch. The first is in secondary right now and the second is still fermenting, guess I'll have to let you know how it goes.

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Great I will be a second batch as well with the aforementioned separate steeped oats.