Sub Quick oats for flaked oats? (dry stout to oatmeal stout?)

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sleepystevenson

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Hey guys.
I am doing my house dry stout tomorrow. Usually I use 2 3/4lbs of flaked barley (12 gal batch, 10% of total grain bill) in my recipe. However, the LHBS was out of it. Quick decision while there, I decided to go with 1 lb of flaked oats and 1 lb. of carafoam instead. However, after thinking about it for a bit, I have decided to up the flaked oat and eliminate the carafoam (there is already carapils in the recipe (10% total grain bill), so I don't really think I need it.) ..

I was thinking upping the flaked oats to the same level as was originally called for flaked barley (2 -3/4 lbs, 10% of grain bill). Does this sound OK?? Too much too little? Also, am I gonna have to vary my standard one step mash at 155 deg? Guess its gonna be an oatmeal stout instead of a dry stout, but oh well! That's one of the cool things about this hobby! Maybe I will like this one even better!

I have read in a few threads here that you can use quick oats directly in the mash like standard brewery flaked oats? Do you just measure them the at the same ratio as std brewery flaked oats? Another words, 1 lb. brewery oats = 1 lb. quaker quick oats?

Thanks, all!
 
I'd be worried about a stuck mash with 10% quick oats, but they are much the same as flaked.
 
Well, it wouldn't really be 10% quick oats, cause I do have one pound of flaked oats from the LHBS. So it would be 1 3/4 lbs quick oats, if that would make any difference. Definitely not interested in a stuck sparge tomorrow....
 
Flaked and quick oats are pretty much the same thing and I don't think they will behave much different. I do think flaked oats are gummier than flaked barley and more likely to cause a stuck mash. If I was going with that much oats I would add some rice hulls to the mash.
I don't see why it wouldn't be a great beer if you can sparge it.

Craig
 
It will work in terms of flavor but thats going to makes things pretty sticky. I have heard of people adding two pounds of quick oats and was able to complete the mash. Good luck!
 
Wanted to let you guys know how it went yesterday.

I used 1 lb. flaked oat from the LHBS and 1-3/4 lbs. quaker quick oats. (total oats, 10% 0f grain bill)

Everything worked out perfectly with the sparge. Braided manifold ice cube cooler. No problems at all in that respect. (No rice hulls used, either!)

The only problem is beersmith always seems to be low on my my dough in water temp. Yes, I have adjusted and entered all the appropriate data. Always seems to be about 5* low. I even pre-heat the mash tun and still came out low. (even though I had the mashtun temp set at 50* in beersmith's calcs) Thankfully there was just enough room in the tun to add about a half gallon of boiling water...which did help.

All in all, a good brew session. My brewhouse efficiency has stabilized at 65% +/-, which is fine by me. Nice to be consistant. Hit the OG perfectly.

Don't know how the taste will be on this oatmeal stout. I just subbed equal amount of flaked oats for the flaked barley in my standard dry stout recipe. Tasted good going into the fermenter. Nice and dry (for unfermented wort) and lots of body. Very dark and thick, with a slight oaty sheen. I used Wyeast Yeast Nutrient in the boil this time (1/2 of the recommended amount), which made a HUGE difference in take off time. I had steady bubbling in 4 hrs after pitching. 12 hrs after pitching, it was a full on machine gun style airlock bubble. I kinda figured that stuff would work well, as I used it on my yeast starter (for this brew) with similar results. Thanks for the advice, all!
 
I was going to say that 10% flaked oats should not give you any problems at all in your mash. My last oatmeal stout had 14% flaked oats in the bill, and I saw no hint of a problem at all.

Using more oats does hurt your head retention quite a bit, if that is important to you. It also can lead to an oaty sort of flavor when the beer is green. That fades after a couple weeks or so.


TL
 
TexLaw said:
Using more oats does hurt your head retention quite a bit, if that is important to you.

I've read arguments both ways on this. Oats have enough beta-glucans to help with the head retention, but they can also be high in oily lipids that may hurt it as well.

My feelings are this. The one time I used oats in a beer, I had a beautiful rocky head on it that I'd never gotten in a batch I'd brewed before. Of course that recipe had wheat in it as well.

I'm guessing instant oats have some of the lipids stripped from them during processing, so I'd be inclined to say that they won't hurt the head retention.
 
The recipe also had 10% (i think) carapils in it as well, so that should help with the head retention, no? I thought about using the carafoam too, but with that much carapils I didn't think it would be necessary. I couldn't replace the carapils w/ carafoam because the carapils was already mixed in with the base grain. We shall see!
 
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