Oats

Hello all. Great to be on your forum.

I have recently acquired a 50# bag of whole oats. They were meant as horse feed and seem to be viable and able to germinate. My question is, how do you malt oats? There is no information online on this subject. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Whole oats, steel-cut oats (groats) or rolled oats ("quick cooking" oats) require cooking in order to gelatinize the starch and
make it available for the enzymes. This means you'll have an an extra step when you mash.

I've always used rolled oats. My understanding is that whole oats can take an awfully long time to thoroughly cook. How long, I'm not sure. Rolled oats have been steamed and passed through rollers. The steaming softens the grain so that the rolling flattens instead of breaking them; it also partially gelatinizes the starch. This is why you can eat rolled oats without cooking them.

Palmer has more info here and has has a recipe for an oatmeal stout, if you scroll down here. Hope this helps!

Oats don't malt well, they tend to rot. Crack the grains and cook for about 2 hours before adding to the mash.