chillHayze
Well-Known Member
Hi all!
So I was steeping some grains for my most recent sweet stout...
I heated a gallon of water up to 160 and added the grains - consisting of 1 lb choc. malt, 1 lb flaked oats, and .5lb carapils. They steeped in there for 30 min and smelled delicious. I noticed the mixture was getting really sludgy - like oatmeal which is no mystery, having 1 lb of oats. It actually reminded me of a 'mash'.
So I was just going to add water and thin it out. But, I thought "why not sparge it with another 1.5 gallons of 170 degree water through a big strainer? Maybe I will convert some starches and that'd be really cool!" So I recirculated using a convaluted method with 4 different pots and 2 strainers. Boy did it smell excellent with the chocolate and oats in there!
I collected about 2 gallons of liquid in the brewpot and put it to the heat. About 10 min later, before adding any DME, I got some hotbreak boiling over which I did not expect. I have never seen this in my other 6 batches. This led me to believe that my method had actually converted some starches, albiet at a low efficiency. I added 6 lbs amber DME after that break subsided along with the hops and .5 lb lactose and boiled for an hour, getting the hot break for that as well.
OG for the extract batch was supposed to be 1.070 but mine was only 1.050 but I topped off the fermenter with cold bottled water and in retrospect my reading may not have been accurate. I drank the hydrometer thief of the wort and it was the soooo good - like chocolate milk with a hint of barley.
Can anyone speculate as to if my on-the spot mash method worked or not? I thought the hot break was a dead giveaway but I have never used oats before so perhaps that may have caused it?
So I was steeping some grains for my most recent sweet stout...
I heated a gallon of water up to 160 and added the grains - consisting of 1 lb choc. malt, 1 lb flaked oats, and .5lb carapils. They steeped in there for 30 min and smelled delicious. I noticed the mixture was getting really sludgy - like oatmeal which is no mystery, having 1 lb of oats. It actually reminded me of a 'mash'.
So I was just going to add water and thin it out. But, I thought "why not sparge it with another 1.5 gallons of 170 degree water through a big strainer? Maybe I will convert some starches and that'd be really cool!" So I recirculated using a convaluted method with 4 different pots and 2 strainers. Boy did it smell excellent with the chocolate and oats in there!
I collected about 2 gallons of liquid in the brewpot and put it to the heat. About 10 min later, before adding any DME, I got some hotbreak boiling over which I did not expect. I have never seen this in my other 6 batches. This led me to believe that my method had actually converted some starches, albiet at a low efficiency. I added 6 lbs amber DME after that break subsided along with the hops and .5 lb lactose and boiled for an hour, getting the hot break for that as well.
OG for the extract batch was supposed to be 1.070 but mine was only 1.050 but I topped off the fermenter with cold bottled water and in retrospect my reading may not have been accurate. I drank the hydrometer thief of the wort and it was the soooo good - like chocolate milk with a hint of barley.
Can anyone speculate as to if my on-the spot mash method worked or not? I thought the hot break was a dead giveaway but I have never used oats before so perhaps that may have caused it?
