Oatmeal Stout - extract

My friend and i are trying to brew an oatmeal stout, we've tried 2 times but keep screwing it up somehow.
We keep on finishing with a wort amount of 1.2-1.8 gallons, we start with a 3 gallon boil, the recipe asks for a target of 2.5 gallons at end.

We are steeping all grains in a bag at 150 degrees for 30 min (in 3 gallons water), removing the oats/grains, bringing the wort to a boil, then adding our first round of hops @ boil, we boil that for a total of 60 minutes...adding more hops at finishing.
We are keeping a decent rolling boil for the most part, trying to keep foam as a non factor...
We also sometimes keep the pot lid on and off...does it matter?

Why are we ending up with such a small amount of wort?
Should we keep the boil lower?
Are the oats sucking up all our wort?
Should we just start with more water?

Any advice would be awesome

The steeped grains are going to absorb some water. When mashing, I usually account for a loss of 0.5 quarts of liquid per pound of grain. I would assume steeping would result in something similar. This could account for some of the loss.

Also, you should probably boil with the lid completely off to prevent DMS buildup in the beer. See, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/DMS

Okay, here's the list:

1. It's not really possible to brew an Oatmeal Stout by steeping. You must mash oats of any type to get any real effect. That said, mini-mashing is laughably easy to do. If you're a steeping brewer, you can do it - all you need is a decent thermometer, available in the "kitchen toys" aisle of a supermarket, and DeathBrewer's Easy Partial Mash instructions right here on HBT.

2. Always leave the lid off the kettle when boiling. If you're really worried about boilover, keep a plant-mister full of cold water handy. When the foam gets dangerously close to making a mess, spritz the foam liberally with cold water. That'll usually knock it down enough.

3. Boil as vigorously as your burner will allow. You need a good, rolling, violent boil to get all the goodness out of your hops - especially with a concentrated wort (adding all the extract to the kettle at start of boil).

4. Steeping grains will retain some liquor. When I steep, I just fill my electric tea kettle and fire it up when I start the steep. When the steep time is over, I pull the grain bag and rest it on a colander across the mouth of the kettle and "sparge" the grain bag with hot liquor from my tea kettle. It sounds to me like you're starting with 3 gallons, removing the specialty grains, and not bringing your kettle volume back up to 3 gallons before the boil. "Sparging" with my method will allow you to get back up to 3 gallons.

5. You will lose boil volume to boil-off as steam. You can account for that in your liquor calculations. Observe closely how much you lose. Note the following: A., The volume at start of boil; B., volume at end of boil; and C., the time boiled. If you start with 3 gallons and end with 2 after an hour's boil, your boil-off percentage is 33% per hour. If you're topping off in the fermenter, boil-off rate doesn't really matter anyway.

Cheers,

Bob

thanks jlem and bob,
your advice is priceless, we just want to get this right at this point..., or shall i say we just want to drink our beer!!!

ok, so we will definietly make sure to bring our wort back to a full three gallons after we steep.

Now,...for future reference...Is the wort to water ratio always 50/50?
If we get a finished wort of 1.8 gallons and we add water to make it 5 gallons at the end, we are obviously watering down our wort and taking the possiblity of a high alcohol level out of the equation...right?

And if I'm right with that statement, if we do brew another batch in the future and fall short of 2.5 gallons of wort,...well i'm guessing we should add a gallon of water to our wort at a time and check our hydrometer readings between each gallon of water added...right???..so we dont water it down?

Also, my buddy and i have both been readng a bunch of books and we feel if some of these sources leave out pretty important details...like for instance, when do i add gypsum? Neither of us can find that info anywhere in any book..it just says to add it but it doesnt say when...

When we steep, we are trying to retain a temperature of 150 but it doesnt say if we should keep it on very low heat or dont even heat it at all. Usually the temp falls quickly if we dont heat it so we have to keep reheating the steep so it doesnt drop below 150...is that right


thanks guys
Brian

Ozzie53 said:

Now,...for future reference...Is the wort to water ratio always 50/50?

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No. I don't advise going below half the total brew length (2.5 gallons for a five-gallon batch), and advise to boil as much of the finished volume as is practical.

If we get a finished wort of 1.8 gallons and we add water to make it 5 gallons at the end, we are obviously watering down our wort and taking the possiblity of a high alcohol level out of the equation...right?

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Well...yeah. Kinda how concentrated-boil extract brewing works.

And if I'm right with that statement, if we do brew another batch in the future and fall short of 2.5 gallons of wort,...well i'm guessing we should add a gallon of water to our wort at a time and check our hydrometer readings between each gallon of water added...right???..so we dont water it down?

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Look, you're going to lose volume in the boil. As you lose volume, the wort becomes more concentrated. You're not boiling off malt sugar, you're boiling off water. So if you add that water back, you're not watering anything down.

Second, if you're brewing for a five-gallon recipe, you top off to five gallons no matter how concentrated the boil. I guess you could see it as watering down the wort, because that's precisely what it is. But it doesn't have the negative connotation you're implying.

Also, my buddy and i have both been readng a bunch of books and we feel if some of these sources leave out pretty important details...like for instance, when do i add gypsum? Neither of us can find that info anywhere in any book..it just says to add it but it doesnt say when...

Click to expand...

You don't really need to worry about that. Some old recipes specify mineral water treatment like gypsum. You shouldn't add such stuff willy-nilly; you should only add it if you need it. So if you have a water composition report that says you need it, use it. If not, bollocks to it.

When we steep, we are trying to retain a temperature of 150 but it doesnt say if we should keep it on very low heat or dont even heat it at all. Usually the temp falls quickly if we dont heat it so we have to keep reheating the steep so it doesnt drop below 150...is that right

Click to expand...

Yup. Kinda have to.

Cheers,

Bob

The more you can boil, the better. That said, I have made several 5 gallon batches where I only boiled 2.5 gallons, ending with 2 gallons after evaporation and topping off with 3 gallons of water. The beers have been fine, if not spectacular (though one of them did win a silver medal at a local competition). I now do 3 gallon batches and go with either partial mash or full, all-grain. My beers have improved - I think because 1) I use less extract and 2) I boil closer to my final batch volume.

Regardless of what you do, if your recipe is for a 5 gallon batch, you need to end with 5 gallons for it "work". If this means adding 3+ gallons of top-off water, so be it. If you add less water so that your final volume is less than what the recipe calls for, your beer will be more concentrated - higher ABV, higher bitterness, more intense hop flavors, etc. This isn't saying the beer will be bad per se, but it certainly will not be the beer your recipe is designed to make. It's just like adding the amount of powdered lemonade called for to make 1/2 gallon into a single glass of water. The amount of sugars will be the same, but the concentration will be way off and the flavor is more "intense".

I agree about the gypsum. Don't use it unless you know you need it and know how much to add. Most water will make good beer. Adding too much gypsum could ruin it.

Just to reiterate too - steeping oats is not effective. If I were you, I would throw 1/2 lb of 2-row into the steep with the oats. The 2-row will provide the enzymes needed to convert the starches in the oats into sugars. Holding the steep at 150F for 30 minutes should be sufficient to get it mostly, if not entirely, converted.

Bob said:

3. Boil as vigorously as your burner will allow. You need a good, rolling, violent boil to get all the goodness out of your hops - especially with a concentrated wort (adding all the extract to the kettle at start of boil).

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I have to disagree with this one. All you need is a good rolling boil. My stove, cranked on high can boil the living CRAP out of the wort, even starting with 4 gallons on a partial boil. If you have it going to high you're going to increase caramelization of the sugars, which isn't always wanted (though it can be right tasty in some). No need to have the wort boiling so hard it's leaping out of the kettle. Just a nice steady roll is what you want to shoot for.

Oats can definitely soak up a lot of liquid, so if you're starting out with three gallons and steeping oats, I'm not surprised you came up a bit short of your 2.5 gallon target, depending on how much oats you had.

+1 on partial mashes being easy as pie. If you're really hitting 150 degrees on your steep and maintaining it, you're already doing all you need to do. I didn't see the recipe posted, so you might already be doing a partial mash if there's some 2-row in there with the oats.

ok, again thanks..
We are defiitely taking all your advice into consideration and will apply it to our next brew...this site is great!

the reason why we were thinking about the 50/50 ratio is that when we did brew the oatmeal stout and came up with way less than 2.5 gallons,...
we did add water to make the final wort 5 gallons...which in turn made our stout 1.01 gravity the first time we brewed, and then 1.025 the second time we brewed,..thats obviously not the target gravity.
...and the final wort looked like more of a light colored IPA than an oatmeal stout.
I guess we'll just have to give it another whirl and as i said apply your advice to our process...as well as keep more of a heads up on the water levels
I'll keep you guys posted as we go along
Brian

Ozzie53 said:

ok, again thanks..
We are defiitely taking all your advice into consideration and will apply it to our next brew...this site is great!

the reason why we were thinking about the 50/50 ratio is that when we did brew the oatmeal stout and came up with way less than 2.5 gallons,...
we did add water to make the final wort 5 gallons...which in turn made our stout 1.01 gravity the first time we brewed, and then 1.025 the second time we brewed,..thats obviously not the target gravity.
...and the final wort looked like more of a light colored IPA than an oatmeal stout.
I guess we'll just have to give it another whirl and as i said apply your advice to our process...as well as keep more of a heads up on the water levels
I'll keep you guys posted as we go along
Brian

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Can you post your complete recipe? With those gravities and color it sounds like you do not have a recipe suitable for 5 gallons. If you post the types and amounts of grains and extracts you are using, we can probably help you make something closer to what you are looking for.

yes, i can definitely post it, i gotta grab it from my buddy who i might see on saturday, so i will try to get it up this weekend
thanks
Brian

Good discussion, all. I am confused by people saying you cannot brew a stout without at least partial mash. Would someone mind explaining more?

So far I have tried Coopers extract-only, extract and hops kits, and extract/hops/steeping grains kits. I am open to partial mash if I have to, but otherwise I am not really interested in that technique at this time since I am happy with my results.

I have only brewed beginners ales and wheat ales, but I am looking to go darker soon. Are there certain types of darker beer that are easier for me to make (ie no partial mash) and be happy with? Other types I should stay away from? All advice appreciated.

MikeRoBrew1 said:

Good discussion, all. I am confused by people saying you cannot brew a stout without at least partial mash. Would someone mind explaining more?

So far I have tried Coopers extract-only, extract and hops kits, and extract/hops/steeping grains kits. I am open to partial mash if I have to, but otherwise I am not really interested in that technique at this time since I am happy with my results.

I have only brewed beginners ales and wheat ales, but I am looking to go darker soon. Are there certain types of darker beer that are easier for me to make (ie no partial mash) and be happy with? Other types I should stay away from? All advice appreciated.

Click to expand...

You can brew a stout no problem without doing a mash (or partial mash). It is the oatmeal part of the equation that is problematic. Specialty grains like crystal and chocolate and black malts have already had their sugars converted via the malting and heating process. When you steep these, you are really just dissolving those sugars into your wort - along with flavor and color compounds. Standard oatmeal has not been malted, so the enzymes that convert starches to sugars have not been activated - so oatmeal has not had its starches converted to sugars. When you steep oatmeal, all you are doing is adding starches (and maybe some proteins) to the wort. You aren't getting anything fermentable out of it. And honestly,I'm not sure exactly what you are adding to the wort - maybe the proteins and starches will be sufficient to give it that thicker, slick mouthfeel one looks for in an oatmeal stout.

Anyways, if you steep or mash with some base malt, the base malt has the enzymes, which will then convert the starches in the
oatmeal to sugars.

If you want to try your hand at a darker beer without doing any mashing, go for a standard dry stout - you can get the sugars from the extract and the flavors and color from steeping (as well as some additional sugars).

Beat me to it.

There's really nothing steeping oatmeal will impart other than fats, oils and starches. It might contribute to the slick mouthfeel, but not as far as I can tell in my own experiments and tasting others' beers. In fact, the fats and oils can have a deleterious effect on foam.

I didn't mean to imply you can't brew Stout at all without mashing. You just can't brew proper Oatmeal or Dry Irish Stout without mashing, because they both require flaked grains which must be mashed.

Cheers!

Bob

Awesome, thanks guys! I happened to stop at my LHBS last nite and they confirmed what you said as well. Thanks for the added explanation of what happens when steeping malted grains. I will happily save the oatmeal stout for a slightly later date when i get the large grain bag and thermometer. Until then I have other things to buy. Really wanting that turkey fryer, along with more buckets and cornies. Picked up kits / steeping grains for American Dream (cream) ale and Magellans IPA from brewngrow.

BIG Ms. Understanding Oatmeal Stout

8oz Muntons Chocolate
8oz Toasted Oats
8oz Muntons Black Patent
6oz Muntons Crystal
4oz Breiss Special Roast Malt
5lb Munton Extract Light
4oz Brown Sugar
1.5oz Williamette Hops (4.8% AA)
.25oz Mt Hood Hop Pellets
1 tsp Irish Moss

-Crack All Malt using rolling pin
-Toast Oats in oven at 350 degrees for 60 min, stirring them around every 15 minutes
-When oats are done put all grains and oats in bag and steep in 2.5 gallons of water at 150 degrees for 30 minutes
-Do not squeeze bag, yet...stir it around well, squeezing the bag will release tannins that will hinder the taste of your beer
-After 30 min of steeping, sparge the grain bag with 1 gallon of 150 degree water, discard bag of grains
-Bring wort to a boil
-At boil, add 5lb of Muntons light malt extract, brown sugar, and 1.5oz of Williamette Hops
-At 45 (45 minutes into the boil, 15 minutes left) Minutes add .25oz Mt. Hood Hop Pellets and 1 tsp Irish Moss
-Stop boil after 60 minutes
-Chill with wort chiller for 20 minutes
-Add wort to Glass Carboy and add water to make your beer equal 5.125 gallons
-Pitch yeast at 70 degrees

OK, this is the Oatmeal stout recipe that we used 2 times,...the first batch our wort equalled about 1.2 gallons and was very syrupy and concentrated. The hydrometer reading was 1.01 at 64 degrees, obviously after the water was added

The 2nd time we tried it we got a finish wort of about 1.8 gallons....the wort wasnt as conentrated, but it was still very thick, our hydrometer reading was 1.025 at about 70 degrees, meaning its really about 1.026....
The target gravity for this was i believe 1.072...as you can see we are way off and we are totally perplexed...how can we be off!?!?!?! We got this recipe out of a book and we followed everything to the T.

In addition, we did a brown ale this weekend and came across similar results,....very thick, around a gallon of syruppy wort and the hydrometer readings were way low.... I will list that recipe in the next post, maybe you guys can see that we are doing something wrong...?

Stonewall Sweet Brown Ale

2oz Centennial Hops (9.1 % AA)
1oz Kent Goldings Hops
3.3 lbs Coopers Amber Malt Extract
4 lbs Alexander's Pale Malt
1 lb Dry Muntons Amber Malt
8oz Muntons Crystal 46-64L
6oz Chocolate 338-432L
English Edinburgh Yeast

-Crack all grains and throw in 2 gallons of water
-Bring to 168 degrees and cover wort and steep for 20 min (we were able to retain this temperature by covering our pot and putting a towel on top to give it somewhat of a seal)
-After 20 minutes heat, strain grains and bring to a boil
-At boil add:
1.25oz Centennial Hops
1lb dry muntons
Alexander Pale Extract
Coopers Extract
-45 minutes into the boil add .75oz Centennial Hops
-58 minutes into boil add 1 oz Kent Golding Hops
-After 60 minutes turn off heat and chill with wort chiller
-After chilled add to carboy and add water to make a total of 5 gallons
-pitch yeast at 60 degrees

Our wort was again about 1.2 gallons and it was very thick and syrupy...

We took the hydrometer reading at 60 degrees and it was 1.03...which was....again....very low

We did the experiment of adding water to the carboy making thew wort 4 gallons,...the hydrometer readng was about 1.032 (take into consideration the temp of the wort was about 70-74 degrees when we did this,...which i believe adds about .002 to your reading)
When we added another gallon of water (to make it a 5 gallon wort) and chilled it to about 60 degrees the hydrometer reading was about 1.03

Again, we were off with the target gravity...any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
thanks
Brian

Well, I put your oatmeal stout recipe into Beer Smith and for a 5 gallon recipe, it came up with only 1.040 if the extract is liquid and only 1.048 if the extract is dry. So, even if everything else goes as it should, you'll never get 5 gallons of 1.072 wort out of this recipe. What book did you get this from? Double check that you got the amounts and volumes correct.

A few other things jump out. If you are crushing your own grain with a rolling pin, I suspect that you are not getting a fine enough crush. If so, you will not be extracting as many sugars. So this will also lower your gravity. Also, the oats and special roast need to be mashed, so steeping these will not add ANY sugars.

And lastly, when you top off the wort with water, you probably are not getting everything mixed thoroughly before you take you sample for the gravity reading. When you add the water on top, the wort tends to stay stratified - with the dense, sugary liquid on the bottom and the less dense, fresh water on top. When you take your sample, you get more fresh water than wort and your reading is low.

The Brown Ale recipe is more straight forward. It is mostly extract and should give you 5 gallons of 1.062 wort. I suspect that your reading is off because of the stratification I mentioned above. With this much extract, it is tough to miss your OG - you are simply dissolving the sugars in the extract into water - there's no real way to not get all the sugars (unless you don't use the proper amount of extract). The steeped grains will add some additional sugars, but not much.