GF Beer - Malted Oats and Sugar

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casebrew

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I've tried Dragons Tale, tried malting my own sorghum even. It's still sorghum. So next I tried oat flakes fro, the health food store. The beer had possibilities, but what a glop of oat meal ended up in the compost bin!

I ordered Malted oats from Northern Brewers. And roasted some in the oven, on cookie sheets. @350° Remove at varying times to get different colors/flavors, and one pan was wetted before roasting, trying for a biscuit flavor. My Ideal beer is Flat Ass Tired.

Yeast is Nottingham, and hops usually EKG, as per my FAT recipe. I'm not one for citrus flavor. If I want beer, I'll drink beer. If I want citrus, I'll eat Marmalade. Which I do, especially over chocolate ice cream. YUM!

1# rice hulls, seemed to work.
2# malted oats
4# 'biscuit' oats
1# dark roasted oats
4# sugar
1/2c Molasses
Nottingham yeast
Willamett hops, didn't have EKG

4qt boiling water was too much, add two qts of tap water to drop to 122°- I'm not the best masher. Steep, dunno how long- 20 min?

Add 8 qt boiling water, mash at 150 long time as I recall, an hour wasn't enough, then I probably got impatient.

Sparge 3 gallons of 180°

Add sugar, molasses, 1 1/2 oz hops, boil an hour adding 1/2 oz hops at last 15 minutes.

OG 1060, 15.5 Brix, Brix today 5%, ABV- adequate, I guess 6% ?

Slow to settle all the oats, took a month in primary. A couple weeks in second, then kegged and force carb. Better from day one than sorghum beer, but not in the FAT family. Still and all, real beer. And drinkable by other beer lovers, which sorghum is NOT.
keggle.jpg
Pic next to the Corny I cut down to fit the refrigerator shelf. (A TIG in the garage comes in handy.) Seems the head has gone away. Oh well, still got good mouth feel.

And this recipe is CHEAP, because sugar instead of base malt cost 1/4 as much. Since I've become sensitive to glutens I've been making lots of fruit wines. They use LOTS of sugar, to good effect. Cost $1/gallon if I pick the fruit off the neighbor's trees. Wonderful stuff, but it just ain't beer when beer you need.

Comments?
 
4 lbs. of table sugar? I have to say I'm a bit skeptical; I just can't see the final product tasting all that great. Although perhaps better than sorghum ale...maybe. That much sugar in beer is a much different proposition than making fruit wine.
 
Why the rice hulls? Malted oats have TONS of husk material as I'm sure you've noticed. I personally wouldn't have used the sugar either - I've never found sugar (more than about 1lb) to do anything good for beer.

I've made a (nearly) all-oat beer before, and I quite like it. Definitely 'real' beer. I would definitely play around with it a lot more if I had an aversion to gluten. Crystal Oat Malt, anyone?
 
Also, there are serious concerns for those that are sensitive to gluten due to cross-contamination on the malted oats. Unless the oats are certified to be gf, then they almost certainly spent their time malting, kilning and milling while rolling around with a bunch of wheat.

While I agree that oats can make a better tasting beer, until we get a gluten-free maltster then I'm not willing to risk it.
 
I suppose it depends on what the level of sensitivity to gluten is. Certainly it would be 'low-gluten' if not 'gluten-free'
 
I suppose it depends on what the level of sensitivity to gluten is. Certainly it would be 'low-gluten' if not 'gluten-free'

If you were making it for yourself and were comfortable taking that risk-fine. But if others, who had celiac or a gluten sensitivity, were going to be drinking this- making a beer that is "low-gluten" is not an option. To be safe it should be truly gluten-free.
 
Some interesting tidbits...

Additionally, oats are frequently processed near wheat, barley and other grains, such that they become contaminated with other glutens. Because of this, the FAO's Codex Alimentarius Commission officially lists them as a crop containing gluten. Oats from Ireland and Scotland, where less wheat is grown, are less likely to be contaminated in this way

Thomas Fawcett & Sons LTD
EastField Lane
Castleford
West Yorkshire
WF10 4LE
Telephone: 01977 552460
Facsimile: 01977 519076

It really doesn't get much closer to scotland than yorkshire...anyone feel like calling T. Fawcett? :D
 
Thomas Fawcett & Sons LTD
EastField Lane
Castleford
West Yorkshire
WF10 4LE
Telephone: 01977 552460
Facsimile: 01977 519076
Group buy? What's the best way to split 6 tons* of grain?

Also while Oats would be awesome to have GF, can you really make a good beer with just oats? Most of the Oat Beer recipies I've seen use at absolute most 25% Oats and the rest is barley.

*random guess as to the minimum order size.
 
Also while Oats would be awesome to have GF, can you really make a good beer with just oats? Most of the Oat Beer recipies I've seen use at absolute most 25% Oats and the rest is barley.

It would taste a lot like biscuits or bread...you would probably want to thin out the taste with some sugar. I really think casebrew would be on to something great if we could get access to malted oats that were gluten free.

EDIT: I have reports that it actually tastes much like barley, just lighter. Maybe thinning is not the right approach. There are also beers that use this as the base grain.
 
For the record, Oat Malt can convert itself and has slightly more beta amylase than barley 2-row.
 
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/75-100-oat-beer-96795

At first I was really discouraged, making an all oat beer looked durned near impossible (but that's coming from people that can't even brew gf beer, so what do they know?). The biggest problem I see is that according to 'the website' the malted oats have no diastatic power, so I don't really see the reasons for malted oats over flaked oats.

However later in the thread:
I just happened to be in the bathroom and grabbed a random issue of Zymurgy to get things flowing. (I know, too much information). The July/August 2007 issue talks about brewing with oat malt and I remembered this post. Thomas Fawcett in Britain makes oat malt and it is imported into the US by North Country Malt.

The Thomas Fawcett variety does have enough diastic power for conversion and according to the article a 100% oat beer can and has been made. The biggest issue is the size of the oat kernel which is way smaller than barley, so you'd need to mill it with way smaller gap settings. The article also states that there will probably not be many enzymes left to convert specialty grains, so you'd need to go with a single malt beer or add some 2-row to help out. Lastly, the fact that they can self convert means that they would work well for steeping in an extract brew or you could partial mash.

Hope this helps out, now I'm intrigued on using oat malt for a beer as well.

And even later there's some more encouraging news:

Mike - Glad to see you figured out how to chill.

Everyone else - Some facts.

* 100% oat malt beers used to be fairly common in UK until about the turn of the 20th century.
* Fawcett's oat malt will make a hell of an oat-malt beer. I oughta know; I did one with 75%+ oat malt recently that turned out just fine. (Okay, it was an 'ale' ca. 1286 AD, but who's counting?) It has plenty of diastatic power, no matter what any website says.
* Oat malt does not, say again not require rice hulls, as it is a husked grain. Flaked oats in that proportion, well, yeah. But not oat malt. The corn itself is much less plump than even Pils malt, and will require narrowing of the mill gap to get a good crush. The husk:endosperm ratio is relatively high. Adding rice hulls will only increase the husk matter, increasing the possibility of increasing unwanted 'grainy' flavor effects.

That's about all. Don't fear oat malt. I'm finishing a glass of uncarbonated Tudor Hopp'd Beere with 25% oat malt, and it's goooooooood. (I love bottling day!)
 
I ninja'd you again, but leave yours this time because it contains much more detail. ;)

Besides the fact that it is probably contaminated with wheat and barley, I see no reason why this wouldn't work awesomely.
 
Weeelll, alls I know about gluten free in regards to oats is that oats don't bother me. And some beers don't either, I'm thinking the commercial filtering might take the proline chains out of some, but how do I know one from a deadly one? My problem isn't as much digestive as it is chest pain. Mild Anaphalactic shock?

So far as oat beer goes, I find it much superior to sorghum beer. It's not Flat Ass Tired (FAT) by any means, but better than any GF beer I've bought. A hop head could throw in a pound of hops and be hoppy.

So far as sugar goes, I've been brewing lots of fruit wines, recipes from Jack Keller's page. Sugar is to fruit wines as base malt is to beer. Tons of it. I'd guess 60% of sugars, at least. And nobody doesn't like my wines. Loquat, plum and peach are awesome. Apple and pear to so much, and homebrew grape wine sucks in comparison. But I'm thinking the HBS is fibbing about the detrimental effects of sugar in beer. Hey, it's just glucose and fructose. Sort of similar to corn sugar, no? Might need to be aged more, but wines and this batch of oat beer needed that anyhow.
 
Weeelll, alls I know about gluten free in regards to oats is that oats don't bother me. And some beers don't either, I'm thinking the commercial filtering might take the proline chains out of some, but how do I know one from a deadly one? My problem isn't as much digestive as it is chest pain. Mild Anaphalactic shock?

So far as oat beer goes, I find it much superior to sorghum beer. It's not Flat Ass Tired (FAT) by any means, but better than any GF beer I've bought. A hop head could throw in a pound of hops and be hoppy.

So far as sugar goes, I've been brewing lots of fruit wines, recipes from Jack Keller's page. Sugar is to fruit wines as base malt is to beer. Tons of it. I'd guess 60% of sugars, at least. And nobody doesn't like my wines. Loquat, plum and peach are awesome. Apple and pear to so much, and homebrew grape wine sucks in comparison. But I'm thinking the HBS is fibbing about the detrimental effects of sugar in beer. Hey, it's just glucose and fructose. Sort of similar to corn sugar, no? Might need to be aged more, but wines and this batch of oat beer needed that anyhow.

I'd say Fruit is to base malt and sugar is to corn sugar.

The real reason why most people don't use gobs of table sugar in beers is because of a reported 'cidery' taste, which wouldn't be a big deal in a fruit wine which already tastes sort of fruity. Personally, I have never found this to be the case, but I haven't gotten near the amount added in fruit wine either.
 
I'd say Fruit is to base malt and sugar is to corn sugar.

The real reason why most people don't use gobs of table sugar in beers is because of a reported 'cidery' taste, which wouldn't be a big deal in a fruit wine which already tastes sort of fruity. Personally, I have never found this to be the case, but I haven't gotten near the amount added in fruit wine either.

This batch of beer took long time to ferment, perhaps, as I've read elsewhere, the cideryness dissipates with age. If it ever was there.
 
Did anyone ever get any confirmation from Fawcetts and Sons if their malted oats are gluten free?
 
Andrew, funny you should necromance this thread the same day I too log back in.

Oats have a gluten. But many people are not bothered by it.

To make a short story long, 'gluten' is two proteins, gliadin and horedin. Gliadin is the culprit, bi only indirectly. Seems that you intestines beak it down into about six different intermediate umm combinations? Any one, or more, of those six can be the culprit. Depending on which one is the root of your probs, Oat Gluten my not make that one, so oats is GF as for as you are concerned. But I guess you need to trial a bowl of oatmeal to see? Is that risk worth the gain?

But I am not a gastroenterologist. The closest I come to one is playing an Amateur Gynocologist on the internet. Open wide and say ooooooo....
 
Andrew, funny you should necromance this thread the same day I too log back in.

Oats have a gluten. But many people are not bothered by it.

To make a short story long, 'gluten' is two proteins, gliadin and horedin. Gliadin is the culprit, bi only indirectly. Seems that you intestines beak it down into about six different intermediate umm combinations? Any one, or more, of those six can be the culprit. Depending on which one is the root of your probs, Oat Gluten my not make that one, so oats is GF as for as you are concerned. But I guess you need to trial a bowl of oatmeal to see? Is that risk worth the gain?

But I am not a gastroenterologist. The closest I come to one is playing an Amateur Gynocologist on the internet. Open wide and say ooooooo....

I've read information on several sides of this debate (some saying that oats contain a protein which bothers some % of celiac sufferers, some saying that certain varieties of oats contain a protein which bothers celiac sufferers, and some saying that oats themselves are not a problem but that they are often contaminated).

I'm not a scientist (well, not a food scientist anyway), but I do know that studies have shown that contamination of commercial oats is more the standard than the exception (for example this article found that 88% of oats in Canada were contaminated).

So, my thought would be that if you want to try some gluten-free oats, and see if they give you a reaction, that's a good start, but I would highly doubt that malted oats would have been made from specially grown and processed oats. If the company would have gone to the trouble of obtaining GF oats to malt, they'd probably be advertising it...(of course, I'd love to get word from them that they actually do source GF oats...)
 
Yeah I can do the GF oats... but I was more wondering if the Oats from Fawcett and Sons are grown in the same fields or next to fields with wheat. It isnt the oats that bother most celiacs, its the cross contamination. A lot of the time Irish oats are gluten free because they are not grown by wheat, while US grown oats arent. Of course, I guess when Fawcett and Sons malt the oats etc it might come in contact with glutenous agents as well...
 
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