brewhouse Stout kit

[justincdst]

Hey all, Ive been playing with kits for a while now and modified pretty much all of Brewhouses and most of Coopers kits into something better. I picked up a Brewhouse Stout kit last week (didnt know they made one!) and was told to steep about a 1lb of rolled oats and was recommended to use S04. Cool, no problem then, until I came on line and started reading up on recipes which are few and far between using this kit. Do the oats have to be steeped with a malt in order to get the sugars out or am i wasting time just doing the oats on their own. I was also planning on tossing in a Vanilla bean and possibly some coffee or coco nibs to the secondary. Anyone else every play with this kit or have any advice. Oats are one thing Ive never played with yet.

 

[RM-MN]

Yes and no. The rolled oats have two purposes in brewing. One is to add sugars which do require some base malt to convert the starch to sugar. Since you are brewing an extract kit you won't have a base malt included. You can add some if you wish to but it isn't necessary because the other purpose of the oats is to provide the slick mouthfeel. That can be accomplished without mashing. Unconverted oats will add starches to your beer which will not clear but stouts are so dark you will never see that starch haze.

 

[justincdst]

So do I manage it the same way. Steep about 1lb for x time at 170ish then boil for twenty and add it to the extract? Its for my own use so I don't really watch for clarity but like you said, it's a stout. If I were to add coffee beans or nibs or a vanilla bean would I do that right in the primary or wait until after fermentation?

 

[RM-MN]

I might boil the oats first. If you make oatmeal you may have noticed that it makes a gooey liquid as it cooks. That is what you want for the oatmeal stout because it will give the stout the slick mouthfeel. Once cooked you can add that oatmeal to your steeping grains and let it steep for the half hour. Your instructions probably tell you to not squeeze the bag of steeping grains but there is no real reason not to and that might help get the gooey liquid from the oatmeal out. I'd suggest you steep at 152 instead of 170. Why? Because at that temp the enzymes will be converting starches to sugar if you have any base malt in the steep. If no base malt is present, it will just a steep but it will still be good practice for when you go to do a partial mash or all grain. If you can consistently hit 152 for a steep, you can do all grain.

 

[justincdst]

Ok that's a good bit more to consider. I do have a few kegs set a side that will be cut open and used for a future all grain set up but that's a summer project. I'll probably give that a try sometime this week and follow up with the post.
Cheers