Hey guys, I'm new to the art of fermenting whole grains for distillation, up until now just used various types of sugar, somtimes adding malt extracts, looking for some info on converting sugar to starch, specifically with oats, as I for some reason have a stupid amount of oats hanging around my kitchen, so as I understand it I need to basically create a mash with my grain of choice and cook it at around 65c (150f) for a couple of hours I'm curious if this can be done dry method, eg, lightly toasting the oats, then lowering the temp, or would rehydration be required at this point anyway? I live really remotely in Australia at the moment and am unable to source the enzymes that convert during fermentation so qm learning how to do it old school, Any beginners advice hlgreatly appreciated!
Converting starches
- Thread starter LeChef
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Starches need to be gelatinized before enzymes can access them, this requires water. You can Google the gelatinization temp for whatever starch you're using, rolled oats require less temp and time than steel-cut, then after they are 'cooked', you'll need to add the proper enzymes and hold it at the recommended temps long enough for the enzymes to do their job. I think you'll want to use gluco and both alpha- and beta amylase.
What form are the oats that you have in? If you don't have access to enzymes, or malted barley, then you will have to malt the oats to create the enzymes. Malting requires oat kernels that can be grown, as malting requires you to sprout the oats. If the oats you have available have been treated to make them non-viable, then you are out of luck. I don't have any experience with home malting, but @bracconiere does. Oat starch will gelatinize below 150°F (65°C), so oat malt can be mashed at the same temperatures used for mashing barley. Mashing is the process where amylase enzymes convert starch to sugar.
A quick internet search found this (attached) paper which gives some details on optimal conditions for malting oats.
Good luck.
Brew on
if you can't get the enzymes, then as doug said...your going to have to get some sort of sprout able grain with enough enzymes, like wheat, barley, oats...i think sorgum? millet? i don't know what the geling temp of those are though, so not sure if you would be able to use them for mashing....i'm not sure on this but you CAN malt corn, but do to it's high geling temp it doesn't work on it's own for a mash. not sure if it would convert something else though, like oats with a lower geling temp at 150f, and just not add gravity points itself...
just sprout the grain until it looks like it's about to stick out the plant. dry it with a fan, then put it in the oven at it's lowest setting for 12 hours...
just sprout the grain until it looks like it's about to stick out the plant. dry it with a fan, then put it in the oven at it's lowest setting for 12 hours...
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