Mistake with flaked oats?

[Olddog]

I made my first all grain batch the other day and used Lil' Sparky's Nut Brown AG recipe almost to the letter (had to change one of the hops). The problem is, two days later it looks like the picture below:



The wort looked like that since I pulled the first running from my MLT. It was my first time using flaked oats in the mash and I just put them dry in with the rest of the grains but I am now thinking that was a mistake. These were bought from my LBHS and not the Quaker quick oats which I'm not sure makes a difference or not.

Low efficiency I can deal with (was 1.043 pre boal and 1.050 post) but that doesn't even look right. My wife even thought it looked wrong.

Any ideas what I did wrong?

 

[malkore]

Its my understanding that flaked oats are just slightly 'better/more ready' for brewing than Quaker oats...which you can mash like normal.

I just did my first batch with instant oats, and it looked fine. Yours looks like its loaded with oats...has that pale oatmeal color, nothing like a 'nut brown ale' at 16SRM.

are you sure you only used the 1lb of flaked oats per the recipe??

 

[Hammy71]

Have to agree with Malkore. I've done this recipe several times and my wort has been a dark brown. The carmel 60 and the choc. malt should darken it considerably.

 

[Olddog]

Yeah, it was definitely 1 pound. I looked through my grains after sparging and could not find any signs of the oats in there. It's like they turned to powder in the mash or something.

Could this be an error in my mashing technique? I have a converted cooler and according to my cheap thermometer, I hit 154 for the whole hour.

I'm really baffled as to why it's so cloudy. I expected low gravity due to inefficiency but not this.

 

[midfielder5]

How sure are you about the chocolate and c-60 malts getting in your mash ?
Could they have been accidentally left out?

The oats are just tossed in the mash; I would doubt that is your issue.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Dude, I threw a packet of "cinnamon and apples" quaker guy instant into one brew that just happened to be the best ever beer.

Don't blame the oats.

 

[Olddog]

Fair enough, I won't blame the oats. What else could the cloudiness be from?

 

[Olddog]

I've been thinking about this all night at work and was wondering if maybe I drained my MLT too fast. I have a 1/2" ball valve with a 12" SS screen in the cooler and I just opened the valve all the way. After I vorlaufed, it only took around 30 seconds to drain the wort out and I did the same thing while batch sparging. Could draining too fast cause all the cloudiness of the wort?

 

[nepatsfan1]

It happens, just call it Ugly Ale..... My friend and mentor that has been brewing for over 20 years had this happen and it looked ugly but tasted like beer.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

How much floaties are in the wort?

 

[Yooper]

I've been thinking about this all night at work and was wondering if maybe I drained my MLT too fast. I have a 1/2" ball valve with a 12" SS screen in the cooler and I just opened the valve all the way. After I vorlaufed, it only took around 30 seconds to drain the wort out and I did the same thing while batch sparging. Could draining too fast cause all the cloudiness of the wort?

No, that's how I batch sparge too.

I'm scratching my head here. Did it look like that before the boil? Did you get complete conversion, as shown by an iodine test? And last, how long did you mash and boil for?

 

[Olddog]

It looked like that before the boil. As for getting complete conversion, I'm not sure since I didn't have any iodine to test with. After stirring in the grain I left my floating thermometer in the MLT and checked it after a couple min and it was 154. An hour later when I started sparging it was still 154. I also boiled for an hour.

I need a better thermometer I think. Could being way off target temperature wise cause that?

 

[Yooper]

It looked like that before the boil. As for getting complete conversion, I'm not sure since I didn't have any iodine to test with. After stirring in the grain I left my floating thermometer in the MLT and checked it after a couple min and it was 154. An hour later when I started sparging it was still 154. I also boiled for an hour.

I need a better thermometer I think. Could being way off target temperature wise cause that?

Well, even if your thermometer was off 5 degrees, you should have had conversion in an hour or so. I'm at a loss.

Did you mill the flaked oats?

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

It does look like it wasn't fully converted but as Yooper said, an hour should be enough. I use Quaker Instant whenever I use Oats and pretty much mash/lauter/sparge as normal. Did you use domestic 2-row or UK? UK has quite a bit less diasatic power but again, I typ use UK 2-row and haven't had any conversion problems with Oats mashing as I normally do.

 

[Yooper]

It does look like it wasn't fully converted but as Yooper said, an hour should be enough. I use Quaker Instant whenever I use Oats and pretty much mash/lauter/sparge as normal. Did you use domestic 2-row or UK? UK has quite a bit less diasatic power but again, I typ use UK 2-row and haven't had any conversion problems with Oats mashing as I normally do.

What I'm starting to think is that the oat flakes were milled or otherwise broken up very small and there is some oat starch/oatmeal in that wort. I've used oat flakes/oatmeal a number of times without a cereal mash and not had results like that but if the oat flakes were crushed, maybe the result is oatmeal in the wort?

 

[Olddog]

The flaked oats were just in a 1 lb bag separate from the grain and I just mixed them into the mash. I think I'm just going to try again next week and hope for better results.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to help me troubleshoot this.

 

[TheMan]

It looks like you didn't vorlauf enough to me. Your runnings should be pretty clear when leaving the mash tun. If not, it looks like that. At least that's what happened to me and a buddy. I vorlauf till the liquid coming out is almost clear for each running.

You said it looked like this preboil, so your grainbed likely didn't set well enough to filter out grain particles. Clear going into the pot, clear coming out.

If you think this could be your issue, try reading this:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/vorlauf-how-167038/index5.html
Other people said it helped them quite a bit.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

What I'm starting to think is that the oat flakes were milled or otherwise broken up very small and there is some oat starch/oatmeal in that wort. I've used oat flakes/oatmeal a number of times without a cereal mash and not had results like that but if the oat flakes were crushed, maybe the result is oatmeal in the wort?

I've only used flaked oats and I've tried pre-cooking, not pre-cooking, and have also run them through my barley crusher but the barley crusher didn't really do that much. Just sort of broke them up a bit. Didn't seem to matter.

FWIW, I had a sack of Golden Promise that had a LOT of flour in it when I got to the bottom. Even using that I didn't have clarity problems (did take an efficiency hit) but...still not oats so maybe not comparable.

Maybe I'm way off here but if I'm seeing what i think I'm seeing, vorlaufing longer wouldn't make that much difference because that just catches the chunks/kibbles/bits etc. It looks like starch in the wort which is small enough to go through.

Are you 100% sure they were pre-gelatinized oats?

 

[Yooper]

I've only used flaked oats and I've tried pre-cooking, not pre-cooking, and have also run them through my barley crusher but the barley crusher didn't really do that much. Just sort of broke them up a bit. Didn't seem to matter.

FWIW, I had a sack of Golden Promise that had a LOT of flour in it when I got to the bottom. Even using that I didn't have clarity problems (did take an efficiency hit) but...still not oats so maybe not comparable.

Maybe I'm way off here but if I'm seeing what i think I'm seeing, vorlaufing longer wouldn't make that much difference because that just catches the chunks/kibbles/bits etc. It looks like starch in the wort which is small enough to go through.

Are you 100% sure they were pre-gelatinized oats?

Good points. In my opinion, even if you didn't vorlauf at all, you wouldn't have a wort like that. Vorlaufing catches the big chunks of grain, but doesn't do much more than that.

It really looks like a starch haze. Maybe there was a conversion issue, but I'm still not convinced.

 

[malkore]

Maybe the oats you bought weren't labeled right. I agree it looks way more like the color of a bowl of oatmeal.

it might still be fine though...just not very clear.

maybe try some quaker quick oats when you re-do the recipe?

 

[Olddog]

I think I discovered my mistake with this batch: mash water way too hot. The problem was my thermometer is too slow to react combined with my impatience (need to relax more).

Today, brewing BierMuncher's Cream of Three Crops I am being more careful to get the proper temps and a new thermometer is on the list for my next trip to the LHBS.