Oatmeal porter

[kirbykollege]

My brew store is basically a liquor store with a few brewing supplies and whatnot. I grabbed a few things today to make what I think will be a porter:
Dark malt extract-fuggles-willamette-Nottingham
They had no grains for to soak so I bought some rolled oats too. Can I steep these for 20 min like specialty grains? Is this a good idea?

 

[zzARzz]

My brew store is basically a liquor store with a few brewing supplies and whatnot. I grabbed a few things today to make what I think will be a porter:
Dark malt extract-fuggles-willamette-Nottingham
They had no grains for to soak so I bought some rolled oats too. Can I steep these for 20 min like specialty grains? Is this a good idea?

You can do that, though you may want to roast the oats first and store them in a paper bag for a week or two to cure; it'll help with the flavor, aroma and color. There are several posts around HBT about roasting oats for dark beers.

 

[Pie_Man]

Good idea about roasting the oats. Porters typically have some combination of chocolate malt, roasted barley, black malt, and crystal malt. Getting ahold of any of those ingredient would be benefical, if possible. If not, don't sweat it, the dark extract and toasted oats should make a pretty tasty beer.

Are there any other homebrew stores you could go to? Is ordering from an online retailer like northerbrewer.com an option? I'm just thinking that for future brews, having some actual grain would be nice

 

[boscobeans]

Oats should be mashed to convert the starch into fermentable sugars. You will have a bag of oatmeal and non fermentable starch, fats and protein in your wort. There will be a certain amount of mouthfeel and some flavor added to your brew from the oats however.

OMO

bosco

 

[bobeer]

+1 on mashing the oats. It will be worth the effort in the overall mouthfeel and flavor. The process is pretty similar to steeping specialty grains. My first all grain was an oatmeal chocolate stout and it was easy. Check out biab if you're interested.
If not you'll still make beer. I've never steeped oats before so keep us posted on what you decide to do and let us know how it turns out!

 

[kirbykollege]

I ended up cooking the oats and steeping them. I don't know how it will turn out, but I'm pretty excited anyway. Might have put too much hops in though... 1oz fuggles at 60 and .75 willamette at 5, for only a 2 1/2 gal recipe. Pretty hoppy.

 

[boscobeans]

It will be beer.

Just let it take its own sweet time and be patient...

bosco