Oat for texture

[wscarpenter]

I’m trying to do a quick dry malt extract brew to make a hazy ipa. I am going to use flaked oats for the mouth feel and haze. Would I need to use a malted barely for this? Or would simply steeping the oats work? I have read into this quite a bit and most people state I there needs to be enzymes present or the beer will become unstable, fermenting will lag, and alcohol levels won’t come out as anticipated.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

just steep the oats, it's really not for more sugar more for mouthfeel anyway but flaked grains will give off sugar even without a base grain

 

[wscarpenter]

just steep the oats, it's really not for more sugar more for mouthfeel anyway but flaked grains will give off sugar even without a base grain

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply. You saved me a trip to the brew shop, the nearest brew shop is almost two hours away.

I am using a Citra Haze IPA recipe with a few personal adjustments and realized they were using half DME and half LME. I am only using DME. Upon further reading it stated the barely malt enzymes are mostly preserved in the LME, so there is no need for additional barley malt upon steeping. Still new to brewing and I definitely appreciate the help.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

yes and on that note do stay away from LME if all possible, it's much harder to save and manage, drops right to the bottom and burns, DME is much easier and they both work the same

 

[Mark Farrall]

And if it's easy to get your hands on add some unmalted wheat into your steeping bag. It also has a fair amount of proteins that'll help you get that haze (that allows more goodies from the hops to stay in the beer instead of dropping out).

The enzymes really aren't that important for this recipe. The DME/LME has already made use of the enzymes to ge the sugar out of the grains, so you're just using the oats/wheat/whatever to add color/flavour/protein. If you're worried just have a bit of extra DME on hand to increase your gravity when you start the boil if you're looking short.

 

[wscarpenter]

I think the only wheat I have on hand is has been pearled. Would this be suitable to add with the oats or should I avoid adding pearled wheat because the shuck has been removed? A lot of forums are pretty strong against using pearled grains, but I did find a few people who said it worked fine for them.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Hmm, not sure. The pearling process is going to do a bunch of things. Changing the starches to make them easier to turn into sugars and denaturing some of those proteins are probably the ones that matter for your batch (unless they're also adding preservatives and sugars as the do for the breakfast cereals). So assuming there's no additives I can't see how it would hurt, but there's also a chance it won't do any good.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Yep it's my understanding that you need the enzymes from the barley to convert the starches in the oats so the yeast can ferment them.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

DME is base malt, it's already mashed but the enzymes are not the point it's the haze

 

[GFHomebrew]

Well then no probs wizz em into flour and throw em in when you hit the boil.