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imachavel
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: LunarEclipse]
#19469215 - 01/24/14 07:52 PM (10 years, 5 days ago) |
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We should start a "post your beer" thread then if my oatmeal beer comes out nice I'll definitely post photos. two days fermenting so far, and I have some washed barley beer I washed at 155 F that is at 8 days but I don't like how it's turning out I put it in a bottling keg so it has a spicket, which ok it is sealed the same way as the same keg without the spicket with an air tight seal on the top with an air lock so excess C02 can escape. I sampled a little with the spicket
Anyway maybe I'll visit the culinary and brewing section more often and post photos of what I've fermented maybe I'll try some wine etc. But thanks for the support and feedback
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Oeric McKenna
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19469791 - 01/24/14 10:23 PM (10 years, 5 days ago) |
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You can't usually judge a beers real taste till its been in the bottle at last a few weeks. I mean, its easy to try a good one early and be dissatisfied
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LiquidGlass
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: Oeric McKenna]
#19470036 - 01/24/14 11:35 PM (10 years, 5 days ago) |
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Quote:
Oeric McKenna said: You can't usually judge a beers real taste till its been in the bottle at last a few weeks. I mean, its easy to try a good one early and be dissatisfied

8 days IMO is too soon too judge flavor
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LunarEclipse
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19470797 - 01/25/14 06:46 AM (10 years, 5 days ago) |
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Quote:
imachavel said: We should start a "post your beer" thread then if my oatmeal beer comes out nice I'll definitely post photos. two days fermenting so far, and I have some washed barley beer I washed at 155 F that is at 8 days but I don't like how it's turning out I put it in a bottling keg so it has a spicket, which ok it is sealed the same way as the same keg without the spicket with an air tight seal on the top with an air lock so excess C02 can escape. I sampled a little with the spicket
Anyway maybe I'll visit the culinary and brewing section more often and post photos of what I've fermented maybe I'll try some wine etc. But thanks for the support and feedback
Sounds good. Maybe you can break down your recipe I hadn't realized you were actually brewing it. Thanks.
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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urthtown
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: LunarEclipse]
#19472629 - 01/25/14 03:26 PM (10 years, 4 days ago) |
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So, ginger isn't going to do anything for you. By soaking the crystal malt (and just FYI crystal malts come in anything from 10 L to 120 L meaning very light to very dark) you get all the flavours of the grain. To get sugars, as stated by others, you need to MASH not SPARGE with a malted barley like a 2 Row Base Malt. Mashing is the process of activating amylaze as you said and converting starches to sugar.
There are no enzymes that will work for you in ginger at the scale you need... but why search for something else to add... when you could just add a handful of malted 2 row to your oats and get all the enzymes you need? You are literally asking what you can soak you oats with... instead of malted barley. Wtf? Just use malted barley, that's what it's for - it's called diastatic power.
Literally, heat like 10 litres of water up to 165 df, put a cheesclothe bag or a tied off T-shirt full of oatmeal and milled malted barley and turn heat off. Put the pot in your oven at 150 df and let it sit for an hour. Pull the T-shirt out and then add your fermentable sugar. This will be malt extract and/or honey or some other fermentable sugar. Do your boil, add bittering, flavour and aroma hops and then dilute with cold water into a carboy and pitch your yeast.
When doing all grain brewing, you just add hot water to a large amount of base grains (2 row) and specialty grains and then rinse them. Then you boil. Really batch sparging is easy as pie. Dump a pot of 180 df water into your mash tun and drain away 
Adding honey adds fermentable sugars, soaking oats with ginger DEFINITELY does not as it is not malted and ginger doesn't have any diastatic power. This adds starch and protein and flavour but no sugar, and therefore no alcohol content to your oatmeal beer.
Here is my tried and true recipe for a simple oatmeal or flaked barley stout from a brewing forum I frequent. This is the original thread and it has been brewed many many many times to great success.
Here it is converted for you to do a partial MASH recipe (some changes due to it not being all grain):
4 lb Light Malt Extract (DRY)
partial mash: .5 lb 2 row malted barley (milled) 2 lbs roasted barley (milled) 1 lb flaked oats
Bitter with 2 oz East Kent Goldings or US Golding hops @ 60 minutes
Ferment with US-05, Wyeast 1056 or White Labs 001 (they are all the same yeast)
-------------------- Cluster Headache sufferer? Cluster Busting Veil Tear GIF Flower Pot Grow GIF Mini Mono Tub GIFS "All mushrooms are edible, but some only once." -- Croatian Proverb
Edited by urthtown (01/25/14 03:28 PM)
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Heffy
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19472932 - 01/25/14 04:48 PM (10 years, 4 days ago) |
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Lots of confusing stuff in this thread.
First of all it's important to understand the differences in sugars. Amylase enzymes not only convert starch into sugar, but also break higher chain sugars into lower chain sugars. Higher chain sugars are much harder for yeast to consume, so it tends to remain in the finished beer.
Crystal malt contains higher chain sugars which are mostly unfermentable. So while it is true that crystal malt has sugars in it, they are going to sweeten the beer, instead of fermenting into alcohol.
It is very likely the flavour problems with your beer are not related to your mashing temperature. You may want to look elsewhere for the cause of your flavour issues.
If you are worried that your mash is not converting completely you can use iodine to check. Iodine will react with starch by turning black/blue. Just put a few drops of mash on a white plate, and add some iodine. This would be an unusual problem though, especially if you are using well modified base malt. Base malt is important because it has the most diastatic power(enzyme content). I doubt you will find a substitute ingredient that has more enzymatic power than brewers base malt.
Oh and don't make a beer with 100% oats. You're just going to make a big undrinkable mess.
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Edited by Heffy (01/25/14 04:49 PM)
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ApJunkie
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: Heffy]
#19490221 - 01/29/14 08:17 AM (10 years, 1 day ago) |
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So I don't have time to read this whole damn thread but I can help. Convertase AG300 is a full spectrum starch conversion enzyme you just add directly to the mash that will convert any and all starches into fermentable sugars.
http://bsgcraftbrewing.com/Enzymes.html
So there, one problem solved.
Next, it's very unlikely that your previous homebrews have weird flavors from tannin extraction (it's possible, but so rare). Instead it's more likely that the strange off flavors are from less than ideal fermentations. Remember, you don't make beer. You make wort, the yeast makes beer, and the list of parameters that can cause a nonideal fermentation is enormous.
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imachavel
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: Heffy]
#19498127 - 01/30/14 07:12 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Heffy said: Lots of confusing stuff in this thread.
First of all it's important to understand the differences in sugars. Amylase enzymes not only convert starch into sugar, but also break higher chain sugars into lower chain sugars. Higher chain sugars are much harder for yeast to consume, so it tends to remain in the finished beer.
Crystal malt contains higher chain sugars which are mostly unfermentable. So while it is true that crystal malt has sugars in it, they are going to sweeten the beer, instead of fermenting into alcohol.
It is very likely the flavour problems with your beer are not related to your mashing temperature. You may want to look elsewhere for the cause of your flavour issues.
If you are worried that your mash is not converting completely you can use iodine to check. Iodine will react with starch by turning black/blue. Just put a few drops of mash on a white plate, and add some iodine. This would be an unusual problem though, especially if you are using well modified base malt. Base malt is important because it has the most diastatic power(enzyme content). I doubt you will find a substitute ingredient that has more enzymatic power than brewers base malt.
Oh and don't make a beer with 100% oats. You're just going to make a big undrinkable mess.
I tried using a new 2 row malt, and the problem is that I didn't realize I bought a grain that is used primarily for flavouring. It does have ferment able sugars and enzymes that break down sugars, but it releases a shit ton of tannins and therefore is not good to do an entire mash or even a sparge with. I was supposed to use a cup with 20 pounds of crystal malt, and man did I mess up I had 50 pounds and brewed at 145, 155, 165, 175 everything you can think of. The best I got it to taste I put the grains in a blender and blended them into powder, soaked them with the grain bag for an hour in cold water, then boiled the remaining wash with hops for 30 minutes, then transferred cooled and pitched the yeast.
It came out the best by far, but still sucked. I corrected my recipe and went and got 20 pounds of crystal and added a cup of this other 2 row grain and have 5 gallons now fermenting. I agree a few days is too early to judge the flavor, but 5 days fermenting I took a taste and it's actually coming out not bad at all I'm not at all dissatisfied. I don't really bottle by the way, I just pour from the tap, I have a false bottom when I brew and filter quite a few times of course. Yeah I guess you could say the yeast isn't filtered but it hasn't really effected the flavour as far as I care so far. I just often have people come over and sometimes charge them $1 a beer. yeah I know charging people sucks if I drink for free, but if people come over and suck up all my time, eat the food in the fridge, smoke all my kush and gdp and diesel and what not, then hell yeah after a few free beers I'm going to start charging them 
hey better then $6 for a 16 ounce glass at the bar
I wouldn't mind starting a bar, but definitely don't have the ability to produce hundreds of gallons of beer a month, the finance to lease a lot and put shit in to make it a bar, the knowledge of having a liquor license or paying for one etc. so far I'm just having fun but boy am I having fun in the short time since I've started brewing I've become obsessed with fermenting shit let's just say I've tried fermenting all types of shit some you wouldn't believe. I even made a guava juice wine one time, came out pretty foamy and carbonated and beer like, very thick for wine, and wasn't great warm. But chilled it actually wasn't half bad.
Anyway a hobby is just that, something to take up your time and give you something useful to do besides going out and getting in trouble, sure has taken my mind off some shit though having this new hobby
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imachavel
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: ApJunkie]
#19498134 - 01/30/14 07:15 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
ApJunkie said: So I don't have time to read this whole damn thread but I can help. Convertase AG300 is a full spectrum starch conversion enzyme you just add directly to the mash that will convert any and all starches into fermentable sugars.
http://bsgcraftbrewing.com/Enzymes.html
So there, one problem solved.
Next, it's very unlikely that your previous homebrews have weird flavors from tannin extraction (it's possible, but so rare). Instead it's more likely that the strange off flavors are from less than ideal fermentations. Remember, you don't make beer. You make wort, the yeast makes beer, and the list of parameters that can cause a nonideal fermentation is enormous.
Yeah if I do an oatmeal brew again, I'll just go ahead and buy the amylase enzymes. Not that I'm against a partial mash but really an oatmeal beer to me has it's own unique flavour and although most oatmeal beers are stouts, I'm very interested in differences in flavours without grain additions and basically just having a very creamy oatmeal type drink with almost all the sugars converted. I will admit oatmeal isn't necessarily fantastic for a beer on it's own, and sour hops pretty much ruin the beer. I'll try it again one day with an enzyme pack or perhaps a martial mash one way or another
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I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!
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urthtown
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19498253 - 01/30/14 07:37 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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All oatmeal beer you have tasted are made using a barley mash. Oats make up a very small percentage of the grist, but all oatmeal beer is probably maximum 20% oatmeal by weight. Everything else is malted barley, I guarantee. 
If you try it again, you could always get some whole oat groats and malt them yourself. I think the complexity of an all oatmeal beverage would be pretty low...
-------------------- Cluster Headache sufferer? Cluster Busting Veil Tear GIF Flower Pot Grow GIF Mini Mono Tub GIFS "All mushrooms are edible, but some only once." -- Croatian Proverb
Edited by urthtown (01/30/14 07:39 PM)
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imachavel
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: urthtown]
#19498788 - 01/30/14 09:18 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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I think Id prefer to try rye flakes. I dont trust companies that mill and flake oatmeal Id imagine organic oatmeal flakes would be better and because of cost I think Ill try rye flaked first plus I think it goes along with the flavor of barley grain better.
Anyone ever made like 15 gallons of beer for a big party with over 100 people? Im just curious
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urthtown
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19499753 - 01/31/14 04:09 AM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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I brew large 10 gallon batches (double batches) all the time All Grain. Flaked rye is just an additive as well - it has a very spicy, grainy flavour that makes it less than ideal to use as a large percentage of the grist.... As to "going along with the flavour of barley grain better" that statement is untrue. Oats, rye and other starchy grains that can be added all bring their own flavours and proteins that change the final product.
Just remember: All unmalted grains need to be gelatinized and mashed in order to yield sugars for yeast to convert.
I think you need to do some more research....
IMO the enzyme is a waste of time... if you want something decent and drinkable go learn how to actually mash a beer in and make it how it's been made for 10,000+ years instead of trying to reinvent the wheel for no good reason. It just like the hundreds of mushroom growers who come on here and try to share their new "tek" instead of just starting with what is known to work before experimenting.
Learn the ropes - then go to town, but from your posts you have a lot of learning to do.
-------------------- Cluster Headache sufferer? Cluster Busting Veil Tear GIF Flower Pot Grow GIF Mini Mono Tub GIFS "All mushrooms are edible, but some only once." -- Croatian Proverb
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LunarEclipse
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: urthtown]
#19500056 - 01/31/14 06:53 AM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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OP - If you grind your grain into flour, you surely will get more tannins from the husks. Can you get to a homebrew supply store that has a grinder? It's important not to grind too fine, yes it can improve efficiency but not at the cost of poor flavor. Having said that, the local used to be "craft" brewer now uses a hammer mill on their grain, then filters the mash. But that's horrible! Their main thing is the water usage and $$ savings there even more than the gain in grain efficiency.
Beer is not a "continuous" process. You need to be patient, let the batch ferment, then bottle it. Also I wonder just how good your sanitation can possibly be. For me anymore, if I have to open a carboy it's an event. Infections suck and I leave the beer alone as much as possible. Often the only check is final gravity at the time of bottling. That's it!
Rye is great up to maybe 20% of the grain total, oatmeal maybe 10% of the grain total. Your problems with barley shouldn't be problems, that's what you need for 80% of your grain, roughly. If you think you have problems mashing now, try even a 50% rye recipe and you will have a gelatinous sticky mess on your hands.
Anyway that's my thoughts for now, glad to have you onboard as a brewer. Get John Palmers book online it's free and lots of good information...
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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imachavel
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: urthtown]
#19500903 - 01/31/14 11:39 AM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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What the hell are you talking about "reinventing the wheel"?
?????
I said I did a mash at 155 F, and bought the wrong grains and so did an experiment to try and just extract sugars then boil them to get the enzymes to activate and with hops to get flavors.
Maybe you didnt read a thing I wrote. I didnt say anything about "reinventing the wheel" I said I tried brewing with a new grain and got tons of tanniny flavors and couldnt figure out what I did wrong so I tried a little experiment to try and get different variables. I love how everything on this forum becomes a competition because I didnt give out gravity readings and fermentation times etc. Im not a beer geek and more of a newbie.
Its like if I came in here and said "I made a pasta and substituted garlic with ginger" and get replies "from reading your cooking advice I can see you have a long way to go"
Whatever 
In other replies I never considered starches would come out of the oatmeal without mashing the oatmeal and I only considered using enzymes because someone said the amylase could be bought and added. If its a bad idea to do it without doing a partial mash then fine Ill take that into consideration. Im going to try this again some other time, the oatmeal idea has kind of worn out on me for now, but in the future Ill try it again when I decide Im interested in a creamy beer
I also dont recall saying rye flakes could be mashed by themselves, I believe I specifically said "a partial mash of rye flakes and grains" but maybe I imagined I said that
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I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!
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Edited by imachavel (01/31/14 11:41 AM)
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urthtown
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19501686 - 01/31/14 02:46 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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Sorry, I didn't mean to come off rude and I did read the whole thread. I just meant - if you want to make beer, get a recipe and a methodology down and do it. You were asking earlier about adding ginger for enzymes... and then wanting to make an all oatmeal beer... there are just reasons why these things aren't the best idea and the reasons are pretty accessible. And adding ginger as some kind of amylase replacement is "reinventing the wheel" and not for the better.
Just get yourself a good partial mash how-to and follow it with whatever recipe fits your taste profile. Brewing is amazing and wicked fun but takes getting to know a few base processes and the underlying principles before you can really play with things successfully. 
As mentioned before, off flavours are most likely produced by some inconsistency in the brewing process after making the wort rather than before ie. high fermentation temps, incorrect yeast choice, bacterial infection, etc. Bests to get a consistent process down and find some recipes you really like and get to know your system really well so you can bang out brews in a couple hours that taste better than anything you can buy at the store.
-------------------- Cluster Headache sufferer? Cluster Busting Veil Tear GIF Flower Pot Grow GIF Mini Mono Tub GIFS "All mushrooms are edible, but some only once." -- Croatian Proverb
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imachavel
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: urthtown]
#19502990 - 01/31/14 07:33 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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Well as I said I used the wrong grain, in fact look at the grain for this recipe:
15.5 pounds 2-row malt 0.5 pounds Victory malt 0.5 pounds crystal 120L malt 1.25 ounces Columbus hops - 60 minutes 1.25 ounces Centennial hops - 30 minutes 2 ounces Simcoe hops 10 minutes 2 ounces Centennial hops - 10 minutes 4 ounces Simcoe hops - dry hop 2 ounces Centennial hops - dry hop 2 ounces Chinook hops - dry hop 4 liter starter of American yeast (White Labs WLP001 or Wyeast 1056) or 1.5 packages of dry American yeast.
http://mobile.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/07/how-to-brew-imperial-ipa-for-advanced-homebrewers-recipe.html
this was the first all grain batch I tried to brew, unfortunately before I was getting beer supplies locally and incidentally much cheaper, I was calling this company in a different state from a number I found online. When I ordered 30 pounds of 2-row malt they sent me a bag but thought it was a supplemental ingredient, for example like rye is just flakes but not a primary ingredient they ended up sending me a grain you brew to flavour but not for the main fermenting sugars it was just for flavor. And so I didn't realize I was making an entire 5 gallons of beer(actually 15 gallons if you count all 3 failed attempts) with ingredients incorrectly measured.
Anyway the new one I'm doing is only 4 days fermenting, really not enough time to get an idea if there is a good taste of the beer, it just tastes like really new unfinished beer. I made sure the wort was well aerated etc. but I do appreciate the advice about the oatmeal beer it should always be less then 20% of your ingredients. I was thinking a beer with 80% malted grains as the main ingredient in the mash along with 10% oatmeal flakes and 10% rye flakes would be great. I have strange beer taste, at least according to my friends. I prefer a beer moderate on hops not too many hops and very lightly dry hopped at that, but with a high grain count recipe for the recipe. Which I know if your beer is too sugary there will be too much yeast growth which will sour the beer if it ferments too fast, but so far this hasn't happened and I love a beer with lot's of flavour but not necessarily of it dependent on hops
I do realize I'm new to fermenting beer but really love it it's like cooking to me but much more fun since cooking doesn't take weeks of patience to get the right amount of fermentation carbonation flavour etc.
Anyway I always appreciate advice. I should have been less questionable about oatmeal beer and just more questionable about beer in general in terms of flavor differences in grains and hops etc. I know of course anything fermented below 60 F becomes a lager but you need a bottom feeding yeast. I tried one lager and just got too impatient I bottled it and put it in the fridge and opened them all after only two weeks and I could tell it was VERY EARLY in the fermentation process. So anyway I should be asking more general questions, for example most oatmeal beers are stouts. What is a stout exactly? What is a pilsner?
Can a light beer be made with dark grains and can a dark beer be made with light grains? Etc. for example a light grain beer could be less diluted more grain to water ratio therefore putting more colour into the liquid.
But oh well, anyway there was some good discussion and it seems some things are cleared up in case other people read this in the future. It seems making beer is easy, but making good beer is hard, as is the story with all alcohol beverages. But you know whatever it's always nice to discuss this stuff just to get the wheels turning
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I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!
I'm never giving you the password again. Jerk
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LunarEclipse
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19505358 - 02/01/14 09:23 AM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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The grains look OK but that hop amount is a lot for 5 gallons. Especially the dry hops. I might use a pound but 8 oz of dry hops? Maybe 1-2 oz per 5 gallons...
OK here's a great place to buy leaf hops, which I always suggest versus pellets. FoodSaver them after buying a pound into maybe some 2 oz and some 4 oz. packs and back into the foil and into the freezer. Vacuum packing them also shrinks them, the foil 1 lb bag keeps light off them and easy to identify.
http://hopsdirect.com/leaf-hops-domestic/
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imachavel
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: LunarEclipse]
#19505466 - 02/01/14 09:56 AM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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You learn something new every day, the ACTUAL leaf hops instead of processed. Now I'd IMAGINE the flavor to be much more fresh with leaf hops but wouldn't you get all these unwanted flavors such as chlorophyll? I know so little about this stuff but that's cool I didn't know you could buy the unprocessed hops online without being a grower yourself.
By some chance do you know a place I could order a 30 pound bag of grains instead of paying $40 paying like less then $20? I'd imagine if you could get a whole sale deal you could probably end up paying $15 for a 50 pound bag of grain but then you'd also most likely have to buy a large amount like no less then 500 pounds or something like that? Let me know
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I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!
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urthtown
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: imachavel]
#19507190 - 02/01/14 05:08 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
imachavel said: I prefer a beer moderate on hops not too many hops and very lightly dry hopped at that, but with a high grain count recipe for the recipe.
Sounds like a nice malty American Pale Ale session beer.
Quote:
imachavel said: Which I know if your beer is too sugary there will be too much yeast growth which will sour the beer if it ferments too fast, but so far this hasn't happened and I love a beer with lot's of flavour but not necessarily of it dependent on hops.
uh.... this makes no sense and is full of faulty info/assumptions.
A beer has as much sugar content as you reasonably want to get back in alcohol content. A higher initial sugar content = a higher % alcohol. There are some non-fermentable sugars (example from mashing at a higher temperature to favour one amylase over another) or adding crystal malts to your mash. These leave you with a high final gravity and a malty sweetness that balances the bitterness from the hops and the alcohol. The more hops and alcohol, the more residual sugars you need (in theory) to get a balance. This is all within reason - you aren't going to get much higher than 13-14% alcohol before your yeast just quits leaving the rest of the sugar un-consumed. I've made several beer and mead that topped 13% alcohol by volume and I had to add a lot of pure sugar in addition to my barley malt to get it sweet enough.
Sourness ONLY comes from bacterial infection. There's no such thing as "too much yeast growth". You want that shit to grow out aggressively and take over the entire wort - in fact this is what prevents other microbes from taking over. Sour beer are ALL produced by later adding a bacteria like Brettanomyces to a fermented wort and aged.
There's also no worry of fermenting "too fast" unless it is because you have your fermenter hotter than recommended for the yeast you are using. This causes a whole host of phenols and esters (flavours like clove or banana spices, sharp pungent aromas and tastes and fruit-like flavours are all examples. Many many many styles of beer are fully malt dependant. Look at any of the scotch ales, looks at irish ales and in general most british session beer. Look at the stouts and the porters, the winter warmers - fuck look at belgian beer, almost all of them are yeast and malt focused with hops only to balance. There's thousands of variations on styles that are what you are describing.
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imachavel said: I do realize I'm new to fermenting beer but really love it it's like cooking to me but much more fun since cooking doesn't take weeks of patience to get the right amount of fermentation carbonation flavour etc.
It's EXACTLY like cooking. This is what I love about it too, but think about it. When it says to rest your bread dough for it to rise - if you cut corners and bake it right away, the bread falls. If you are supposed to bake the pizza until the crust rises and cheese melts, don't take it out when things are still raw. This is why you need to give the time required when brewing, just like cooking only slightly longer time scales. But not really when you think about it. Cooking often takes weeks - sauerkrauts and ferments are all this way, hangar steaks, heck even slow cooker meals or a roast turkey take their time!! You brew, then forget about it. Leave it a month, then bottle or keg. Leave it a month, then chill and serve and you won't be wasting all your effort for green beer.
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imachavel said: Anyway I always appreciate advice.
No problem - just ask questions and don't ass-u-me, better to ask for help than to assume. 
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imachavel said: I know of course anything fermented below 60 F becomes a lager but you need a bottom feeding yeast. I tried one lager and just got too impatient I bottled it and put it in the fridge and opened them all after only two weeks and I could tell it was VERY EARLY in the fermentation process.
Patience!!! Let it do it's thing lol And again, you are wrong there. Not all beer fermented cool are lagers and vice versa.
A Cream ALE is an ale fermented with an ale yeast then lagered - or fermented/aged well below 60 df for a time. Similarily a Steam Beer is a beer done with a lager yeast fermented warm at ale temps. Lagers are generally not recommended unless you have some form of temperature control for your fermenting vessel. Otherwise expect a lot of clove and banana zing in everything you make from the hot fermentation esters.
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imachavel said: So anyway I should be asking more general questions, for example most oatmeal beers are stouts. What is a stout exactly? What is a pilsner?
You want me to google for you lol? Here is the complete Beer Judge Certification Program Style Guidelines.
There are 6 entries for stout and 3 for pilsner. Read them and your question will be answered.
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imachavel said: Can a light beer be made with dark grains and can a dark beer be made with light grains? Etc. for example a light grain beer could be less diluted more grain to water ratio therefore putting more colour into the liquid.
While the grain to water ratio does make some difference in colour (for example if you brew a strong beer with the first runnings from a mash, without diluting with a sparge the resulting beer will be darker than if you had sparged), you use dark specialty grains to make a dark beer. A dry stout for example could be as little as 10-15% Roast Barley by weight. The rest of the grains ARE light grains. Light grains are used in any beer, additions of small amounts of dark roasted grains make for dark beer. But they use the same light barley malt as a base for diastatic power (enzymes) and sugar (starch content).
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imachavel said: But oh well, anyway there was some good discussion and it seems some things are cleared up in case other people read this in the future. It seems making beer is easy, but making good beer is hard, as is the story with all alcohol beverages. But you know whatever it's always nice to discuss this stuff just to get the wheels turning
Untrue! While other forms of alcoholic beverage are difficult to make well - wine for example, you are restricted to the quality of a kit or buying expensive fresh fruit and machinery to press them or direct from a vineyard. Inevitably any wine or spirit produced at home will lack something of the actual producer's product. Their yeast, casks, their soil or solar exposure, the water with which they make their whisky. These factors all change the product. With beer - as long as I can get the process steps with details ie. temperature, volume, ratios, etc. and the same ingredients as the brewery I can make the EXACT same product that any brewery can. This is what makes home brewing the fucking bomb. 
You need to be patient and spend more time learning about brewing and less time assuming. The info is out here - just forget what you think you know and go learn a process that is tried and true and your results will be stellar. Brewing beer is by far the easiest means of producing the high quality homemade alcohol out there (and by extension meads, fruit ciders, peary, etc.).
Keep at it - be patient and buy yourself a kegging setup if you get serious. 
I spend $15 per 5 gallon batch of beer using home grown hops and locally bought malt and yeast. It takes me 4.5 hours from startup to cleanup finished. I wait 4 weeks with the wort fermenting in a carboy and then spend 30 minutes racking into a keg. It sits 2 more weeks in my keg fridge and then pours like anything you could get at a craft beer pub anywhere in the world for about $0.21 per "bottle".
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Edited by urthtown (02/01/14 05:12 PM)
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imachavel
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Registered: 06/06/07
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Re: thinking of brewing oatmeal beer and a few questions about fermenting [Re: urthtown]
#19507377 - 02/01/14 05:56 PM (9 years, 11 months ago) |
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$15 for per 5 gallons huh? I'm spending 30, I'm not sure at what price you are getting your grains or yeast, but I definitely assume(yeah yeah ass-u-me I get it, it's a common word you'll have to deal with) that using your own hops makes the beer a lot cheaper. I hear they grow like pot a little bit, is this true? 
I only said too much yeast creates a sour flavor simply because I bought some turbo yeast to make a liquor mash and ferment it, that can withstand very high alcohol content, and someone told me "don't use that yeast it will produce too much alcohol and ruin the flavor of the beer," I guess "sour" isn't the word I should have used, but I got the impression that all the sugars would be completely eaten, not leaving ANY sweetness to the beer at all, not to mention I've fermented with that turbo yeast before, and smelled what I was fermenting, and it smelled like a combination of poison and socks you just take off at the gym, I sure wouldn't want to imagine using that for beer.
As for the wine, I actually made wine, and it seemed much simpler to me, and didn't actually come out half bad. I didn't even have to worry about carbonation, and since I fermented it with a pressure lock, it was carbonated anyway. It wasn't a 4 year aged $50 bottle of wine or anything like that, but it definitely seemed simple. Of course I didn't grow the fruit myself in soil with a certain ph in a certain area and use only natural spring water to water rows and rows of fruit etc.
I guess what I meant in terms of wine, is that for the long term fermenter, wine is harder, since it's a challenge, you need good fruit, a certain aging process etc. and of course beer is a shorter fermentation at 30 days and some people only ferment for 14 days etc. But in the short run wine can be as simple as throw some yeast in some fruit juice and get a drink with a wine taste and some alcohol in it if not far from perfection but beer itself at least takes some patience in learning brewing temperatures, correct ingredients, etc. Of course I suppose you can make beer with just an extract and mix in some water
I guess the moral here is "it's easy to make alcoholic beverages, it's difficult to make very good alcoholic beverages, with little to no experience"
And course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I might make a beer I love that you hate, and vice versa. But anyway there is lot's of good stuff here, I appreciate the advice, and see you take this very seriously. I think it's different brewing a beer with a false bottom container and a filter and a tube to re filter the beer over and over again, with a precise thermometer and measuring gravity etc. etc. and then just mixing an extract, and there is a difference between buying some mango necter, throwing some yeast in it and putting a baloon on top and growing perfect grapes in a certain climate with certain soil and a certain ph and natural spring water to grow all the grapes and aging the wine in oak barrels for 3 years etc.

ass-u-me
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