Oat Malt

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Not oatmeal or quick oats or flaked oats.

Anyone use Oat Malt? I'm pretty sure Iliff Avenue has....paging Iliff, come in Iliff.

I'm planning on an Oat Malt Stout for my next brew with around 18-20% Oat Malt. Too much? Too little? Is it all that different than using quick oats which I've used plenty?

I do know that I won't get as much gravity per pound as quick oats, but I'm hoping I get a bit more silky body in the finished beer.

Thoughts?
 
I've used the Simpson's Golden Naked Oats from 10-20% of the grist. It's not overwhelmed anything else and I don't have anything good or bad to say about it as I haven't really tried those recipes with different grists to see what it contributes. I tend to use it in paler beers and rolled oats in darker beers, but I haven't got any reasons for that.
 
I have used the golden naled oats. The recipe was one I copied, and merely followed, so I don't have any input, but this is a great question. I am looking forward to learning about this.
 
I have been using oat malt. I like it. I've brewed two oat malt ipas with 16-20% oat malt. Makes for a hazy beer.
 
I haven’t used regular oat malt in some time. I remember not caring for it much though. To me it had kind of a rustic earthy thing going on. I used to do an oat pale ale with oat malt, flaked oats, and golden naked oats. Every time I brewed it I found myself using less and less oat malt.
 
So I brewed a Chocolate Oat Malt Stout a couple of days ago. I used 18% Oat Malt. I don't have anything of note to report taste-wise (the hydrometer sample tasted like just a post-boil stout), but I will say that for BIAB, that was the most difficult Mash-In I ever had. Was it the Oat Malt? Dough balls galore! It took me a good 10 minutes to find all those suckers and get the mash properly mixed, but on a positive note I was able to string together a few choice words that I hadn't ever thought to string together before. :)
 
So I brewed a Chocolate Oat Malt Stout a couple of days ago. I used 18% Oat Malt. I don't have anything of note to report taste-wise (the hydrometer sample tasted like just a post-boil stout), but I will say that for BIAB, that was the most difficult Mash-In I ever had. Was it the Oat Malt? Dough balls galore! It took me a good 10 minutes to find all those suckers and get the mash properly mixed, but on a positive note I was able to string together a few choice words that I hadn't ever thought to string together before. :)
I get bad sticky doe balls most mashes I mill pretty fine so i guess this might be your issue.
One thing I've found if You come back to the mash in let's say 15 minutes then doe balls comply more easily to a good mixing.
 
I get bad sticky doe balls most mashes I mill pretty fine so i guess this might be your issue.
One thing I've found if You come back to the mash in let's say 15 minutes then doe balls comply more easily to a good mixing.

That's interesting. I always get worked up about the dough balls on Mash-In because for some reason I am under the impression that the first 10-20 minutes of the mash are the most important for conversion. Not sure that's true. o_O

I crush pretty fine, but not as fine as I once did. I’ve dialed it back a bit because I found that “crush til your scared” created problems that outweighed any increase in efficiency. Dough balls and clogging transfers the main ones.
I think my issue with this batch was probably the water / grist ratio. I had 5.25 gallons of water with 8.5 pounds of grain. .62 is rather low but volumes are volumes.
Also, I usually crush my grains right into my bag and add the bag in one fell swoop. Maybe if I set the bag in the kettle and poured the grains and stirred, it would be a lot easier.

The problem child right before Mash In, cacao nibs on top:

F57D2221-30A4-46DE-B891-409914821966.jpeg
 
I get bad sticky doe balls most mashes I mill pretty fine so i guess this might be your issue.
One thing I've found if You come back to the mash in let's say 15 minutes then doe balls comply more easily to a good mixing.
underletting the water works very well for dough balls
 
That's interesting. I always get worked up about the dough balls on Mash-In because for some reason I am under the impression that the first 10-20 minutes of the mash are the most important for conversion. Not sure that's true. o_O

I crush pretty fine, but not as fine as I once did. I’ve dialed it back a bit because I found that “crush til your scared” created problems that outweighed any increase in efficiency. Dough balls and clogging transfers the main ones.
I think my issue with this batch was probably the water / grist ratio. I had 5.25 gallons of water with 8.5 pounds of grain. .62 is rather low but volumes are volumes.
Also, I usually crush my grains right into my bag and add the bag in one fell swoop. Maybe if I set the bag in the kettle and poured the grains and stirred, it would be a lot easier.

The problem child right before Mash In, cacao nibs on top:

View attachment 10061
Yep that's about the same consistency as my crush. Your right conversion doesn't take that long in the mash but the starches in them dough balls ain't going to contribute all locked up in there either .
@Ozarks Mountain Brew is onto it underletting I don't have the ability to do this atm.but theroetically that's what you are doing sorta by dropping your filled grain bag in the mash.
 
Yep that's about the same consistency as my crush. Your right conversion doesn't take that long in the mash but the starches in them dough balls ain't going to contribute all locked up in there either .
@Ozarks Mountain Brew is onto it underletting I don't have the ability to do this atm.but theroetically that's what you are doing sorta by dropping your filled grain bag in the mash.
Dough balls sounds like too fine of a crush, although I find that Maris Otter balls up pretty badly....
 
Dough balls sounds like too fine of a crush, although I find that Maris Otter balls up pretty badly....
Yeah Im guilty of that for sure. Ive been getting away with it and have been for years now. Let's just say I'm pretty good with the mash spoon:p! I recon I spend a good 5mins mashing in. I sure don't help myself I just dump the lot in all at once then ATTACK of the mash spoon. Can be therapeutic...

Horses for courses I suppose If was going the traditional all grain mash tun recirc route I would be changing tact for sure but this mash in a bag allows for some wriggle room in the crush department I find.
 

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