Any weird and wacky ideas for Brewing with oats? Recipe now posted in body!
Here is the recipe I'm going with. I'm planning on doing a long (~120 minute) boil to get some caramelization of the wort for color and depth of flavor and also because I think having a fairly thin mash will help avoid a stuck sparge.
Original post:
My homebrew club has an annual fundraiser every year where all the brewers have to adhere to a theme that changes every time. This year's theme is adjuncts and I've been assigned Oats as an adjunct. Now I have brewed several Oatmeal stouts in my time and I want to go for something more interesting and out of the ordinary. I was thinking of Brewing a Barley wine with a hefty portion of the grain bill switched out for oats to make an Oat-wine if you will.
I was just wondering if anyone had any other wacky suggestions? I have access to pretty much all the ingredients available (I actually manage a Homebrew store) and several months before the event itself which is in mid October. As an aside, if anyone is going to be in NYC in mid October and wants to go to a fantastic event where you can try approximately 30 different beers made by some excellent home brewers have I got the event for you!
It would have to be 100% oats to be truly gluten free and that seems tricky. I do know a guy who did a series of experiments with 100% oat beers a few years ago (he was making single bottle batches of beer) so maybe I'll pick his brain for advice.
A brewery in Texas does an oat lager that’s pretty fantastic. Not super far out there flavor wise but I had never even considered putting oats in a lager so it was pretty interesting to me.
Had an oat lager while travelling in the Czech Republic. It had some very funky flavours going on there and the crispness of a lager.
Maybe with a lot of rice hulls and some long rests at low temperatures (for beta-glucanase activity) you could up the grain bill to lots of oats and not get something the consistency of porridge. I know they make wheat wines out there, so why not oats? Are you limited to oats only or can you also use malted oats?
If you will make lager style with pills malt enzymes shouldn't be necessary. My dad made some porridge consistency wort with some malt and after adding some Pilsen malt it was less viscose.
I'll make another post in the community for more visibility, but here is the ticket link for the event. It's going to be on Saturday, October 14th from 1-5PM at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Building 77.
So the details of the event haven't been completely finalized yet but barring any unexpected issues it is going to be on October 14th at Building 77 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Hopefully if I remember in the future I'll update this comment with a link to purchase tickets for the event when they become available.
As for the homebrew shop, I manage Bitter & Esters! Come check us out!