# Do I Need To Cook Rolled Oats Before Mashing?



## juzz1981 (6/10/10)

Hi,

I am using Rolled Oats as a substitute to Flaked Barley for a Stout as they are basically the same from what I believe, my question is, do i need to cook the oats first? or throw straight in the mash?

If they need to be cooked, is there a specific method for this?

Thanks


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## DUANNE (6/10/10)

it depends on the oats .the instant oats dont need cooking and the traditional ones do. that being said i cook mine to mush before using in the mash regardless of wich type just to be sure and have never had any dramas before.


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## felten (6/10/10)

Are rolled oats pre-gelatinised? either way, oats gelatinise in the mashing range so you should be fine.


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## beerbog (6/10/10)

juzz1981 said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am using Rolled Oats as a substitute to Flaked Barley for a Stout as they are basically the same from what I believe, my question is, do i need to cook the oats first? or throw straight in the mash?
> 
> ...



I have just been wondering the same thing as I'm about to make an oatmeal stout and have never used oats before. Are oats bought in the supermarket ok, as long as they are rolled or flaked? :beerbang:


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## winkle (6/10/10)

Gibbo1 said:


> I have just been wondering the same thing as I'm about to make an oatmeal stout and have never used oats before. Are oats bought in the supermarket ok, as long as they are rolled or flaked? :beerbang:



'Quick' or 'Instant' Oats are fine to go into the mash as they are, but I'd err on the side of caution and boil the standard oats for the suggested time then dump them in at the start of mashing.


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## Bribie G (6/10/10)

Bear in mind that rolled, quick, instant oats whatever are not actually oatmeal, they are just a sub. Genuine oatmeal is a grainy flour, a bit like semolina or ground rice in consistency only made from oats. I don't know if it's actually available in Australia, it was certainly popular in Scotland and the NE of England when I was a lad for porridge making. Since then the industrial steamed rolled variety of oat has all but obliterated genuine oatmeal. 
If doing an oatmeal stout, if you can find oatmeal anywhere, you would need to precook it, I remember Mam used to stir the stuff for about 20 minutes and many housewives had double - walled pans just for cooking oatmeal in.


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## juzz1981 (6/10/10)

BribieG said:


> Bear in mind that rolled, quick, instant oats whatever are not actually oatmeal, they are just a sub. Genuine oatmeal is a grainy flour, a bit like semolina or ground rice in consistency only made from oats. I don't know if it's actually available in Australia, it was certainly popular in Scotland and the NE of England when I was a lad for porridge making. Since then the industrial steamed rolled variety of oat has all but obliterated genuine oatmeal.
> If doing an oatmeal stout, if you can find oatmeal anywhere, you would need to precook it, I remember Mam used to stir the stuff for about 20 minutes and many housewives had double - walled pans just for cooking oatmeal in.




So quick oats or standard oats should be ok...

Here is the recipe I am going to try... any comments/advice would be great  ... though I think this should be OK.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 25.00 L 
Boil Size: 30.95 L
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 49.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 34.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU 
3.25 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.9 EBC) Grain 68.42 % 
0.50 kg Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.0 EBC) Grain 10.53 % 
0.35 kg JW Chocolate Malt (492.5 EBC) Grain 7.37 % 
0.35 kg Oats, Flaked (2.0 EBC) Grain 7.37 % 
0.30 kg JW Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 6.32 % 
60.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 30.4 IBU 
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (15 min) Hops 3.8 IBU 
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc 
1 American Ale 1056 Top Cropped Slurry, (cos i have it handy)


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 4.75 kg
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Step Time Name Description Step Temp 
60 min Mash In Add 12.39 L of water at 74.4 C 67.8 C


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## Online Brewing Supplies (6/10/10)

As far as I know any thing that has been rolled needs to be steamed first so should be fine to add to the mash as is.
GB


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## bradsbrew (6/10/10)

I have never precooked any rolled oats I have used in beers such as english bitters, aussie dark ales, dry,sweet and oatmeal stouts. I am not saying this is ideal practice but........it works for me and efficiency is all relative.

Cheers

Edit= And yes I could have fed my children for a year with the quantity of oats used.


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## mckenry (6/10/10)

BribieG said:


> Bear in mind that rolled, quick, instant oats whatever are not actually oatmeal, they are just a sub. Genuine oatmeal is a grainy flour, a bit like semolina or ground rice in consistency only made from oats. I don't know if it's actually available in Australia, it was certainly popular in Scotland and the NE of England when I was a lad for porridge making. Since then the industrial steamed rolled variety of oat has all but obliterated genuine oatmeal.
> If doing an oatmeal stout, if you can find oatmeal anywhere, you would need to precook it, I remember Mam used to stir the stuff for about 20 minutes and many housewives had double - walled pans just for cooking oatmeal in.



Hi BribieG,
Would you mind explaining this a bit more please? I use the home brand, plain, Rolled Oats or instant Oats from Coles or WW. The ingredients says 100% Oats on either rolled or instant. As far as I can tell, the instant Oats are broken up rolled oats. So, as I want to put oats in some of my beers, I always thought this was AOK and being pre-geletinised, made it even easier. 
So why do you mention Oatmeal? The OP wants oats as far as I can tell?
I am not flaming you, nor having a go at you, nor taking the piss - it's very hard to write this after a few and not make it sound nasty.
regards,
mckenry


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## 2duck (7/10/10)

I have used rolled oats a few times to make oatmeal stouts. I have not used 'quick' or 'instant' varieties and have not pre-boiled them. I have been very happy with the results I have got.

My suggestion would be that you try toasting them. I have done it both ways and in my opinion the toasted oats make better beer. I laid the oats in a baking dish and put them in a 180 oven for 30 minutes - keeping a careful eye to avoid burning.

Good luck!


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## MHB (7/10/10)

Brewing is full of two edged answers! The same things about Oats that make it contribute such a lovely smooth even creamy texture to beer can make it a bitch to lauter.
We have all seen the ads on telly for Uncle Tobies telling us of the wonders of B-Glucan, that's the part of oats that make porridge stick together, rather than just be soggy grain mush.
As mentioned above the starch in Oats gelatinises in the mashing temperature range (52-640C) but that's only part of the answer.
For the main mashing enzymes to get at the starch the starch has first to be freed from the Glucan matrix and exposed to water so it can unravel (swell), what is called Gelatinisation. There are two ways to free up the starch, boiling and enzymically, fortunately there is an enzyme made for the job, it's called B-Glucanase and has its peak temperature activity at around 400C.
If you are mashing and don't use pre-gelatinised Oats (i.e. Quick Oats) you would be well advise to either 1/ Gelatinise the Oats by the conventional porridge making method or 2/ mash in at 400C and allow the B-Glucanase to have its way.

I would always mash in at 400C if there was anything over a couple of percent Oats in the grist, even if they were pre-gelatinised getting the Glucan soluble will make a huge difference come lautering time.

MHB


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## Bribie G (7/10/10)

mckenry said:


> Hi BribieG,
> Would you mind explaining this a bit more please? I use the home brand, plain, Rolled Oats or instant Oats from Coles or WW. The ingredients says 100% Oats on either rolled or instant. As far as I can tell, the instant Oats are broken up rolled oats. So, as I want to put oats in some of my beers, I always thought this was AOK and being pre-geletinised, made it even easier.
> So why do you mention Oatmeal? The OP wants oats as far as I can tell?
> I am not flaming you, nor having a go at you, nor taking the piss - it's very hard to write this after a few and not make it sound nasty.
> ...



No offence taken, the reason I mentioned 'historical' oats is that Oatmeal Stout actually died out in the early to mid 20th Century, and got revived only fairly frequently and is now widely brewed, including by me, using ALDI instant oats  so if you are a 'recreationist' - for example CAP, Cream Ales, strong UK milds, Bulimba Draught  and so on, you would be looking for ingredients that matched the historical ingredients as near as possible. That's why I mentioned oatmeal which is a ground up oat, not steam rolled so needs a boil. Good point you made about the quick oats, they are indeed chopped up finer that the regular porridge stuff and are steam rolled as well, so would be gelatinised. These would be ideal for the OP - and MHB's post is an eye opener, I'll definitely do his 40 degree method next time as part of a stepped infusion mash. :icon_cheers: I was at the dentist yesterday and reading a health/lifestyle magazine in the waiting room and it was raving on about the health benefits of B-Glucan and I thought "now that sounds like something I've read about re brewing".


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## drtomc (7/10/10)

Speaking of mashes with 40C B-glucan rests, do BAIBers escalator mash? There are a few mentions in the enormous BIAB sticky, which is now too long to actually read. 

T.


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## Bribie G (7/10/10)

:icon_offtopic: 
I step mash all the time. Originally I just doughed in, wrapped up the urn, left for 60 or 90 mins and then hoisted the bag, drained and boiled
I still basically do this for UK ales, IPAs etc but at the end of the mash raise the bag off the element, give it a 10 min surge, lower the bag and stir and get around 78 degrees for a mashout, then raise fully, drain and boil.

Recently I have done a few stepped mashes using the mash/ raise bag, and heat to next stage method, ending up with the mashout and it works great.


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## juzz1981 (7/10/10)

juzz1981 said:


> So quick oats or standard oats should be ok...
> 
> Here is the recipe I am going to try... any comments/advice would be great  ... though I think this should be OK.
> 
> ...



Anyone got any comments about this recipe? 
About to do it .. waiting on HLT to heat


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## Bribie G (7/10/10)

BB Ale malt is incredibly diastatic, I reckon it could convert the Pope to Judaism - when doing oatmeal stout I just chuck in the whole 750 bag from ALDI. Also being a stout I'd consider upping the RB to 500g. I regularly use 800g and bradsbrew uses a kilo most times, but he's a crazy bastard :icon_drunk:


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## juzz1981 (7/10/10)

BribieG said:


> BB Ale malt is incredibly diastatic, I reckon it could convert the Pope to Judaism - when doing oatmeal stout I just chuck in the whole 750 bag from ALDI. Also being a stout I'd consider upping the RB to 500g. I regularly use 800g and bradsbrew uses a kilo most times, but he's a crazy bastard :icon_drunk:




Thanks Bribie

I have amended my recipe to suit 

Anybody else have any adjustments?


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## MHB (7/10/10)

Actually Galaxy is incredibly high in B-Glucanase and is the best choice for high adjunct beers (you still have to use it at 40oC or it just gets denatured). BB pale and Galaxy are high in Alpha and Beta Amylase but not outside the normal range for modern malt, in fact there are several higher Australian base malts.

MHB


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## kymba (7/10/10)

BribieG said:


> ...raving on about the health benefits of B-Glucan and I thought "now that sounds like something I've read about re brewing



:icon_offtopic: **epiphany** 'breakfast beer'!...oats and barley and maybe some wheat for breakfast!?!?!...but get this...taken in liquid form

step mash at 40 for the oaty b-glucan goodness, then mash high with barley & wheat for the 'protein drink for breakfast' crowd. ferment at 18-20 degrees with harvested CPA yeast for some banana. Add some US hops late for fruitness

just gotta get some creamy thickness in there though, like kilkenny? that sh!t is way thick

surely marketing can come up with some way to sell it to the kiddies

anyway, 3 stubbies on the way to work should do it for me

please post recipe's forthwith


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## sirhendo (9/10/10)

juzz1981 said:


> Anyone got any comments about this recipe?
> About to do it .. waiting on HLT to heat



erm...can't wait to come around to yours and try it! :beer: 

Get in there, Juzzy!

Hendo


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## Bribie G (9/10/10)

MHB said:


> Actually Galaxy is incredibly high in B-Glucanase and is the best choice for high adjunct beers (you still have to use it at 40oC or it just gets denatured). BB pale and Galaxy are high in Alpha and Beta Amylase but not outside the normal range for modern malt, in fact there are several higher Australian base malts.
> 
> MHB



Yes that's why it's frustrating not to be able to get it, and subbing Ale ATM, but apparently there's going to be a limited release. I seem to remember shortage last year as well. Fourstar was talking to Cryer at the Weyermann evening in Melbourne and the guy said that BB have a malt so high in diastatic power they wouldn't care to release it to home brewers, something like 400 or 500 Lindner . Wouldn't mind getting my hands on some.


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## beerbog (11/10/10)

Ok, I have a bag of both rolled and quick oats, which is better to go straight into the mash without cooking first? There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer on this.

Thanks. :beerbang:


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## felten (11/10/10)

They're both pre-gelatinised and oats gelatinise at mash temps anyway. So probably just go with the quick oats since they're broken up a little further than rolled.


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## beerbog (11/10/10)

Cool, thanks Felten. :beerbang:


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## dr K (11/10/10)

> I am using Rolled Oats as a substitute to Flaked Barley for a Stout as they are basically the same from what I believe



They are not the same.
Of course both oats and barley are cereals, as are rice, teff, corn, wheat and a whole thread full of others.
From an historical point barley in its malted, unmalted and roasted forms is an important part of Irish Stout as the tax laws imposed by the English on the Irish taxed malt, but not barley (raw or roast).
If you don't have unmalted barley you could sub malted barley, otherwise whether you use /sub Uncle Toby's or Polenta or flaked wheat or whatever so long as either the cereal's gelatinisation temp falls within your mash range or it has been already gelatinised by steaming/rolling/flaking.

K


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## Airgead (12/10/10)

BribieG said:


> Bear in mind that rolled, quick, instant oats whatever are not actually oatmeal, they are just a sub. Genuine oatmeal is a grainy flour, a bit like semolina or ground rice in consistency only made from oats. I don't know if it's actually available in Australia, it was certainly popular in Scotland and the NE of England when I was a lad for porridge making.



You can still get it. I use it all the time in bread making. The missus also makes oat cakes... yum. For oatmeal stouts I cheat and use instant oats.

Your local hippy food shop may well be able to help out.

Cheers
Dave


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## Rodolphe01 (10/1/11)

For an oatmeal stout I am going to do shortly I had ordered 500g flaked oats but it was missed in the order  so I was just going to use quick oats from the supermarket. However, there is a bulk food shop near me that sells oatmeal flour - from what I have read in this thread, and just on wikipedia, rolled oats, quick oats and oatmeal and all the same grain - just processed a little differently.

Is there any benefit to me using oatmeal flour (not sure how course it is yet) and boiling it up into a slop to gelatinise it, or just stick with plan B and get the quick oats?

I do BIAB so figure if the oatmeal flour is course it shouldn't be too problematic? Or is it likely to just pour of the the bag and make muddy coloured stout?


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## Bribie G (10/1/11)

Should go ok, I've used plain flour instead of flaked wheat or wheat malt in a Coopers clone and it turned out ok. However I did get more turbulence in the wort and by analogy you might get that with oat flour. Pussonally I'd just go to IGA and get the quick cook rolled oats.


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## Rodolphe01 (10/1/11)

cheers once again bribie, i'll just get the oats.


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## mje1980 (19/3/11)

Hey guys, i just did an oatmeal stout. Happy with the flavour, but it has zero head. I've read that oats give good head and retention, but this is hardly anything, and drops to nothing pretty quickly. ???? I used quick oats. At the moment i have the gas on to add some more carbonation, to see if that eill help ( i carbed it on the low side ) but im thinking would doing a cereal mash with the quick oats ensure i get gelatinisation?????


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## fcmcg (19/3/11)

The first oatmeal i ever did , i didn't pre-gelatinise my oats and the sparge took nearly 2 hours :lol: Wasn't quite stuck...just friggin slow...
I have always pre-cooked since...even used 500g as a bit of temp correction....
No sparge probs now !
Cheers
Ferg


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## mje1980 (19/3/11)

I had no dramas at all with the sparge, just the no head thing. THink i might cook it next time just to see if it makes a difference

How much did you use?? I used 8%


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## hopcycle (19/3/11)

Slightly off topic but....................Rolled oats or wheat needs to be cooked to allow the starch busting enzymes to have access to the starch inside the starch granules inside the grain.

If you are adding just rolled grain your enzymes will have limited access to the starchy goodness. 

Of course if you are adding the oats for beta glucan then cooking the oats will also liberate this from the grain


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## Bribie G (19/3/11)

It's my impression that rolled oats and flaked barley, whilst they are pregelatinised during the steam rolling process, have a lot more "chewy" matter and of course the B glucan, than flaked rice and maize that can be added to the mash as is, as they are far more refined. Same with cornflakes.

Stout season coming up, I'll cook my next lot (I just use a 750g pack of ALDI quick-cookers)
Edit: as you see from my post last year I just chucked in last time. I was reading a post on Jim's forum where a brewer was complaining that there seemed to be an excessive amount of spent grain left over after his oatmeal stout, even at the expense of getting some wort, and maybe cooking the oats may improve the extraction. I'll try.


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## devo (21/3/11)

juzz1981 said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am using Rolled Oats as a substitute to Flaked Barley for a Stout as they are basically the same from what I believe, my question is, do i need to cook the oats first? or throw straight in the mash?
> 
> ...



My answer would be "no".


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## np1962 (21/3/11)

hopcycle said:


> Slightly off topic but....................Rolled oats or wheat needs to be cooked to allow the starch busting enzymes to have access to the starch inside the starch granules inside the grain.
> 
> If you are adding just rolled grain your enzymes will have limited access to the starchy goodness.
> 
> Of course if you are adding the oats for beta glucan then cooking the oats will also liberate this from the grain


Totally unneccessary to cook any of the rolled grains. They have already been steamed in the rolling process.
Have you ever tried to roll raw grain? All you end up with is smaller bits of raw grain. Hence steamed to soften first.
Nige


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## BoilerBoy (21/3/11)

mje1980 said:


> Hey guys, i just did an oatmeal stout. Happy with the flavour, but it has zero head. I've read that oats give good head and retention,



Had the same issues with flaked/ quick oats consistently, it gives a smooth silky mouthfeel, but from reading comments from other brewers who have experienced similar its the high oil content in oats that appears to be the culprit, it pours nicely and the head immedietely dies.

Its been a few years since I have used any but I think I had more sucess using 'oat malt"

Cheers,
BB


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