Recipe Critique - Oat Brown Ale

[HoozierDaddy]

Had you considered using golden naked oats instead of toasted flaked oats? I have not yet used them, but remember a couple shows where Jamil and Tasty said they gave an awesome toasty flavor or something along those lines.

[Thirsty Mallard]

BDawg - I already bought the grains, but I did have the same thought about the Pale Chocolate. That may be one of the first things that changes if the toasty, mellow roasts flavors don't come through as well. I did decide to leave the C40 after all, so glad you agree with that!

Hoozier - No, I hadn't. Honestly, I'm just using Quaker Oats since I have them in my pantry.

[Thirsty Mallard]

Ok, it's been two weeks so I decided to check the gravity... it's sitting at 1.022 right now.

I've never used London Ale yeast... is it a slow fermentor? I'm hoping to get down to the 1.015 range (OG was 1.052). In the meantime I've unplugged my temp control and tried to rouse up some yeast in hopes of knocking out those last .007 points.

It tastes alright, but a bit worty. I definitely want to get it below 1.020... at least down to 1.018. What do you guys think? Will it happen or should I maybe throw in some dry yeast to help kick out those last few points?

[BDawg]

you are on the right track. rousing and heat will probably help here. give it some time.

[Geistbier]

How about Fawcett Oat Malt I have been using it in large percentages based on the show with Drew a few years ago, it has enough enzymes to convert itself. I tend to use it as 20-30% on recipes though I have played as high as 40% (Oat Mild). I have an Oat Brown in the works with 4lbs in it and I am looking forward to kegging it.

[Thirsty Mallard]

Transferring right now. Over three weeks in the primary. Two week at 68F and one week at 73F.

Gravity remains same. 1.020's.

On the plus side, it's not terrible tasting. I really like the chocolate background and the body of this beer is right what I was looking for. I wish it had finished out at around 1.015, but guess I'll just have to RDWHAH and enjoy!

[SpaceKadetKiwi]

*warning* new brewer question!


... Erm ok should know this...
Can some one explains efficiency for me?
Sits in corner patiently?

[spiderwrangler]

Hope you've been patient kiwi, or got this elsewhere, but efficiency is essentially the percentage of fermentables that you get out of your malt, based on a theoretical total. If a grain of malt was ground to a powder, there would be a given amount of starch present. If you were able to utilize all of this starch and convert it, it would give you 100% efficiency. One of the issues is that it would be hell to try to lauter dust and keep it out of the boil, so most of the time a brewer would try to crack a single grain into a bunch of smaller pieces without pulverizing it. This allows the enzymes to get at most of the starches, but there will still be some left behind. So if you have a 75% effiency, you are getting roughly 75% of the potential out of your malt.

There is a lot more that goes into it, where it can vary based on system and technique, but that's the basic idea.