The Lie that is Oats

That's why I stopped using them. I can get a better body texture from a simple grist of 2 row and some vienna with a step mash. And I don't have to deal with that sticky mess while lautering.

I feel like people's perception and knowledge that oats "add a silky, smooth body" kind of impacts their perception of the overall beer. Kind of like how people read the tasting notes from a beer label and miraculously taste only those flavors.

 

Using flaked oats mainly (grocery store bought generic), I find they add a perceptable mouthfeel and taste...looking through a bunch of my recipes, I seem to be in the 7-15% range for, sometimes with the addition of GNOs as well. But I also tend to mash warmer for these beers I'm looking to boost body. So for my NEIPA & oatmeal stout, I'm up around 155–158F (even 160F), usually with other body building - often light crystal malts - like GNOs, dextrin, and/or 20L or less. So it can just be a sum of parts...but i seem to notice what Peter mentions earlier...an oily-ness when I get up in the higher range of flaked oats.

I'm amazed a 1.029 imperial stout at 8.5% ABV seemed "thin" though. In the brewing world we've talked about lupulin shift for over a decade...are pastry stouts now creating a final gravity shift?

It's just interesting...oatmeal stouts and the use of oats in brewing aren't exactly a new thing. Why are they now being questioned as if they've never been tested before?

 

I don't think anyone is questioning their validity or what they add. It's the impact. The way some people make oats out to be, they turn beer into a luxury option in a Rolls.

 

Ah...okay, so similar to CBD oil is going to fix all the ails in the medical world...oats will fix all the ails of the beer brewing world?

 

Dave, maybe it is an issue of expectations? Maybe some folks think they will provide a HUGE silkiness to their beers?

In my Oatmeal Stouts they certainly seem to provide a smoothness to that batch of beer. Would I describe it as being an 'in your face' silkiness? Probably not?

Cheers!

 

Yes sir. And to Jack's point, a lot of people read into things pretty hard (don't blame them, they don't have any other point of reference). I can see being pretty disappointed that it didn't bowl them over or make the best beer they've ever made.

 

I like the smell of oats, and so I use them, and as I can smell them I'm sure they do add something to the flavor. How buried that flavor might be within the other flavors is another question. Porters/stouts mask them, but in a pale ale or IPA you can get their flavor within the malt combination.

I also use them for their haziness. Belgian-style witbier comes to mind first, but I also use them in NE IPA, and as noted, I have used them in pale ales and IPAs as well. - - - Just to note, I would never have done that prior to the 'haze craze' but I feel the pale and IPAs I made were actually fairly interesting and benefited from the oats, although I did also use some Munich malt which also skews things a bit.

As for the "silkiness" I've questioned that myself but after years of tasting I have come to find that they do impart a smoothness, some kind of "silkiness" if you will. I guess the question is how much silkiness do you feel, because if you can see the haze that oats give to lighter colored beers, then that must mean that those proteins are sticking around, and so they must be doing something, right?

I'll sign off with an interesting bit. This story or quote is second or even third person so take it with a grain of salt, but I was told that the brewer at a large English brewery who produced Oatmeal Stout once said something along the lines of 'we don't want that shite (oats) in our beer, we simply throw a little on top (to say that it's there)'.

 

This is definitely true of a lot of English breweries. Ron Pattinson recently mentioned it in a post, but he's been making this point for years. A negligible amount of oats was added so that the breweries could call their stout "oatmeal stout" without violating the law. In fact some breweries added oats to all of their stouts to give themselves flexibility on labeling.

By contrast, as Pattinson notes, Maclays (which invented the style and in fact patented "oat malt stout," only to watch other breweries use flaked malts instead) always used a substantial portion of malted oats.

 

Based on my friends’ reactions to beers lately, I absolutely think this is a thing.

 

Quite possibly.

 

Arid-ness or the drying factor from those roast malts, even victory, can definitely contributes to a perception of thinness.

 

I am drinking my sessionable oatmeal stout tonight, which probably needs another week on gas before it hits ideal carbonation. The beer uses both 10% flaked oats and 10% flaked barley. I have only used flaked barley once before, several years ago, so I can draw no informed conclusions about what it might be contributing, but the beer has a prominent silky mouthfeel that I am willing to attribute to the oats if no one says differently.

 

Meant to post this link to this thread this weekend, but spaced on it. Was on his site this morning so remembered:
http://scottjanish.com/case-brewing-oats/

 

Dave (@telejunkie), thanks for the above link.

I was heretofore unaware of the benefits of using oats in the grain bill and improved beer stability:

"Another positive in brewing with oats is it’s ability to improve beer stability. The Taylor/Humphrey study found that there is no reduction in flavor stability detected in oat beer, in comparison with equivalent products (up to 12 months storage in the bottle)."

Cheers!

 

Good point and kind of surprising to me Jack as well...would think that the added oils would decrease stability, but what was also intriguing was that one of the studies cited showed higher oil content pre-fermentation, then lower oil content post...