I recently bought a Breakfast Stout kit (extract with grains) from Northern Brewer. The specialty grains are .5 lbs of Simpson's roasted barley and 1.5 lbs of flaked oats. What is the best way to mash the oats? I have a two gallon Igloo cooler that I have converted to a mini mash tun, should I use that and what ratio of water to grains? Any help is greatly appreciated! Happy brewing!


Thanks,
Joe

Hmmm...that is interesting. It almost sounds like your kit is incomplete but I suspect that is not really the case.

Technically oats should be mashed. However, the grains you were given would not help in that regard since they are devoid of active enzymes.

You could simply steep your oats along with the specialty grains while the kettle water heats up and remove them before the tempertature exceeds about 168 F.

Using oats in this fashion will extract unconverted starches which can result in haze but since you are making a stout this is not a problem. The starches may also result in beer stability issues and thus reduce the shelf live of your beer. However, if you drink the beer within a few months again this should not be a problem.

If you have a pound of 2-row or better yet 6-row then you could mash the oats with that base malt using a typical water-grain ratio. One thing to keep in mind is that this will result in addition sugars so may over shoot your target original gravity a little.

I hope this helps.

- Scott

Thanks for the input. Steeping might just be the way to go, the instructions with the kit suggested doing that. I was just wondering if anybody had any different ideas.
Joe