Monday June 28, 2010 posted by: BeerNard in Brewing Techniques

So my friend Brian (Linknlog) is quite the farmer, and this year he has a whole field of oats. I'm not exactly sure what he's going to use them for, but I couldn't resist asking for a sample to try and add a little bit of homegrown Allegany County goodness to my next beer. I know it's summertime, and typically oats are used in the dark, thick beers that you chew on while sitting next to the fireplace about mid-January, but I figured why not try to add some creamy smoothness to a more easy drinking, lighter beer, like a Belgian White, or maybe an English Pale Ale.

Well that was the plan, but it turns out it might not be as easy as I thought.

Oats seem to be pretty highly processed before they're ready to be put into a homebrew. At least highly processed in the sense that it's done with equipment that I don't have and probably won't be buying in the near future.

The kind of oats that you can buy in a homebrewing store are typically flaked or rolled oats (the same thing as far as I can tell). They're made by steaming the oats and running them through a heated roll press. This removes the husks, which are not usable, and gelatinizes the oats. Gelatinizing makes the starches in the oats soluble so that they can be converted to sugar during the brewing process.

The gelatinizing process can be done at home with whole oats, by cooking them in water just below boiling for 10-15 minutes, but it won't do any good if you don't remove the husks first, and expose the groats to the cooking, so I still need a fix for that.

As I'm writing, I'm having an idea. Maybe I can bring my oats to a homebrew store and have them run it through their grain mill to get rid of the husks. Then I can cook them up and I should be good to go.

I realize this is the long way around here. I could just go the homebrew store, buy flaked oats, throw Brian's out the window and make a great Belgian Oat White, and even save a little electricity in the process. I don't like to litter though, and theres something appealing about brewing beer that's at least partially homegrown, so I might as well see what I can do. I'll let you know how it goes.