Oat whiskey

[Bradster68]

I don't see many posts of all oat whiskey. Lots in the archives but now it's just an additive for mouth feel or smoothness.
I decided to try crimped cause their cheap.
And only oats. These are obviously unmalted. So I started by grinding. Then slowly adding heat stopping at each rest. I realize the 135ish rest is for oats.Cooked em for about 6 hours at 145ish.
I'm using enzymes htl and gluco at appropriate temps and adjusting for PH.
I used 1.5lbs per gallon because of the thickness iv read can happen. Didn't notice any issues. But maybe that'll happen when Im done fermenting and trying to clear for my strip. Imma let sit overnight and pitch in the morning. Anxious to see the results.
Any help or feedback is much appreciated

[Twisted Brick]

Kudos to you, Bradster for your foray into making an oat whiskey. From your description, you've done your homework and didn't run into any challenges. I have promised myself to do an oat whiskey at some point (as well as an oat vodka) but have too many new grain bills to get through first.

The only thing I can share is that the potential sugar of oats is lower than your standard grains like corn, barley and wheat. For this reason you might find yourself eventually increasing your lbs/gal mash ratios. DAD300 uses 20lbs oats in an 11 gal mash. I am unsure of any unique flavor profile the oats may give a whiskey, and for that matter, a vodka.

When I finally get around to an oat single malt, I will be working with your run-of-the-mill breakfast cereal rolled oats. If I ever find oat malt for a reasonable price I would like to try them.

I think I sent all my oat notes (and this article ) to you a few years ago. Looking forward to hearing of your results.

[Bradster68]

Kudos to you, Bradster for your foray into making an oat whiskey. From your description, you've done your homework and didn't run into any challenges. I have promised myself to do an oat whiskey at some point (as well as an oat vodka) but have too many new grain bills to get through first.

The only thing I can share is that the potential sugar of oats is lower than your standard grains like corn, barley and wheat. For this reason you might find yourself eventually increasing your lbs/gal mash ratios. DAD300 uses 20lbs oats in an 11 gal mash. I am unsure of any unique flavor profile the oats may give a whiskey, and for that matter, a vodka.

When I finally get around to an oat single malt, I will be working with your run-of-the-mill breakfast cereal rolled oats. If I ever find oat malt for a reasonable price I would like to try them.

I think I sent all my oat notes (and this article ) to you a few years ago. Looking forward to hearing of your results.

Thanks TB. This is just a small 15 gallon batch to get my feet wet. I really like the addition of oats in some of the things I make so figured what the heck.
Your notes where very helpful so thanks again. Lots and lots of reading is what makes things happen and obviously testing, especially the "taste testing" .
I'll post when the spirit is done and give my best description of what I find.
If this works out I'll be uping my lbs\per gallon and going for broke.

[Swedish Pride]

Fun playing around ain't it.

Personally I'd not be into 100% unmalted oats, not enough flavour going on.
I do however add some unmalted oats to all my mashbills for what it brings to the table.

Crow did a oats whiskey that's been on my to do list for a while, maybe the mash after the next one.
Think he did about 60% malted the rest unmalted.

Best of luck with it, let us know how you get on

[Bradster68]

Well note to self on this one. LEAVE MORE HEAD SPACE.
I don't use airlocks normally a sheet over top the barrel now. Because this is a smaller batch I decided to use one of my 15 gallon with a clamp on lid and airlock. Did I mention this took off in under 30 min.
I just happened to glance over and WOW I didn't realize those lids could expand as high as this. I pulled out the airlock and stuck a hose into a pail and lost about 2 gallons Like I said,it's a learning experience if nothing else

[MooseMan]

Well note to self on this one. LEAVE MORE HEAD SPACE.
I don't use airlocks normally a sheet over top the barrel now. Because this is a smaller batch I decided to use one of my 15 gallon with a clamp on lid and airlock. Did I mention this took off in under 30 min.
I just happened to glance over and WOW I didn't realize those lids could expand as high as this. I pulled out the airlock and stuck a hose into a pail and lost about 2 gallons Like I said,it's a learning experience if nothing else

Hahahaha!
It's almost like it wants to climb out over the top like some kind of alien lifeform sometimes!

Once that airlock gets plugged, things can get messy real quick.

[Bradster68]

Well note to self on this one. LEAVE MORE HEAD SPACE.
I don't use airlocks normally a sheet over top the barrel now. Because this is a smaller batch I decided to use one of my 15 gallon with a clamp on lid and airlock. Did I mention this took off in under 30 min.
I just happened to glance over and WOW I didn't realize those lids could expand as high as this. I pulled out the airlock and stuck a hose into a pail and lost about 2 gallons Like I said,it's a learning experience if nothing else

Hahahaha!
It's almost like it wants to climb out over the top like some kind of alien lifeform sometimes!

Once that airlock gets plugged, things can get messy real quick.

I think that's the end of clamped barrel tops for me. The sheet is much safer

[Bradster68]

Fun playing around ain't it.

Personally I'd not be into 100% unmalted oats, not enough flavour going on.
I do however add some unmalted oats to all my mashbills for what it brings to the table.

Crow did a oats whiskey that's been on my to do list for a while, maybe the mash after the next one.
Think he did about 60% malted the rest unmalted.

Best of luck with it, let us know how you get on

I think my next experiment will be some malted and compare taste

[subbrew]

Pine ridge distilling makes an all oat Whiskey. It is OK but I didn't buy a bottle. I did talk to the distiller who said it is a goopy mess. Not sure if he was distilling rolled oats or whole or what. He did recommend having the ability to steam distill if using all oats. I let the idea drop after that.

[Bradster68]

Pine ridge distilling makes an all oat Whiskey. It is OK but I didn't buy a bottle. I did talk to the distiller who said it is a goopy mess. Not sure if he was distilling rolled oats or whole or what. He did recommend having the ability to steam distill if using all oats. I let the idea drop after that.

Hmmm. Maybe more of a pain than it's worth. Did you find it flavor less like Swedish did?

[subbrew]

Perhaps not less flavor but different. A bit flat, lot of mouthfeel, and not the sweetness I like. So some of it was personal preference, and that being out of my sweet spot.

[Bradster68]

Perhaps not less flavor but different. A bit flat, lot of mouthfeel, and not the sweetness I like. So some of it was personal preference, and that being out of my sweet spot.

[Beerswimmer]

Hi, I love oats and use them a lot!!!

I use rolled oats from the feed store, I prefer rolling them in a roller mill rather than my hammermill. The hammermill makes straining difficult. Too many tiny bits that clog filters. I also use Angel yeast and prefer it since there's no gloop! I roll the oats just enough to break them open and not be broken too much, add warm water and pitch Stir a few times a day for the first few days and then after 2 weeks it's time to run. Straining the oats this way is easy as pie. I siphon off the clear stuff and the rest goes into a mesh bag and then my mop bucket to press it. A batch takes me about 45 to squeeze, pretty easy.

The smell and taste to me is an oatmeal creme pie. The creamyness, the oats, a good bit of sweetness, and the smooth mouth feel. A bit of spice too. I'm not a fan of white whiskey, but I really like this white. I haven't barreled a 100% oat whiskey, but oats are a good % of most of my whiskies the past years that were barreled and I'm glad I used them!


I'm currently making and stripping an 85%corn 15% oat bourbon recipe all summer to fill a big barrel as a whiskey solera base. All the whiskey in it in the future will have oats in the mashbill. Maybe a 100% oats will become a small part of it one day!

[EricTheRed]

Hi, I love oats and use them a lot!!!

I use rolled oats from the feed store, I prefer rolling them in a roller mill rather than my hammermill. The hammermill makes straining difficult. Too many tiny bits that clog filters. I also use Angel yeast and prefer it since there's no gloop! I roll the oats just enough to break them open and not be broken too much, add warm water and pitch Stir a few times a day for the first few days and then after 2 weeks it's time to run. Straining the oats this way is easy as pie. I siphon off the clear stuff and the rest goes into a mesh bag and then my mop bucket to press it. A batch takes me about 45 to squeeze, pretty easy.

The smell and taste to me is an oatmeal creme pie. The creamyness, the oats, a good bit of sweetness, and the smooth mouth feel. A bit of spice too. I'm not a fan of white whiskey, but I really like this white. I haven't barreled a 100% oat whiskey, but oats are a good % of most of my whiskies the past years that were barreled and I'm glad I used them!


I'm currently making and stripping an 85%corn 15% oat bourbon recipe all summer to fill a big barrel as a whiskey solera base. All the whiskey in it in the future will have oats in the mashbill. Maybe a 100% oats will become a small part of it one day!

Go higher %on the oats.
I use 25kg cornmeal and 10kgs steamrolled oats ground into flour.
Yummy

[Beerswimmer]

I don't want the oats to be too noticable, just a hint in the background and some smoothness. I was going to do 100% corn, but I couldn't help myself!

[Bradster68]

Did my strip run. The straining was no pain at all. After my volcanic eruption I lost about 3 gallons. I stripped to 5abv of the spout. Ended up with a little over 2 gallon low wines. I'm gonna do a spirit run on this instead of saving up for a full charge. I really just want to get a taste of the crimped oats flavor.

[rubberduck71]

SCD's CROW recipe calls for toasted oats. I wonder what that would do to the taste profile vs malted? It's a slow process toasting due to space constraints, but call me intrigued...

[Bradster68]

Well... After mulling things over,IV decided to make more so as to have a full charge for my spirit run.
I always preach patience,so I should live by that also.
So I guess I'll update once IV got enough.

[Bradster68]

Finally Just did my last 40lbs of oats. Hopefully I'll have enough LW for a full charge. If not I'll grab another bag . Time got away from me

[FL Brewer]

I did a batch of oat whiskey, used 2 lb of Racehorse brand oats from the feed store to a gallon of water. Crushed with the roller mill I use for malted barley, had to tighten it down to the smallest gap between rollers, but it crushed pretty well. The starch (and protein, fat in the kernel) to husk ratio seems to be much higher than malted barley, and I didn't have any problems with it being too thick to work with. I fermented on grain, used nylon mesh bags and a fruit press to separate the liquid that went into the pot still for the stripping run. Spirit run done on a VM column that was detuned to about 2/1 reflux ratio after the heads cut. I age for at least a couple years, so collected into the tails, did a tails cut when the flavors started to become unpleasant. 100 lbs of feed grade oats yielded about 3.5 gallons of 120 proof aging stock.

It's almost 3 years on wood now, and it is very smooth. It does have a very nice oily, tongue covering kind of mouth feel. It's not a very strongly flavored whiskey, but it makes a great blend with 70% corn whiskey to 30% oats. Even with a younger corn whiskey, it kind of smooths off the rough edges. I have been doing single grain whiskeys the last couple of years (corn, malted barley, malted wheat, oats) as experiments. I have a nice palette of single grain whiskeys to blend a pretty good variety of "bourbons" and other blended whiskies (blended in the non-whiskey lingo, not using any neutral alcohol, all my batches are all grain)

I highly recommend doing a batch of this stuff and using if for blending; having the separate single grain whiskey really enables you to experiment with the grain bill with quick feedback.

[FL Brewer]

Correction to the above post... lower, not higher starch to husk ratio for oats vs. malted barley; the oats has much more husk to keep the mash from being sticky

[Bradster68]

Hi, I love oats and use them a lot!!!

I use rolled oats from the feed store, I prefer rolling them in a roller mill rather than my hammermill. The hammermill makes straining difficult. Too many tiny bits that clog filters. I also use Angel yeast and prefer it since there's no gloop! I roll the oats just enough to break them open and not be broken too much, add warm water and pitch Stir a few times a day for the first few days and then after 2 weeks it's time to run. Straining the oats this way is easy as pie. I siphon off the clear stuff and the rest goes into a mesh bag and then my mop bucket to press it. A batch takes me about 45 to squeeze, pretty easy.

The smell and taste to me is an oatmeal creme pie. The creamyness, the oats, a good bit of sweetness, and the smooth mouth feel. A bit of spice too. I'm not a fan of white whiskey, but I really like this white. I haven't barreled a 100% oat whiskey, but oats are a good % of most of my whiskies the past years that were barreled and I'm glad I used them!


I'm currently making and stripping an 85%corn 15% oat bourbon recipe all summer to fill a big barrel as a whiskey solera base. All the whiskey in it in the future will have oats in the mashbill. Maybe a 100% oats will become a small part of it one day!

IV followed Eric's suggestion and it's super tasty. Even white

[Bradster68]

Correction to the above post... lower, not higher starch to husk ratio for oats vs. malted barley; the oats has much more husk to keep the mash from being sticky

Good to know. Actually I did notice a lot of husks after rolling. I haven't did my spirit run yet. But I'm thinking I'll do a large batch and get a bunch aging. I haven't done any blending yet

[FL Brewer]

One point I forgot to make is that I cook the oats by boiling the water before adding to the crushed grain, then use high temp gluco and amyl enzymes as the mash cools to the appropriate temperatures. It's the same one barrel cooking/mashing technique discussed many times in other threads.

[Bradster68]

One point I forgot to make is that I cook the oats by boiling the water before adding to the crushed grain, then use high temp gluco and amyl enzymes as the mash cools to the appropriate temperatures. It's the same one barrel cooking/mashing technique discussed many times in other threads.

I didn't boil, but I'm a big fan of the enzymes. I guess I could have boiled them .

[8Ball]

I’ve started to add malted oats (Proximity) to my bourbon grain bills. They comprise 2.5% of the grain bill. Its way too early to be sure, but I believe that they do add a little smoothness to the spirit.

[HDNB]

good info on oats! My only try on 100% oats was with whole oats off the field, the thing that i didn't like was my roller mill just squashed them and the yield was low because of that. I think you really need to grind them up like with a hammer mill or something. starting with crimped was prolly a better idea.

i was thinking a hammer mill for them, but further experiments i used steel cut and rolled but those were just small %'s of total bill.

IIRC, the field oats made a nice smooth whiskey with a simple flavour profile. interested to learn how yours turns out.

[FL Brewer]

One point I forgot to make is that I cook the oats by boiling the water before adding to the crushed grain, then use high temp gluco and amyl enzymes as the mash cools to the appropriate temperatures. It's the same one barrel cooking/mashing technique discussed many times in other threads.

I didn't boil, but I'm a big fan of the enzymes. I guess I could have boiled them .

I poured boiling water over the room temp crushed oats, didn't actually boil the mixture. 50 lbs of crushed oats and 25 gal boiling water into a 55 gal poly drum yields a mash temp anywhere between 170 and 200F depending on ambient temps. I got this method from a no boil AG bourbon recipe on this forum. It's what I do for all of my mashes now. I insulate the the barrel with old blankets and a sleeping bag, keeps the temp drops slow enough that the enzymes work very well and I get a pretty complete conversion, pass the iodine test.

[Bradster68]

Just finished fermenting the last of my oat whiskey. It went just over 2 weeks,and boy did it start to stink I was worried so I ran it pronto.
But now I'm wondering about souring some oats? Lots of topics on this. Would the pineapple smell come through like they say?
Jeez..... another test?