I am brewing my IPA this weekend (that I lost). I want to add oat flakes. I tried to find how to do use the oat flakes. I can not find how to do this process. Do I add it to the mash out or the rest, is it blended in or laid on top or even with the boil, is it crushed?,
I generally do not crush flaked grains and add them to the mash with everything else. Flaked oats do get glutenous so I seen people put the oats in a separate grain sack. You want all that gloopy protein though or else there’s no point to doing it. IMO
After milling my grains. I add them to the the mash. No milling.
I use Fawcett english oat malt in my IPA recipe. The malted oats actually help with flow through the bed. Do not need rice hulls. Fawcett English Oat Malt. Can go up to 50% of malted oats in the mash.
For unmalted oats, Palmer says that unless you are using instant oatmeal, you need to gelatinize the starches by boiling per the directions on the box but add more water. You then add them to the mash. The oats do not have the enzymes needed to convert the starches to sugar so have to mash with barley malts as you are doing. Palmer says even instant oatmeal benefits from being cooked prior to adding to the mash. I have not used oat flakes and am just quoting Palmer. I bow to the experience of others who have used.
I did try adding unsweetened oat milk to my finished IPA and it looked and tasted disgusting! Tried 2 tablespoons per 12 oz beer. Oatmilk is made from oatmeal with amylase added to convert the starches to sugar. So I thought I found a way to turn my IPA into a milkshake IPA without lactose. Failed experiment.
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Store bought oat milk has a lot of other stuff in it like sunflower or rape seed oil and plant based gums that give it the creamy consistency of cow milk. Straight oat milk that you might make yourself is the consistency of slimy water.
It is so easy to add oats to the mash or to make you own oat milk., I never understood that short lived trend of adding premade oat milk to beers.
I just add instant oats to the mash. Store brand work as well as Quaker.
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My plan is to add 10% of the mash of store bought oats. If I add oats to mash, will it help the oats with more water to mash?
I just use the total pounds of grain including oats to calculate my water.
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So… The enzyme in the barley the helps convert the starch? OR… does the pre-boil create the gelatin holding the starch?
My understanding, is it provides mouthfeel and helps with suspended solids for NEIPA styles… Apparently, I don’t get outside my box too much… 
Sneezles61
short answer yes enzymes convert starch to sugars and yes preboil of oats gelatinizes it and yes oats provide mouthfeel
The first step in converting grain starch to sugar is gelatinating the starches. Think of it as allowing the starches to dissolve in water. Once it is dissolved in water, then the enzymes in the barley malt react with the starch to break it down into smaller molecules. If its not dissolved, it can not react. Starch is a bunch of sugar molecules (monomers) bonded together to make a very long chained molecule (polymer aka lotsa mers 
). But the enzymes can not get at the starches to break them down until the starch is gelatinized. Barley and a lot of other malts gelatinize at a lower temperature than non malted oats. That’s why Palmer recommends hydration of non quick oats before mashing. Quick oats are already gelatinized that is why they good so quick. Now to be fair, I have seen a range of temperatures and Scott Janish says gelatinization finishes up around 155F and definitely by 162F. So as Janish puts it as long as you are on the hot side of mashing temp, you may not need to preboil non quick oats. As Dr Fauchi might say “out of an abundance of caution, preboil your oats”
Sorry for getting all techy…at least I did not talk about 1-4 alpha vs 1-4 beta glyosidic linkages.
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Thank you Mr. M… I always thought Oats stuff wouldn’t add fermentable…
Sneezles61
Thanks @mikem The techy stuff kind of make me glaze over but that was understandable. I have always used the quick aka instant oats in mainly stouts and knew there was a reason but after finding something that works I tend to forget the why.
thanks for the info, try to put it to use!!
