Homebrewing Hazy IPAS

For the scores of homebrewers who brew with extract, the New England– style IPA has been a bit of a problem, thanks to the common ingredient in many of these beers: oat. The breakfast-champion grain has a long history in brewing, but the common forms—flaked and cut oats—aren’t useful to a non-mashing brewer. Here are some solutions.

For the scores of homebrewers who brew with extract, the New England– style IPA has been a bit of a problem, thanks to the common ingredient in many of these beers: oats. The breakfast-champion grain has a long history in brewing, but the common forms—flaked and cut oats—aren’t useful to a non-mashing brewer. Drew Beechum offers some advice and solutions.

IF I HAD A NICKEL for every time I’ve seen someone puff up his chest and slag extract or extract brewers, I’d be able to afford a whole carload of expensive hazy IPA 4-packs. If you close your eyes, I guarantee you can hear the crabby old brewer complaining that “extract brewing is cheating,” “extract brewing isn’t real brewing,” etc. Please pass me a few more nickels.

Here’s the thing—the majority of homebrewers—even in this day and age of brewin-a-bag, astonishing and endless varieties of grain, and easy mashing techniques—use extract. Why? Because not everyone has the time, the energy, or the inclination to spend hours on a brew day mashing grain, but they still want to make beer. So who am I, who are you, to turn up our noses at their happy passion about creating?

The reason most of our experiences with extract beers have been “dodgy” is that many of those brewers are on their first attempts. Just think how many things you got wrong in your first batches. In truth, I’ve known veteran brewers who continue after decades to use extract because it fits their lifestyle better. You know I’m not telling you about them if their beer isn’t great.

The truth of brewing still comes largely down to our ability to be clever, accurate, and on point during fermentation. There’s very little you can’t do with extract, including make a hazy IPA.

But, extract brewing has its limitations— namely without mashing, you’re somewhat hamstrung in terms of additional ingredients you can use. Anything that requires mashing is a no-go for extract brewers.

This is a problem in the world of hazy IPA brewing because a common ingredient in many of these beers is the wonderful oat.

The breakfast-champion grain has a long history in brewing, but the common forms—flaked and cut oats—aren’t useful to a non-mashing brewer. The problem is a lack of enzymes to convert the oaty starch into oaty sugar. For all-grain brewers, this isn’t a problem—they have more than enough enzymatic power in a regular mash to chop the oat starch into component sugars.

Extract brewers don’t have the enzymes available because the concentration step has killed all the goods. So we’ve got to get you, the extract fiend, a way to convert oat starch into fermentable oat sugar and allow you to take advantage of the protein and body-building properties of Avena sativa.

The easiest, hackiest solution is to use oat milk, a dairy alternative made from soaked oats and enzymes. Remember, liquid starch is highly undesirable in a shelf-stable foodstuff. Manufacturers will soak oats with amylase to convert starch into sugar and then blend and strain the gruel into a milk-like product. Several breweries and homebrewers have added oat milk straight to the kettle post boil. The result is an outstanding murk with plenty of sugar for fermentation.

But for my money, the best way isn’t any harder, except finding the needed grain. We think of malt as being barley, but malt is the name we apply to any cereal that’s been sprouted and dried. We use wheat malt all the time. If you search hard enough, you can find malts of a number of grains, including oats.

Largely used in the past in the United Kingdom for stouts, oat malt has been barely hanging on until now. For years only Thomas Fawcett & Sons made oat malt, but now others are in on the game, including Canada Malting Company and Simpsons Malt. The nifty bit about oat malt is that it comes packed with enough enzymatic power to convert itself.