Extract brew #3 a mystery ! Ideas , advice please .

[Nosferatu]

Afternoon all , got a couple of days off coming up so thought I'd use one of them to get brew #3 up and running . The problem is I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm going to be creating so I'll chuck what is sitting in my cupboard up and see what you lot think will be the best option . I've got a mild/portery type thing in mind but was also considering an alt bier .
1 x 1.5kg tin light lme
1 x 500g dark dme
100g saaz hops
60g northdown hops
40g perle hops
70g cascade hops
1 tin treacle ,
500g demerara sugar
1 x 1kg brew enhancer .
3 x sachets "British ale yeast"
Looking at recipes dotted about the place I was thinking that the type of thing I'm most likley to end up with will be more porter than mild or possibly venturing into brown ale territory . This would be made up using the light and dark me's and the northdown hops which according to calculator would be using 50g in a 6.5 l boil at 1042 sg giving me approx 23 IBU . Chuck 100g of the treacle and the 500g bag of demerara into the mix and see what happens , any thoughts , alternative suggestions most welcome .
On a side note was also thinking that if this is likely to be more porter than brown ale that i'd quite like to have a crack at utilising oats to try and get a good consistency into the thing so wondered if the best way to do this would be a mini mash using pinhead oats then pour the resulting liquid into my boil . How would I go about this ? In my head I'm thinking Xg of pinhead oats steeping in a litre or so of Xc water for however long . Would I need to toast the oats or anything first or just hoy them straight into the pan as is ?

[Nosferatu]

Anyone there ? Still hoping for some advice on the oat query . Seen in some other posts that I can use porridge oats , do I chuck them in the boil or would I need to do the mini mash ?

[DaveyT]

Looks like you've got the ability to calculate your recipes. If I was you, I wouldn't use more than 15% sugar. 500g seems like a bit more than that.
The oats I'm not sure about. If you're sure all you need to do is a mini mash, then do that in your main pan before boiling the lot up. If you want to make sure they convert, you could sling in an equal amount of pale ale malt.
Hope this helps.

[Nosferatu]

Cheers Davey , I really fancy trying the oats but still haven't determined exactly what to do with them . The more I look up stuff the more variations on what to do I find haha . Is the sugar percentage based on the malts , etc or does it take the water into account too , my boil will only be 6.5 l as thats the size of my stockpot but I'll be topping up to 20l in my FV if that changes things ?

[DaveyT]

The % is the fermentables. Have you got brewing software? It's priceless. There are threads here about it, and also pot size. Lots of ideas, though. You might just have to try one and see if it works.
There are things called Golden Naked Oats that might just need steeping (like a teabag) as opposed to mashing at particular temps.
You're right about variation. Choosing's the most difficult bit!

[Nosferatu]

The calculations I've been using are on another site , must admit I never knew about the sugar % ratio thing , I might drop my total a touch to bring closer to the 15% range . Want to stay above 4% abv so might have to mess about with my other ingredients to keep my sg up . Thanks for the info mate .

[DaveyT]

No worries. If you want to keep the high percentage of sugar, you coulf use something like honey to get a particukar flavour to the beer. Then your best bet is to add it a week after you pitch your yeast and wait a further ten days for it to ferment out.
I made an excellent St Peter's honey porter clone using 10% crystal malt and 5% chocolate malt with light DME. I then added 12% honey a week later, but I think 16% wouldn't go amiss.
Let us know what you decide to do, either way.

[Nosferatu]

So I went with my mystery beer . Done a mini mash with 250g of "large" porridge oats and got around a pint of liquid oat gloop once strained . Disaster nearly struck when it came to weighing my hops and forgot that I'd used way more of my Northdown than I'd remembered so took a chance and hoyed some Saaz in as well to bring up to my desired IBU rating . Chucked 100g of treacle in after my boil . Ended up with a nice dark looking wort although not quite in the porter/stout range that I thought I was going to get more like a ruby mild / brown ale. Went into the FV at 1044 and is now down to 1010 after 9 days . A quick taste from the sample jar when measuring the SG was promising , mildish with a slightly more pronounced hop character than you'd expect from that style of beer , no idea what I'd call it but happy enough with it so far , looking forward to seeing if the added oat gloop does have any effect of head formation/retention .

[Nosferatu]

Bottled it yesterday , still quite murky looking and definitely more in the brown ale territory than owt else which is no disaster . Looking forward to seeing how it conditions .