Conversion to malt extract: This recipe cannot easily be converted to malt extract because the oatmeal must be mashed for sugar conversion.
The brew crew wanted to try an oatmeal stout. The Pierson's Porter recipe was reconfigured to make this recipe. The changes are lower IBUs, medium crystal malt, and partial-mash for the oatmeal.
The oatmeal used was the typical Quaker oats used for breakfast cereal. These were boiled prior to the mash. A problem was that it cooled, then formed a thick, jello-like mass. Ugh. The mash temperature was too low due to adding this cooled oatmeal. This was fixed by boiling a small part of the mash (decoction), then returning it to the main mash. It wasn't a perfect process, but it turned out well.