How Much Rye is Too Much Rye
 

I'm trying to make a control rye beer to get a big rye flavor that I'll then blend with a SMaSH (working on getting my flavor ratios).

I want to put as much rye as possible into the control so that I have an upper limit.

My plan was to use 2-row in the rye control and the SMaSH mix-in would be MO (both beers would use the same hop schedule).

While theoretically due to its diastatic power, I could do a mash of 100% rye, would this be in the slightest bit feasible? I do use rice hulls, but have typically kept them to 5% of the total grain bill. What's the highest percentage of rye I can work effectively work with (yes, I know that Palmer and BeerSmith say 10-15%, but I've seen recipes around with plenty more than that).

It all depends on your setup. I personally like 25-30% rye for Red Ales, Pale Ales or IPAs. Just going to try it in a stout for the first time and I have a 20% Rye Pilsner (the Ryesner) lagering in the fridge. Anyways, enough about me and on to your issue, you could easily do 100% is you grab yourself a bag and do it BIAB style. No need to worry about sparging there. If doing a BIAB you could even do a half batch. Then you could blend to your liking and not have a bunch left over because while I love rye beers I think 100% would be too much.

Or you could go the old guess and check route and just use MO plus random %rye, the T(two)MaSH.

Ah, indeed, I was thinking about doing a full, standard mash...that would in fact give me 100% absolute max.

I just did 45% in a roggenbier and it came out great. Still young, but I think its pretty tasty thus-far. Used rice hulls and no problems with the sparge at all.

I did a 100% rye kolsch before with BIAB. it was good, but i probably won't do it again.

I did a 75%. It looked like milk, either the regular kind or the of magnesia kind. It didn't taste good. I'll stick to 20-30%. Blending sounds like a clever idea; you can see what percentage works for you and see why 100% is not often done.

I frequently do a 40% RIPA that is well received. I probably push higher to the 50% range the next rotation. Crystal Rye on the other hand can get out of hand quickly.

Last time I made it I bumped the c-rye up from 1/2# to a full # 3% to 7% and it completely steamrolled the bright bite.

Thanks for the info. Seems like up to 100% is definitely a possibility (how did that 100% rye kolsch taste?).

I'm going to attempt a mini-mash with 100% and see how thick that gets...and what it tastes like. If I dig it, I'll do a 100% small batch BIAB (how much 100% rye beer am I going to need when blending anyway!) and do a full batch of the MO diluter.

If the mini-mash comes out like snot, I'll do a 50-50 rye-2row for the control as I don't see using more than 50% rye in the final recipe for this beer anyway.

I have never done 100% rye before but have done rye being 30ish% of the grain bill. I know someone who did 100% rye and it took forever to sparge since apparently it was the consistency of snot... just be wary of that aspect. BIAB may be the way to go.

it was pretty good. the color was a lil odd, not quite the milk kingwood got, but more of a grayish yellow. it had head for days, but it was also pretty full bodied even at 1.010 FG. when i took my OG reading it was so viscous, the hydrometer would barely spin. all the rye did give it a nice dry, crisp finish and spiciness, but it wasn't a super intense rye flavor like you'd expect.

bear republic did one a few years back: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/bear-republic-ez-ryder/96999/
there's some articles more about it if you feel like searching