fullstop22

Recipes 

I am going to brew a wheat with 4lb wheat malt & 4lb 2row do I need to add rice hulls to prevent stuck sparge?

Pabst Blue Robot

Recipes 

It depends on your lauter setup, really. I would. What will it cost, 50¢? Worth it to prevent a stuck sparge, IMHO.

__________________
This is the ORIGINAL Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Nature's choicest products provide its prized flavor. Only the finest of hops and grains are used. Selected as America's Best in 1893.

Baron von BeeGee

Recipes 

I would add 1/2lb just for insurance. I like to rinse them off first as they're usually quite powdery.

fullstop22

Recipes 

I use a copper manifold in a sq. cooler 48qt. I don't if the so called LHBS carries rice hulls the next one is 40mi. one way.

cpbergie

Recipes 

So wheat malt causes stuck sparges? I have a 5 gallon cooler MLT with SS braided hose. will 1/2 lb of rice hulls really make a difference?

Baron von BeeGee

Recipes 

Rice hulls will definitely help. It's not so much the manifold design (although that is a factor) as the fact that wheat malt can setup like glue in the grainbed itself and prevent good sparging/runoff. The rice hulls just break it up a bit and let the wort flow.

I've noticed with high %'s of wheat and/or rye I sometimes have to cut the top 1/2 of my grainbed even with rice hulls in order to prevent a "bathtub effect". I generally try to avoid it however, since it can lead to channeling.

Drunkensatyr

Recipes 

I"m a batch sparger and I STILL use about 5% of grain bill rice hulls EVERY time I use wheat or Rye. It is cheap insurance.

the_bird

Recipes 

Baron, since you're a decoction master, do you still add the rice hulls at the beginning when you're doing a decoction? I wasn't sure if they wanted to be boiled, so I just added them after I did the decoction (screwed up my temps, though).

__________________
Come join Yankee Ingenuity!

"I'm kind of toasted. But I looked at my watch and it's only 6:30 so I can't stop drinking yet." - Yooper's Bob
"Brown eye finally recovered after the abuse it endured in Ptown last weekend, but it took almost a full week." - Paulie
"no, he just doesn't speak 'stupid'. i, however, am fluent...." - motobrewer

Baron von BeeGee

Recipes 

In a decoction scenario I stir them in when I'm mashing out. I'm not sure it matters either way, though.