Pre soaking Rice hulls when using 60% Wheat? Yay or Nay

zman · 07-31-2009, 06:58 PM

I am doing Ed Wort's Hefe tomorrow and I recall reading that he or someone in the thread suggested soaking the Rice hulls before adding them to the mash. It sounds like a good idea because then they should not absorb much if any water when in the mash? If you do this do you just soak them in hot tap water and add them to the mash prior to adding the grain?

Traditionally, i have tossed #1/2 to #1 in the mash tun first, gave them a good stir and then added the grain and stirred that in. I compensated roughly 1/4 to 1/2 gal of water to compensate for absorption of the hulls?

I want to get peoples thoughts on either process?

Beerrific · 07-31-2009, 07:02 PM

I like to pre-soak. First, it prevents any worry about having to change your absorption rate. Second, they are nasty, I soak and rinse a couple times. I also like to add them to the mash tun with or before I add the mash water, I over shoot the temp. at this point and let the water come back down to the target temp. This prevents any heat loss to the hulls too.

zman · 07-31-2009, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beerrific

I like to pre-soak. First, it prevents any worry about having to change your absorption rate. Second, they are nasty, I soak and rinse a couple times. I also like to add them to the mash tun with or before I add the mash water, I over shoot the temp. at this point and let the water come back down to the target temp. This prevents any heat loss to the hulls too.

So going with the soak and rinse method I can just soak them in hot tap water (113-120F) for say 5-10 minutes strain in a colander. How many time do you soak and rinse?

So soak and rinse add to pre heated empty mashtun, add strike water, then do in grain. How much do you overshoot your temps by to compensate for the hulls? I am thinking no more than 5 degrees F since the hulls will be close to the temp of what they were soaked in. Sound about right?

**IrregularPulse** · 07-31-2009, 07:41 PM

I was always under the impression that rice hulls didn't absorb water...... Could explain why volumes were slightly off. Is it the same .1G/lb

zman · 07-31-2009, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IrregularPulse

I was always under the impression that rice hulls didn't absorb water...... Could explain why volumes were slightly off. Is it the same .1G/lb

you mean 1qt/lb?

Beerrific · 07-31-2009, 07:50 PM

I think they absorb some water, but less than grain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zman

So going with the soak and rinse method I can just soak them in hot tap water (113-120F) for say 5-10 minutes strain in a colander. How many time do you soak and rinse?

So soak and rinse add to pre heated empty mashtun, add strike water, then do in grain. How much do you overshoot your temps by to compensate for the hulls? I am thinking no more than 5 degrees F since the hulls will be close to the temp of what they were soaked in. Sound about right?

You will see how dirty they are when you first soak them, I like to rinse a few time until it is not gross any more.

I over shoot my temp instead of pre-heating my mash tun. If you pre-heat, you probably do not need to make any compensation especially if you just rinsed them with hot water.

**bradsul** · 07-31-2009, 08:01 PM

+1 to rinsing them! They are really dirty and the amount of stuff that comes off them is disturbing.

Personally I soak them in very hot tap water after rinsing, I don't bother adding them until I'm ready to vorlauf, then I stir them in really well and away I go.

zman · 07-31-2009, 08:43 PM

Thanks for all of the insight.