Truly AG White Wit

Alright guys. I brewed this one today. The recipe is for a 2 gallon batch of white witbier.

Fermentables
2 lbs Millet
2 lbs Quinoa

Hops
.1 oz Northern Brewer @ 90 min (8.6 AA%)
.2 oz UK Kent Goldings @ 30 min (6.7 AA%)
.2 oz UK Kent Goldings @ 5 min (6.7 AA%)

Yeast
Safbrew WB-06

Other
.1 oz Chamomile @ 5 min
.2 oz Coriander @ 5 min
1/2 Orange worth of zest @ 5 min

For the unmalted quinoa and unmalted millet, I soaked them for ~4 hours and roasted them at 350º until they were dry and VERY lightly toasted. I ground the grains to an almost flour like consistency using a corona mill. Now the mash took the majority of the time. With 3 gallons of water, I mashed in at 122 for 15 minutes Then I raised the temp to 143, which is the average gelatinization temperature between quinoa and millet. I let it sit for 15 minutes. Then I ended up letting it sit at 180 for 15 minutes. Lastly, I boiled it for 15 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid any scorched grains on the bottom. That takes care of the cereal mash.

Then, I lowered the temperature to 120. I had some problems with the goo that resulted from the cereal mash, so I added ~2 gallons of boiling to bring the mash to 145. From there, I added ~3 tsp of diatase. I put the lid on and wrapped the pot up in an old comforter to keep the mash temperature stable. I let it sit for 2 hours. By then, the grains had released the majority of their water and I was able to strain the bag. This left me with 4 gallons of fairly sweet tasting wort.

After straining, I raised the wort to boiling and brewed as normal, adding the chamomile, coriander, and orange zest in the last 5 minuntes. The final wort was pleasantly sweet, telling me that I achieved conversion with the unmalted grains. We'll see how the final product comes out, but I have high hopes.

A couple of questions/comments:
1. why did you do a step-mash prior to adding enzymes? It seems like you could just as well have added the grist directly to boiling water for the cereal mash, and then dropped your temps and proceeded to add enzymes and step-mash as you did. Could have saved you some time and effort.
2. when mashing unmalted grains with enzymes, it is helpful to stir frequently, and also to add some gypsum to the mash. The calcium in the gypsum helps stabilize the enzymes and slow their degradation, and the stirring helps conversion efficiency and speed. Unlike a traditional AG mash, the enzymes are not evenly distributed in solution. They tend to settle and concentrate when you add them exogenously, so frequent stirring helps bring them into contact with more starch.

In any case, let us know how it turns out! I'm fixing to brew a wit sometime before the New Year using a similar recipe.

1. In soaking the quinoa, some of it sprouted so I was trying to achieve any conversion from it that I could. Once boiling, any enzymes in the quinoa would be denatured so I figured I'd spend the time to mash them.
2. Thanks for the tip. I did stir the mash every half hour or so. I'll keep that in mind about the gypsum. I'm planning an AG three rice beer (black, wild, and red) that I may implement that in.

From the pic's it looks very starchy. What was the OG.

I don't have a hydrometer so I never got an OG. And yes it is pretty starchy, but for unmalted grains and no Promalt, it's pretty successful so far. Like igliashon said, I could have stirred the mash more to make sure the enzymes were in suspesion. That definitely would have helped.