Almost ready for first all-gain batch: rice hulls question

I plan on adding a pound of rice hauls to the mash for my first all-grain batch, especially since it appears I have my crush a bit too fine. Do I have to factor in the 1 lb of rice hauls when calculating how much strike water to add?

Thanks,

Jeff

I never do.

I normally don't use them. The only exception is when I do the Cream of Three Crops Cream Ale due to all the corn and rice. Even then, a pound is way over kill, IMHO.

you don't need to toss in a lb of hulls, just a big handfull works. if you are feeling overzealous with it, two handfulls.

instead of adding mashwater, you should just soak your hulls in water for half an hour or so. just make sure they all get wet and you'lll be fine. i drop my hulls in a water filled jar as i'm waiting for the mashwater to come up.

water absorbtion is just about the same for grain as it is for hulls. doubt if you will need them at all. do you fly or batch sparge and what is your manifold/screen type?

cooler batch sparging with a stainless steel braid can handle some very fine crush without a stuck sparge The trick is to start your vorlauf with a very slow runoff, then adjust your flow rate once your bed is set

Thanks for the help guys. I'm batch sparging with a cooler and stainless braid (high temp tubing with notches inside of stainless braid). I cut way back on the amount of rice hauls I added but was too paranoid not to add any! The process is going well so far....

eggbeater59 said:

you don't need to toss in a lb of hulls, just a big handfull works. if you are feeling overzealous with it, two handfulls.

instead of adding mashwater, you should just soak your hulls in water for half an hour or so. just make sure they all get wet and you'lll be fine. i drop my hulls in a water filled jar as i'm waiting for the mashwater to come up.

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+1 on this. I just did a Dunkleweizen that is 65% wheat and used only a hand full. No stuck sparge, all went well.
Cheers

+2, you just need enough to keep the grain bed from collapsing under it's own weight.

BTW: Not sure where I read it (BYO, Zymurgy, here), but using a spatula to cut slices into the grain bed after a stuck sparge works really well. It also requires a lot less of a vorlauf after it unplugs then re-stirring the mash. My Biere de Garde stuck on me on Sunday halfway through the sparge.

joety said:

BTW: Not sure where I read it (BYO, Zymurgy, here), but using a spatula to cut slices into the grain bed after a stuck sparge works really well. It also requires a lot less of a vorlauf after it unplugs then re-stirring the mash. My Biere de Garde stuck on me on Sunday halfway through the sparge.

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Were you using unmalted or flaked wheat in that recipe?

If you use a lot of flaked or unmalted grist it can get gummy. Malted wheat beers I do up to 70% malted wheat without any hulls. It depends on your set-up and your crush.

A long cake icing knife or spatula works well if you are recirculating and your flow rate slows. You can cut the top 2 or so inches of the bed in a criss-cross pattern, that will loosen up the silt layer on top of the bed and increase your flow rate.

A tip for those guys using brewing software such as ProMash where you can enter new grain types.

You make a "New Grain" entry, and name it "Rice Hulls". Where the gravity points are entered for the malt, you just ZERO it out, then SAVE.

When you make a Recipe up and want to use hulls, you just add the hulls into the recipe as you would other malts, and how much you are going to use.

The software will adjust the water needed automatically without adding any gravity. There is no need to pre-soak them that way, you just throw them in the mash along with the other grist.

I believe the grain bill was merely Pils, Vienna, Aromatic and Gambrinus Honey Malt. Haven't used honey before, but other than the honey odor it looked like any other specialty malt. I generally use rice hulls whenever using flaked grains or wheat or even if I use MO as a base malt as I've had issues with that.

I think my problem was I misjudged the depth of the grain bed (thought it was taller) and started the sparge too early. The massive amount of water above the grain bed compacted it. I generally drain it down to about half an inch before starting the sparge but I somehow got out of my normal routine.