Triticale flakes

I got some flaked triticale (a hybrid cross of wheat and rye) I'd like to try including in a mash. Does anyone have any experience with this grain? They're unmalted of course, so I know I'll have to combine them with some 2-row or other diastatic grain. Since they're flaked I don't need a cereal mash, right?

Captain Damage said:

I got some flaked triticale (a hybrid cross of wheat and rye) I'd like to try including in a mash. Does anyone have any experience with this grain? They're unmalted of course, so I know I'll have to combine them with some 2-row or other diastatic grain. Since they're flaked I don't need a cereal mash, right?

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I never use a cereal mash for flaked oats or rye, so I think you're right.

If you follow a typical wit or roggenbier recipe, you should be just fine. I don't know from experience, but in all the books i've read this would seem to be the case.

The main reason I'm asking is that I didn't get this from a brew store, It's from a health food store. Are all flaked grains heated above gelatinization temp, or are grains used for brewing treated specially? I guess to roll any grain out they'd have to steam them, otherwise they'd crack, right? By their appearance, they look just like flaked wheat, but a little darker.

Captain Damage said:

The main reason I'm asking is that I didn't get this from a brew store, It's from a health food store. Are all flaked grains heated above gelatinization temp, or are grains used for brewing treated specially? I guess to roll any grain out they'd have to steam them, otherwise they'd crack, right? By their appearance, they look just like flaked wheat, but a little darker.

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I buy my flaked grains from the supermarket. It's the same stuff.

To resurrect the thread, did you ever brew with it Capt'n, and how did it work out?

My neighbor who bakes bread got a 25 lb sack of triticale thinking she would like it over the rye she's been using, and decided she didn't like it and was just going to feed it to the horses. She offered it to me, and I've been playing with rye and wheat beers so I think I'll take her up on it, but 20 lbs of it is a bunch for experimentation. My understanding is that different cultivars will be more or less like wheat or rye, so I don't know which way this bag will lean, but I guess it doesn't really matter a lot since I play with both.

As an aside, all of the adjuncts I've been playing with are from my wife's bread baking stores since we buy it in 25 or 50 lb quanites, so none of it is made for brewing. I have mostly been coarsely grinding it (like steel cut oats) whether using whole berries or rolled grains, and then mixing it into the mash. I haven't tried a separate cereal mash yet, but I also haven't gone over 20% adjunct yet; that transition is in my plans for next Spring. Rolled grains are pretty thick this way; the rolled oats/spelt/rye/barley she gets are much thicker than something out of the grocery store in the cereal isle, which is why I'm chopping them up too. Flaked grains for brewing are a whole lot nicer, but I have 15 six gallon buckets of grain downstairs to play with...it's easy for me to add a cupful of rolled grain for head-retention this way without ever missing it.

I did and the beer came out very well! I case you couldn't guess from the Klingon logo in my profile pic, I'm a giant Star Trek geek. My reason for getting the triticale flakes was to make a "quadrotriticale" beer. Since quadrotriticale won't exist for another hundred years or so, I decided to fake it by making my beer with 2-row (4lbs), wheat malt (4lbs), flaked rye (12oz) and flaked triticale (12oz). Mashed at 152F. My efficiency sucked (due to equipment issues and probably not enough rice hulls) so I wound up also adding a pound of sugar. Hopped for 60 mins with 1oz of Amarillo.

The beer was pleasant to drink and just slightly complex without being complicated. I intend to make a version of it later this winter. I'll probably use rye malt instead of flakes and hop it with glacier, and won't skimp on the rice hulls.

Thanks! I'm finally getting around to planning something with the 5 gal bucket of triticale since Spring approaches and wheat/rye beers are warm weather beers for me. Mine is unflaked so I'll probably be cereal mashing it. Poking around on the web I see that the research that's out there wants a very short cereal mash to make it soluble, and then they go through an impossibly complicated step mash to get the most out of it. Well, impossibly complicated for my current lazy way of brewing anyway; I guess if you had a programmable mash tun you'd do stuff like this all the time. The reference is:

9:1 ratio of trit to malt, 64C for 10 min
add remaining malt and water to bring to 50C for 40 min
63C 60 min
70C 35 min
77C 10 min

My initial compromise for a 2.5 gal test BIAB ful-volume mash batch will be:

2# trit 0.25# 2-row and 2.25 gal water, 150F for 10 min
add 4# 2-row, 0.5# C30L and 1.75 gal water, 122F for 30 min
150F for 60-90 min while eating dinner

Then yank the bag and see where my OG lands between about 1.035 if the trit does nothing at all and 1.050 if it converts normally. If this converts above about 1.045 then next time I'll skip the cereal mash to check out the difference. If it is low but I'm getting anything at all from the triticale, I'll continue to use it since it's free, but I'll adjust the recipe to allow for its lack of conversion. A much thicker mash would probably help, but I'm lazy that way.

I'll post again when I have some data.

Good luck! My latest version of this was made from equal parts 2-row, dark wheat malt, rye malt and flaked triticale - and plenty of rice hulls this time. Hopped with glacier, OG:IBU=~0.5. I just did a straight single infusion mash. Tastes great! I won't make it again until the fall, but this batch used the last of my tritcale so I'll have to get some more.

Update -

My triticale and wheat beers are finally carb'ed so I cracked the two side-by-side; both are good stuff. They used an identical recipe, just the different adjuncts mashed in with a regular single step infusion resting at 152. My real cereal mash version isn't in bottles yet to compare.

I read that triticale can taste more or less like either of its parents depending on the specific variety, and comparing these two (and my rye beer I still have) this triticale is about 60-70% of the way to rye. The wheat adds a body and softness that I perceive as "fluffy", the straight up rye has a "sharpness" to it that I find refreshing, and the triticale is like a very nice blend (many rye recipes are a blend). Maybe I'll soften the next batch by mixing in a little more wheat, maybe not, it is good as-is.

The real cereal mash actually did get quite a bit better conversion for me; it will be interesting to see if it affects flavor in other ways too. It's enough improvement (and really not that difficult) that I'll use it for future adjunct beers with my SWMBO's bread grain stores. It's fun to be able to play with recipes with so much stuff on hand (spelt, rye, wheat, oats, barley, rice, and now triticale are all in 5 gal buckets downstairs in various forms). I've not used carapils since my initial recipe kits because I can tweak a recipe by choosing which rolled grain to add into the mash.

Fun stuff!