Buckwheat in a Nut Brown Ale

Any ideas as to how much buckwheat would amp up the "nuttiness" of a nut brown? Cereal mash then add to the mash? Thoughts... Comments... Dislikes...

Cereal mash is a given. You should probably crush it as well.

I also hear that it produces a lot of haze, but i haven't checked whether gelatin or other finings are known to drop it out - if you care about that in a brown, and maybe you don't.

Also interested in what ratio starts to add flavor.

If you can get whole groats w/ hulls, you can malt it yourself. You may even be able to buy buckwheat malt, but i hear that it's diastatic power is not quite enough to self-convert. The buckwheat groats i can get from winco out of their bulk bins are actually hulled and roasted.

I am not too concerned with clarity. I use a counter flow and Irish moss. It usually clears well. I can chill to 66 in a hurry. I thought I would cereal mash with some 6 row to kick that starch right in the ass! I was thinking about 10% of the grist. London ale.

Maybe you misunderstand what a cereal mash is.

Grains that aren't malted need to have their starches gelatinized so that the amylase can get to them.

Flaked grains are steamed and squished into flakes, then dried. So, they are pre-gelatinized and then dried.

So the idea is that you crush those non-malted grains and throw them in the rice cooker with as much water as you feel like and cook 'em until they are mushy, and then add them to your mash. Or add them to your strike water and then add that to your mash.

It can be tricky not to overshoot your water volume doing that. You'd have to weigh dry vs. cooked to determine how much water is in it. But that's only if you're worried about your exact volume.

If you consider that most specialty grains provide no enzymes, you can typically get away with 20-30% specialty grains and adjuncts before you need to worry about using 6-row or pilsner. With pilsner malt as your base you can go to 40%. With 6-row you can go as high as 50%, I think, but i could be wrong on that.

Edit: Wait, no, pilsner malt has LESS enzymes than 2-row. Sorry.

This blog entry is helpful, on the subject of understanding diastatic power: http://beersmith.com/blog/2010/01/04/diastatic-power-and-mashing-your-beer/

I guess I didn't explain my process so its my fault... I use the six row to keep the adjunct from getting too gluey. Then I add a little more six row in the mash to assist the conversion in the mash. I have to buy a pound so I split it up. Usually raise to 153... Hold for 15 min. Then boil for 45 min and boom. I used wild rice once and blew my volume by 3 qts...

Ah. The second time i made a (brown) rice beer, to de-clump the rice i added it to the strike water and made a sort of soup out of it. Actually, I added it to 1/3rd of the strike water for the 1st infusion. So i added 2/3rds to the tun, then the malt grist, then the rice soup. Worked great.