ummm...raw wheat???

so...what is the deal with wheat? does it need to be malted? can it be used without being malted? can you malt your own?

my family has about sixty acres of wheat in this year and i can get all i want for free...so free ingredients = lots of beer right?

you can malt your own. i think there are directions on byo.com. i had a link to it but my hd crashed a little while back and lost my links. search their site and you should be able to find it. just be aware your potential gravity is unknown when you do it yourself. my family has a 1200 acre farm so i can get for free too, but for me, it's worth paying for to know what i am getting. i have about 40 lbs sitting around in my place i haven't touched, but i will malt myself and do a couple trials to try to find potential gravity of it. it will be a fun experiment if nothing else.

you can also use it in a cereal mash. search this site or google on how to do it. in short, a mash before your main mash.

I may be mistaken, but I thought the purpose of malting was to trick the grains into producing the enzymes needed for starch conversion. Wheat is used at a 60/40 ratio with barley in many recipes specifically because wheat doesn't contain the enzymes needed to convert alone. So what does malting wheat actually do? I may be confused, but it seems like wheat straight from the field would work.

Unmalted wheat is used in some recipes.
I use it in Wit. You need a certain amount of malted grains to get conversion. Other unmalted grains or adjuncts will also be converted.

For my wit, I use about 47.5% malted 2-row, 47.5% unmalted wheat, and 5% oats. I get conversion with that.

I'm picking some raw wheat up from fifelee this weekend and am gonna try some 100% raw wheat batches just for experimentations sake. I'll start a thread with my results.

Traditionally it's used in Lambics and Wits unmalted. In German and American wheat beers it is malted.

smellysell said:

I'm picking some raw wheat up from fifelee this weekend and am gonna try some 100% raw wheat batches just for experimentations sake. I'll start a thread with my results.

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Without adding enzymes I fear your efficiency with be near zero. The starch won't convert in the mash...

Jumbo82 said:

Without adding enzymes I fear your efficiency with be near zero. The starch won't convert in the mash...

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I know that's a distinct possibility, but for the price I'm not too worried about it. We'll see what happens, should be a fun experiment.

Absolutely! Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Jumbo82 said:

I may be mistaken, but I thought the purpose of malting was to trick the grains into producing the enzymes needed for starch conversion. Wheat is used at a 60/40 ratio with barley in many recipes specifically because wheat doesn't contain the enzymes needed to convert alone. So what does malting wheat actually do? I may be confused, but it seems like wheat straight from the field would work.

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This is incorrect. Malted wheat has more enzymes the most barley.

Check out the diastatic power. 2-row = 140, red wheat = 165.

Briess Malt & Ingredients Co.: Base Malts

Unmalted wheat will work great in a wit with a cereal mash. You just may have to use a portion of malted wheat with barley if you want >50% wheat/grain ratio, as the enzymes in the barley alone will not convert everything in a 50% blend.

Or just use less wheat and make an american wheat beer with about 30%...that oughta do it.

No matter what, I would do a cereal mash first and a long mash after to ensure conversion has completed.