Estonian Rye Beer

I found a recipe for Estonian Rye Beer on another site. My son is half Estonian and I want to brew the AG version for his birthday. I'm unsure about the recipe, though.

The grain bill is:

5 lbs. of 6-row brewer's malt
0.5 lb. amber malt (or light crystal, 20° Lovibond or so)
1.5 lbs. wheat
Mash @ 130 degrees 30-40 minutes, then add:

0.5 lb. medium crystal malt (50-60° Lovibond)
0.5 lb. Vienna malt
2.5 lb. chocolate malt
7.5 lb. malted rye
2.5 lb. malted wheat
and mash @ 152 degrees for 45 min., raise to 165 degrees for 10 min., run off the wort and sparge @ 170 degrees.

The amount of grain for a 5 gallon batch comes out to 20.5#. Seven and a half pounds of rye and 2.5# of wheat seem high to me. I found a thread on another site that speculated those amounts were in error, but no definite conclusion was reached.

Does anyone have experience with this recipe or would anyone be willing to offer advice?

Thanks,
Steve

I suspect that's a 10 gallon recipe - for 5 gallons at 70% efficiency you're looking at an OG around 1.100.

But I also think that the weird mashing schedule is unnecessary. Just mash all the grains at the same time. And you probably don't need to do the protein rest - just mash at 152 for 60-90 minutes (until conversion is complete). You may want to use rice hulls to avoid a stuck sparge.

I agree with kanz...Probably a 10g batch. I also would just mash the whole thing at 152. You don't need the other steps. If you want to mash out to 165 you can do that step.

With that amount of rye malt I would also have some rice hulls on hand incase you get a stuck sparge.

I scaled it down in BeerSmith and it looks more reasonable. About a pound of rice hulls will do it?

I made a wheat beer with 3.5# pale malt and 7# wheat malt and only used .33# of rice hulls - no stuck sparge problems. When you buy them you'll understand how little you need to use.

I used to add the rice hulls every beer I was "worried" about a stuck sparge. Now I just keep a pound around incase it does get stuck I can unstick it. Just nice to have them and not need them instead of need them and not have them.

And I did 1/2# at a time per batch.

Rice hulls don't weigh much. I don't usually measure them, I just chuck a couple of handfuls in the mash if I'm worried about sticking.

I've done 25% rye with no problems, sans rice hulls. That said, the above recipe is about 57% rye malt. I'd definitely add some rice hulls to that mash.

Thanks for the help. I'm going to brew it and see how it goes.