Replacing Wheat

Hi I'm planning to make a Wit beer/Hoegaarden clone. However I am having a hard time sourcing wheat. There isn't much wheat here except flour ( all purpose, bread and cake flours - all bleached). I was thinking of using rice because we have lots of rice here. I'm not particular about sticking to the style, I just want it to be "close" to the taste/flavor of Wit beer.

Can i use rice as a substitute? How about flour + rice hull?

Are you using extract? If you are, to be honest I would not worry about it. Just use extract and then the orange/coriander and the wit yeast and you'll be fine.
If you're AG, you're just going to need it. You could get by with unmalted wheat, especially for a wit. It'd be more to style than the white wheat everyone uses.

The flour + rice hulls is an interesting idea. Might make for one hell of a mess. You're going to need a lot of rice hulls.

Do not just use rice.

double.

I will use all grain both for Malt and Wheat (or rice). Sorry but I can't seem to get your explanation. Why couldn't I replace wheat with rice? Does wheat have a flavor profile very different from rice?

aldousbee said:

I will use all grain both for Malt and Wheat (or rice). Sorry but I can't seem to get your explanation. Why couldn't I replace wheat with rice? Does wheat have a flavor profile very different from rice?

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In short yes. It's way different. You can't sub rice for wheat.

aldousbee said:

I will use all grain both for Malt and Wheat (or rice). Sorry but I can't seem to get your explanation. Why couldn't I replace wheat with rice? Does wheat have a flavor profile very different from rice?

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most light BMC lagers like Coors made with up to 30% rice or corn and they don't taste like wit at all. Rice will thin your beer out, it has almost no flavour. I would not use rice in wit beer as substitute. Not sure about flour

I think you can find flaked wheat at the grocery in the bulk isle or maybe research cream of wheat cereal. I think someone here has used it before.

flour works. white bleached flour probably won't have any enzymes, but the whole wheat might. Anyway, if you are mashing with barley it won't matter... it'll all work. Good luck lautering.

I'll probably use wheat flour + rice hulls. I'm from the Philippines we got tons of it here.