Millet Test Mash Results

Did a test mash on millet. Details:

1. One pound millet
2. Held at 164-166F for 20 mins (brought up to temp quickly).
3. Allowed to cool to around 162F, added half tsp. amylase (E.C.Kraus)
4. After 20 mins, add another half tsp., amylase
5. End mash after 2 hours, with mash temp down to 142F (best I could hold it for 2 hours).
6. Sparge with 3 pints water at 175F
7. After cooling, SP of 1.048

For those of you who mash millet, is this getting to a reasonable specific gravity? Still not passing the iodine test, but the SP is looking better than past attempts. Just based on taste, there was way more sugar in this batch than previous efforts. I assume the results with 10 pounds of grain would be at least as good following the schedule.

Maybe because I can't hold the mash in the 150s for even 90 minutes (at least no with just 1 pound of millet), the gel rest at 164-166F seems essential for my situation.

This is a nice encouraging result.
What volume of water did you use in the mash?

Legume said:

This is a nice encouraging result.
What volume of water did you use in the mash?

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I used a quart of water

So 1 lb of millet malt got you 80 oz of 1.048 wort.
At this efficiency it would take you 1.6 lbs of millet to yield 1 gal of 1.048 wort.
Not bad at all.

Your results are impressive. My question is this, what flavor contributions does millet provide? I completely understand why someone would be interested in pursuing this, but what does it taste like?

Legume said:

So 1 lb of millet malt got you 80 oz of 1.048 wort.
At this efficiency it would take you 1.6 lbs of millet to yield 1 gal of 1.048 wort.
Not bad at all.

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Well, you have to factor in water absorbed by the grain, so less than 80 oz per pound, I think. Also, with rice hulls and adjunct grains the extra water needed for sparging will tend to dilute the wort, so it probably would not be that good. But if there are efficiencies with a larger grain bill (like better temperature retention during the long mash? more efficient sparging? not sure...) that might offset the dilution a bit.

So mashed with one quart (1 quart/lb)
Sparked with 1.5 quarts
What was the volume of the 1.048 wart collected?

Chadwick said:

Your results are impressive. My question is this, what flavor contributions does millet provide? I completely understand why someone would be interested in pursuing this, but what does it taste like?

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It's is sort of a grassy, nutty taste. Not as flavorful as barley but, the next best thing for a gluten free brewer. Most people can't tell the difference if you do it right. Anyone with a trained palette will taste the grassiness and maybe think it has some touches of DMS as well.

glutarded-chris said:

So mashed with one quart (1 quart/lb)
Sparked with 1.5 quarts
What was the volume of the 1.048 wart collected?

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It yielded only 3.5 pints, or 56 oz. In thinking about this in a normal grain bill, where there would be maybe a little malted rice and rice hulls, it doesn't seem very good, but it might be good enough. I'd like to have a wort that can give me full bodied pale ale or IPA without resorting to additions of sugar or some type of extract. Of course you have to figure in boil off. If I could start with a pre-boil wort of 4-5 gals, and have 2.5-3 gals after the boil, it might work out.

As an aside, I did this same test but used NO amylase, and I got a wort that was not as sweet. I thought the SP would be around 1.03 or so, but it came in at 1.040.

So what I've concluded, and I don't claim this applies to everyone, it clearly does not; that gel rest at 164-166F and amylase are critical based on what I'm doing (right or wrong).

At some point I want to experiment with a gel rest at higher temps to maybe really break up the starches better, and also with timing the amylase addition closer to it's optimal working range, which is around 145F. I would like to use less of it, and/or get more bang for the buck with it. I would not have high hopes for raising the gel rest temp because it will presumably wipe out the natural enzymes, but it's possible that the amylase addition takes care of that, and gives it starches that are easier to convert.

If I did the math right, you got 21 ppg, which is good. I have been using a step mash and getting 21 to 23 ppg depending on the recipe. I hope to get back to simple mash and maintain 21. You can definitely work with that. You can boost gravity with other ingredients, boil a little extra to concentrate or a little of both.

glutarded-chris said:

If I did the math right, you got 21 ppg, which is good. I have been using a step mash and getting 21 to 23 ppg depending on the recipe. I hope to get back to simple mash and maintain 21. You can definitely work with that. You can boost gravity with other ingredients, boil a little extra to concentrate or a little of both.

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Yeah, I think it worth another try. Really do not like that it fails the starch test consistently. I know it's not highly reliable, but I suspect it is in this case. I think my mash pH is low, perhaps around 4.8 or so (the strips are not highly accurate), and that can affect starch conversion.

I did the same test as the first, just changing the gel rest to 172-178F for 20 minutes and the SP was only 1.04, so that approach isn't very promising.