Cereal mash 12 hours prior to normal mash

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32indian

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I've got some unmalted wheat I want to use in an American Wheat style beer, it appears that I must do a cereal mash on the wheat before adding to the mash.

My thought was to do a cereal mash on the wheat the evening BEFORE my brew day. Then on Brew day, simple dump the, now lukewarm, cereal mash into the mash tun with the rest of my grain and water and mash as usual from that point on.

I'm talking about a 10 gallon batch at 35-40% unmalted wheat, so about 8 pounds of wheat cereal mashed in about 5-6 gallons of water, done at 9:00 pm then left to sit, covered all night, then start my normal brew session the next morning so this cereal mash would have probably cooled down to 100 deg. F or less by then.

Does anybody see a problem with this?

I'm looking at it as a time saver on brew day! That, and I'll have more time to stand a stir the cereal mash while cooking it the night before. While drinking homebrew of course :mug:

Also, is it required to do a cereal mash on unmalted wheat since it "gelatinizes" below 147 deg. F (58-64 C) and should therefore gelatinize while in the mash tun at 150-153 deg. F
 
The problem is they'll have already produced plenty of lactic acid tang which won't go away even if they're killed.
 
On Brew Day
If you are not doing a decoction mash, the best way is to mill your unmalted wheat by itself and boil it like you'd make old fashion oatmeal first (15 minutes). This will give you the most extraction when you add it into your main mash that contains your enzymes. Unmalted wheat in large portions of your grist benefit from a step mashing regime, but a single infusion works.
 
Thanks for the replies, I'll try just an infusion mash, single step, and extend the mash time out a bit, to at least 90 minutes to give it time to convert as much as possible. Also include some 6-row in the mash for extra diastatic power.

If I don't like it when finished, perhaps I'll try same recipie using a cereal mash of the unmalted wheat prior to adding to the mash.

Should I mill the unmalted wheat "finer"? than my normal barley mill?
 
Boy, that makes me think "sour mash" all the way. A luke-warm day-old mash would be crawling with lactobacillus.

I've been thinking on this.....The cereal mash would end in a "Boil" for about 20 minutes. Wouldn't that kill any Lactobacillus ??

So there would not be any chance for souring, at least in that short amount of time.
 
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