Shredded Wheat (cereal)

With all the crazy ingrediants I see these days can shreaded wheat be used in any way?

Well...not too many inaugural posts catch me off guard...but this one sure did.

I'm going to say "no" the shredded wheat...but that is a totally uninformed opinion.

They are nice to munch on though whilst brewing.

Frosted or regular?

Thanks, I have brewed about 10 batches of beer in the past and was looking for new ideas from ingrediants found at home, in the past all was store brought. I grew pumpkins last year and was reading up on those recipies and it got me thinking about the cereal only if just to add a differnet flavor. I did search the internet up and down and nothing so that is why I joined to answer my question.

Thanks again,
Jim

I don't think shredded wheat cereal will do much for your beer. It's extremely low in sugar and rather high in fiber. I don't think that combination makes for good wort. Wheat malt or flaked wheat are almost certainly better options.

Frosted...ok then educate me some. If it's made from wheat and wheat is used in brewing what makes it unusable in any way? I'm not trying to be smart, just interested. The last thing I would want in my beer is a hot pepper but there they are.

Speaking as someone who has never actually tried this, I don't see why it would not work. I checked here and found that

The wheat is first cooked in water until its moisture content reaches about 50%. It is then tempered, allowing moisture to diffuse evenly into the grain. The grain then passes through a set of rollers with grooves in one side, yielding a web of shredded wheat strands. Many webs are stacked together, and this moist stack of strands is crimped at regular intervals to produce individual pieces of cereal with the strands attached at each end. These then go into an oven, where they are baked until their moisture content is reduced to 5%.

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Looks like by weight it is just essentially pre-gelatinized, toasted unmalted wheat. Might need rice hulls though if more than 10% of the grain bill.

If I were to attempt this though, I would consider it an experiment. Don't depend on it for your next batch...

Thanks Yuri, did't see your reply.

I have seen a recipe that used Co-co wheat cereal for color and body. I've never made it but the person that posted it said it got second place in a local competition.

Looked into this with "Corn Flakes". "Corn Flakes" are flaked pregelantized corn. Just the same as flaked maize and so you could substitute for flaked maize right?

Ah, would that it could.

In theory yes. In reality they are more than flaked corn. Chalk full of added salts, sugars, enriched additives and preservatives.

Could you make a fermented beverage out of "Shredded Wheat"? Probably.
Would it be beer? No.
Could you substitute it for wheat in a recipe? The lucky 8-ball sez Unadvisable.

Rudeboy

The difference is shredded wheat is made with whole wheat, the wheat most recipes call for in order to gain extra fermentables is malted wheat. The process of malting uses enzymes to break down complex carbohydrates into less complex sugars, this is something that also goes on during the mash, the enzymes activated during malting are re-activated in the mash and go to work. You could toss some of this in your mash, but I imagine that since it is so processed it would disintigrate without adding much in the way of fermentables and possibly lead to a stuck sparge, but that being said, I would totally go for it.

Rudeboy said:

Looked into this with "Corn Flakes". "Corn Flakes" are flaked pregelantized corn. Just the same as flaked maize and so you could substitute for flaked maize right?

Ah, would that it could.

In theory yes. In reality they are more than flaked corn. Chalk full of added salts, sugars, enriched additives and preservatives.

Could you make a fermented beverage out of "Shredded Wheat"? Probably.
Would it be beer? No.
Could you substitute it for wheat in a recipe? The lucky 8-ball sez Unadvisable.

Rudeboy

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I believe that shredded wheat does not have the same sorts of additives. I remember reading the ingredients some time ago and it's pretty much just whole wheat.

Donasay said:

The difference is shredded wheat is made with whole wheat, the wheat most recipes call for in order to gain extra fermentables is malted wheat. The process of malting uses enzymes to break down complex carbohydrates into less complex sugars, this is something that also goes on during the mash, the enzymes activated during malting are re-activated in the mash and go to work. You could toss some of this in your mash, but I imagine that since it is so processed it would disintigrate without adding much in the way of fermentables and possibly lead to a stuck sparge, but that being said, I would totally go for it.

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It's true that malted wheat has more readily fermentable sugars. However, unmalted wheat is used in belgian wits and lambics. The reason it works, despite the high fiber content is that the enzymes in the barley will break down the fiber, which is essentially very complex starch and so given enough time they can be broken down into fermentables.

Of course, this is just my little theory.

Not to get off topic, but if not shredded wheat, what about wheaties? I know its just the wheat version of cornflakes (mentioned earlier) but I have always been curious about the breakfast of champions.

WeatABeer...

Somebody just needs to do it for the greater good, brew a beer and add some frosted shredded wheat, see what happens. If you do it, you'll get one of these from me: :rockin: maybe more than one
I know its a lousy excuse but I've got three beers on deck and then my 10 carboys are all full. So, not it.

Okay, since I had to go play devil's advocate, I'll do it. It will be about a month away though because I already have another one on deck and my other carboy is full of mead...

SWMBO has been asking for another Belgian wit. so this will be a perfect test. Of course I'll have to call it Shredded Wit.

It's starch content that determines your sugars. The starch is of course converted my enzymes in malted wheat/barley etc. Unmlated flaked what, once coverted is full of sugars.

I'm just not sure what kind of processing this goes though. Are the starches rinsed out? (sort of like sparging without conversion)

How about shreddies? There's already some malt extract in there and they certainly mush up fast in milk, good for mashing.

Shreddies

Here's the recipe I came up with:

5.5 Gallons Shredded Wit

5 lb. Pale Malt
4 lb. Shredded Wheat
1 lb. Flaked Oats
1/4 lb. Rice Hulls
1 oz. Saaz (60 min boil)
1/2 oz. Saaz (10 min boil)
1/2 oz. Saaz (dry hop)
1/4 tsp. Irish Moss (15 min boil)
1/2 oz. Coriander (10 min boil)
1/2 oz. Coriander (5 min boil)
1/2 oz. Bitter Orange Peel (5 min boil)
White Labs WLP410, Belgian Wit II

I will give it a go in Late Juneish.

As promised: :rockin::rockin::rockin:
Glad to see the rice hulls in there. Good Luck.

Well, I'm not so sorry now I brought it up. Keep in mind I was only talking about shreaded wheat and no other cereal. I checked the box when I got home last night and it was all wheat excet one additive in the "packaging" to preserve freshness. I have a question though being new to all grain brewing, would you roast the shreaded wheat and then mash it or just add to the wort?

What's the additive? I wouldn't roast them at all. I would mash it like normal.

Tommish said:

Here's the recipe I came up with:

5.5 Gallons Shredded Wit

5 lb. Pale Malt
4 lb. Shredded Wheat
1 lb. Flaked Oats
1/4 lb. Rice Hulls
1 oz. Saaz (60 min boil)
1/2 oz. Saaz (10 min boil)
1/2 oz. Saaz (dry hop)
1/4 tsp. Irish Moss (15 min boil)
1/2 oz. Coriander (10 min boil)
1/2 oz. Coriander (5 min boil)
1/2 oz. Bitter Orange Peel (5 min boil)
White Labs WLP410, Belgian Wit II

I will give it a go in Late Juneish.

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I would imagine that you'll need a longer mash time to fully convert the shredded wheat. I'm curious to see how this beer turns out for you.

EvilTOJ said:

What's the additive? I wouldn't roast them at all. I would mash it like normal.

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It's listed as BHT "BHT added to packaging material to preserve freshness"

Here is what I found:

How do they preserve food?

BHA and BHT are antioxidants. Oxygen reacts preferentially with BHA or BHT rather than oxidizing fats or oils, thereby protecting them from spoilage. In addition to being oxidizable, BHA and BHT are fat-soluble. Both molecules are incompatible with ferric salts. In addition to preserving foods, BHA and BHT are also used to preserve fats and oils in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.


What foods contain BHA and BHT?

BHA is generally used to keep fats from becoming rancid. It is also used as a yeast de-foaming agent. BHA is found in butter, meats, cereals, chewing gum, baked goods, snack foods, dehydrated potatoes, and beer. It is also found in animal feed, food packaging, cosmetics, rubber products, and petroleum products.

BHT also prevents oxidative rancidity of fats. It is used to preserve food odor, color, and flavor. Many packaging materials incorporate BHT. It is also added directly to shortening, cereals, and other foods containing fats and oils.

But it is also a yeast de-foaming agent, not sure if that actually stops fermentation though.

By the way, I took some SW and soaked it in some water overnight to see how well it would hold up and it was somewhat strainable bit did cloud the water a bit. But IMO the aroma was wonderful and would go great in a beer. I also added some yeast but with about 0% sugars nothing happened as expected. Probably good as a flavor additive. I don't know much about mashing yet or if that is possible. Anyway, I'm going to try a batch with it just to see how it is.

Thanks!

It would definitely need to be mashed to make fermentables. If it is not mashed, I suspect it will add quite a bit of starch to the wort.

As far as BHT in the packaging, I have no idea how that will affect the process. I still want to give it a try though.

The grocer may look at you funny when buying 4 pounds of shredded wheat.

I KNOW you are making this beer solely because of the witty name! Admit it!

nathan said:

The grocer may look at you funny when buying 4 pounds of shredded wheat.

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Last weekend when I bought a bunch of honey for a mead, the grocer asked me if I was training attack bees :cross:

I made a beer with a loaf and a half of homemade rye bread in addition to malted grains (Half-Baked Swedish Rye Beer). The bread accounted for 1/3 of the fermentables (OG 1.052). I did include 2.5 lbs of 6-row to assist in conversion. I half expected the bread to add body, but it definitely didn't. Based on what I've read about Kvass (100% bread beer) they are fairly thinned body also. I'm not sure if that would be the case with shredded wheat as it is processed very different for wheat flour. I guess my impression is that it would add mostly flavor, not body. Body would be based on your malts (and mash temp) so you may want to tweak them to adjust for the fact that your are asking less grains to provide the same amount of body for a batch with a similar original gravity

I wanted to give this a try but have no experience in mashing whatsoever so I decided to do a small experiment first and see what happens. I took about 1.5 quarts of water and added 3 of the big shredded wheat cereal squares (1 pack) and cooked for 1 hour for what I measured to be 150 with a cooking thermometor. I added a handful of rice hulls at the end, strained and then poured over another 1/2 quart of hot water. The end product was cloudy but a bit thick, but all liquid and smelled good. SG was about 30 but now I am guessing not due to sugars but simply the density. I added some yeast when cooled and put into a plastic bottle. After 3 days nothing but it did begin to solidify and get a thick film on top and eventually smelled bad. No obvious fermentation. Comments?

This topic has been disgussed quite a bit over in R/I by means of the GaP experiment (Grocery and Produce) where the goal is to brew beer entirely out of items that can be bought at a general grocery store. I've got an experimental gallon of beer fermenting right now that's main source of fermentables is GrapeNuts cereal, which is 50/50 barley/wheat. The recipie is basied roughtly off of a hoegaarden clone.

thread for the GaP: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=69313

Well, to try and answer my own question it seems all I did was create a starch liquid. But does that mean this won't work or do I need to mash longer. Someone else here was going to try this in late June, I will be curious if they do. Anyway, if I don't get any replies I am going to try this again with a small batch but cook longer.

Freezeblade said:

This topic has been disgussed quite a bit over in R/I by means of the GaP experiment (Grocery and Produce) where the goal is to brew beer entirely out of items that can be bought at a general grocery store. I've got an experimental gallon of beer fermenting right now that's main source of fermentables is GrapeNuts cereal, which is 50/50 barley/wheat. The recipie is basied roughtly off of a hoegaarden clone.

thread for the GaP: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=69313

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You must have replied while I was typing. Can you describe the process you used or was it the usual method? Saw that thread but no SW mentioned from last look, I'll check again, thanks!

jgln said:

You must have replied while I was typing. Can you describe the process you used or was it the usual method? Saw that thread but no SW mentioned from last look, I'll check again, thanks!

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No mention of SW no, but as for mashing cereal like that, yeah, you just made starch water, there's no enzymes to convert the starch to sugar. doing a mash with some 6-row would probably provide you with some extra enzymes, but for the GaP experiment, unless you can get some 6-row in your local grocery, you have to use other ways to convert. Most people went the Bean-o route, as it has a de-branching enzyme (this is the way I did it, as well as EvilTJO) some others were discussing bananas (as they have some enzyme as well) or even malting their own grains, like wheat corn, etc. In short, you need something to convert that starch to sugar before you can brew with it.

By the way, BHT and BHA are acronyms for butyl hydroxy toluene and butyl hydroxy anisole.

That knowledge, and fifty cents, will buy you a very small cup of coffee.

Jim Karr said:

By the way, BHT and BHA are acronyms for butyl hydroxy toluene and butyl hydroxy anisole.

That knowledge, and fifty cents, will buy you a very small cup of coffee.

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So you are saying all else aside, the additives alone are enough to make this not work?

Shredded wheat, if it is the real, 100% wheat, nothing added, stuff, can be substituted for flaked wheat, but some of the toasted flavor will come through.

jgln said:

Well, to try and answer my own question it seems all I did was create a starch liquid. But does that mean this won't work or do I need to mash longer. Someone else here was going to try this in late June, I will be curious if they do. Anyway, if I don't get any replies I am going to try this again with a small batch but cook longer.

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Shredded wheat doesn't have any enzymes to turn starch into sugar. For it to work properly in a beer, you need to mash it with some malted barley. If you're unfamiliar with the mash process, I would suggest starting with the Wiki, and doing some searches on the forum and on youtube.

Well I finally tried it and I am very happy with the results and would do more SW recipies. Not sure if it's cost effective though to not just use wheat. I just bottled last Friday night but from the flavor then I couldn't resist chilling a couple bottles early and trying last night. Very "white" and reminds me of expensive Belgians. I mashed 5lb of malt, 3lb of SW and used a belgain yeast. The SW didn't add fermentable sugars of any degree so I added 1.5lb of corn sugar, afraid to use too much to throw off flavor. Now that I learned something about mashing and the recipe I can make adjustments on my next batch and add more malt. The SW really gives the beer body and flavor. Thanks for all your advise, hopefully this beer doesn't change too much in aging as I love it the way it is now.

jgln said:

Well I finally tried it and I am very happy with the results and would do more SW recipies. Not sure if it's cost effective though to not just use wheat. I just bottled last Friday night but from the flavor then I couldn't resist chilling a couple bottles early and trying last night. Very "white" and reminds me of expensive Belgians. I mashed 5lb of malt, 3lb of SW and used a belgain yeast. The SW didn't add fermentable sugars of any degree so I added 1.5lb of corn sugar, afraid to use too much to throw off flavor. Now that I learned something about mashing and the recipe I can make adjustments on my next batch and add more malt. The SW really gives the beer body and flavor. Thanks for all your advise, hopefully this beer doesn't change too much in aging as I love it the way it is now.

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Well, I am very, very happy with this beer. I gave out 5 bottles to 5 friends to try and all raved about how good it was. One even said it may even be the best wheat beer he has ever tasted, no lie, and that is commercially and he claims to have had tried quite a few. I just brought more Shredded Wheat but also plan to try wheat from a supplier just to compare taste, has to be less expensive than cereal.

Just wanted to update everyone, I have brewed 3 all grain beers using shredded wheat cereal and they all came out tasting great......bad news is I have also brewed several using plain old wheat grain I cannot tell the difference, tastes the same. :cross: