Unmalted wheat for Witbier?

Out of curiosity, what kinds of unmalted wheat are people using in their Witbiers?

I used plain old raw white wheat crushed the same as my 2-row on my last batch, and while the end result was good, my efficiency sucked and I suspect a majority of the sugar was coming from the base malt. (I used a long protease rest, of course)

Beersmith doesn't even have a raw wheat ingredient, and the reccomendation of its author is to use torrified or flaked wheat in recipes instead.

Anybody want to provide a reccomendation or personal experience with these ingredients vs. raw wheat?

Thanks,
D

If you use raw wheat, prepare for a painfully long conversion time and make sure your base maltster specs have a fairly high dp.

Still though, my preference is toward raw wheat (I use it in one of my recipes not a wit)

Yeah, I kinda noticed that last time. =)

Have you tried flaked or torrified wheat in place of the raw? I'm curious what the impact on the flavor would be.

What mash schedule do you usually use for conversion if you're using raw wheat?

I did 45 minutes protease @120 and 60 minutes saccrification @150 last time and didn't get anywhere near the efficiency I was aiming for.

-D

Llarian, what ratio of wheat to 2-row did you use? I'm new to the forum, so I apologize if this has been answered. I want to try an all-grain beer after successfully mashing an all-grain bourbon, and the grains I have on hand are 2-row malt and wheat from my roommate's farm. I've considered malting the wheat myself, but since I got pretty successful conversion using only 20% 2-row, 60% corn, and 20% rye (for the bourbon) I was hoping that I could just toss in 20-40% 2-row with wheat and hope for the best.

Charbucks said:

Llarian, what ratio of wheat to 2-row did you use? I'm new to the forum, so I apologize if this has been answered. I want to try an all-grain beer after successfully mashing an all-grain bourbon, and the grains I have on hand are 2-row malt and wheat from my roommate's farm. I've considered malting the wheat myself, but since I got pretty successful conversion using only 20% 2-row, 60% corn, and 20% rye (for the bourbon) I was hoping that I could just toss in 20-40% 2-row with wheat and hope for the best.

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I used 50% 2-row, 45% raw wheat and 5% rolled oats (for mouthfeel). Efficiency was only about 60% (I was aiming for 65% since it was my first attempt at using unmalted wheat).

I do not think you'd get particularly good conversion with 20-40% 2-row, although with a long enough mash I suppose it might be possible. That seems like a lot of unmalted grain however.

-D

Interesting, the people over at http://homedistiller.org/ say that only 20% of your total grain needs to be barley malt in order to achieve good conversion. Maybe moonshiners aren't worried about bad flavours or anything that might result of a long mash? In any case, thanks for the input, I wouldn't want to waste a bunch of grain just to have it turn into starchy porridge.

Charbucks said:

Interesting, the people over at http://homedistiller.org/ say that only 20% of your total grain needs to be barley malt in order to achieve good conversion. Maybe moonshiners aren't worried about bad flavours or anything that might result of a long mash? In any case, thanks for the input, I wouldn't want to waste a bunch of grain just to have it turn into starchy porridge.

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Are you sure they use 2 row? 6 row is more common in the United States and has a lot more diastatic power.

Damn Squirrels said:

Are you sure they use 2 row? 6 row is more common in the United States and has a lot more diastatic power.

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I'm really not sure at all, the site is very confusing, although it seems to contain a wealth of information. The excepts that I am going on are:

The important difference is that 2 row barley tends to have a much lower nitrogen content than the 6 row and is therefore much more suitable for malting for brewing and distilling.

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and

Not all the grains in each recipe require malting. As long as some (at least 20%) have been malted, there should be sufficient enzymes (amylase) present to convert the starch in the other grains.

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From the one little mash that I did, the 2-row seemed to work just fine. I was limited by pot size, so only did 8 litres to learn on. With 8 litres of water, 1 kilo of cracked corn, 250 g rye flakes, and 350 g 2-row, the S.G. was around 1.048. After 3 days of fermenting, it was down to 1.001, which seems really fast to me. Still haven't distilled it though, so the final verdict is yet to be determined. However, I now have a bunch of 2-row, so I hope it works!

OP - Wheat is smaller than barley and you'll need a finer crush to get good efficiency. You could also pre-cook the crushed wheat.

Charbucks, If you are doing a cereal mash then conversion is much easier and your 2-row should have plenty of diastatic power to convert the crushed/boiled wheat.

Also, since most folks ferment on the mash when doing a distillation. The fact that the grain is in the wash the whole time means the enzymes can work on it while it is fermenting. This gives you about 7 days of very low temp. mash in homebrew terms. Another reason for the 20% malted grain rule of thumb is that many mashes re-use the grain for a "sour" mash which means your grain has EVEN LONGER to finish conversion. This is why most recipes call for additional sugar on at least the first running.

If I were using the raw wheat in a beer I'd do a full cereal mash.

so I'm tole....

Thanks dantodd, that clears up a lot! Obviously I'm new to both these games. I'll look into the cereal mash thing (just as soon as I can find a pot big enough to heat more than 8 litres at a time). I see you've spent some time on the other forums as well (so I'm tole)...