A friend of mine who heard about my brewing is married to a farmer. She asked me if I could use some wheat to make beer. Long story short, I now have 50 pounds of wheat. I think that it is hard white wheat. It has been hulled and has been stored in a grain bag. Has anyone had any luck with malting hard white wheat or using it to make beer? I think that a Wit might be in order.
Hard white wheat
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erikpete18
Well-Known Member
Malting it is certainly possible, although I wouldn't know where to begin telling you what to do! Do a few searches on here, there are a bunch of people who have malted their own grains, although I here its fairly labor intensive. An easier option is to use it in the place of non-malted (flaked, rolled, torrefied, etc.) wheat, and a wit would be an excellent place to start. You'll probably have to do a cereal mash to get everything accessible to the enzymes. The basic idea is that you wind up boiling your wheat before adding it to the mash, but since I've not actually tried it yet I'll let people chime in with a proper technique. Nice score on the wheat, and good luck with the brew!
JoyousRuction
Well-Known Member
Get some rice hulls to help prevent stuck sparges, and use the wheat with a grain that has a high diastic power. There is nothing left in that 50lb bag that can convert starch to sugar so you will have to rely on the enzymes of another grain to do the conversion.
Otherwise sounds like a great thing to use!
Otherwise sounds like a great thing to use!
JoyousRuction
Well-Known Member
erikpete18 said:
Malting is not possible - his grain is hulled.
Wheat has no hull when it is harvested unlike oats or barley. It should still malt.
Thanks for all of your suggestions. I am soaking a small amount of grain in water to see if it will germinate. That will answer the question of whether or not it this particular batch can be malted. I am also interested in trying a few mini mashes with some 2 row to see what kind of conversion I can get. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I should attempt this?
