Tough time with a rye ale

[Northcalais40]

I had a 18lb grain bill with 4.25 lb of rye:

13.75# 2 row pale
1# cara rye
3# Rye malt
1/4# chocolate rye
1 ton of rice hulls

I could tell stirring the mash (1.1 qts/lb) that this was more gelatinous than normal. I have a cooler+braid MLT. It stuck bad. I eventually did two batch sparges, but didn't get the tun anywhere near empty in between. I scooped and strained the spent grain but only got 4+ gallons with a poor efficiency.

The beer store salesman told me to do a protien rest, but I didn't listen.

Any thoughts on where I went wrong? I guess too thick a mash, try the protien rest next time, use less rye.

I ended up @ 1.068

 

[Brew-boy]

Maybe go with a thinner mash, I like 1.3 to 1.5 qt. per lb.

 

[RM-MN]

As you've found out, rye malt is hard to work with. Even the "big boys", the major malting houses, don't try to make a liquid rye malt extract without a significant amount of barley malt in there too to help with lautering and sparging. Making it a looser mash will help a bit but what I think is the real answer is to not depend on the barley husks/rice hulls to make the proper filter bed. You need a really big filter to sort this out. I think this is the best time to consider BIAB since you now have a huge (nylon bag) filter and when gravity just won't get the wort through, you can squeeze it hard and MAKE it come out. Give it a try with a smaller size batch with full volume of water (3 to 3 1/2 gallons for a 2 1/2 gallon batch) in your mash tun or even in the boiling pot lined with a paint strainer bag (or home made equivalent). Stir in your grains like you normally would, mash it for the proper amount of time, and then pull the bag up to let it drain, squeezing it when the wort quits running out.

 

[passedpawn]

I make a lot of rye beers (IPAs). I bought a Jaybird false bottom and I don't have any problems with stuck sparges.

I don't ever use rice hulls.

 

[luke2080]

I've used up to 40% rye, using rice hulls and keeping a thinner (1.5 qt / lbs) mash. No problems. But that is using a false bottom, like the Jaybird false bottom.

If you want to use the braid, I'd suggest mixing in your other grains and rice hulls (less the rye) into the mash, then dump the rye on top and mix that into the top half. Keep the stickier stuff away from the braid. Just a suggestion though.

 

[Northcalais40]

Thanks, good ideas.

Anyone have experience doing protien rests with rye?

 

[kingwood-kid]

I suspect that rice hulls absorb more water than their weight would suggest, at least on brewing software. You could pre-soak and rinse the hulls (which I've heard makes them taste less husky). That's pretty much the same as the mash thinner suggestions above. Sparging more and boiling it off might be what you have to do, but rye has never given me these type of problems, even at 40%.

Rye isn't crazy-full of protein, but of beta-glucans, aka, soluble fiber. You could do a rest for these if you want, but to my mind that would defeat much of the point of using rye. If you do want to do one, it's around 115F vs 125ish for a protein rest.