I am currently experimenting with lentils. I got about 9 PPG from mashing them on my first try. Anyone else using lentils? If so what PPG are you seeing, and/or how much are you using per batch?
I have seen several breweries starting to use lentils. Some to add mouthfeel and head retention to GF beers. It seems like maybe GF beers would benefit from more protein, since gluten is a protein and is absent. Yesterday I bought some sprouted lentils from Whole Foods, lightly roasted them in the oven (300 F for about hour), ground them with mill set to 0.025”, then did a mash in a temperature controlled crockpot (155 to 163 F) added 2 type of enzymes and held at that temp for about 4 hours. I did not measure initial sugar, but it seemed to level off to 1.025 after a few minutes and eventually hit 1.035. By the time I rinsed to get 1 gal of “wort” I had 1 gal at 1.014 from 1.56 lbs of dry sprouted lentils. So if my calculations are right, 8.97 PPG. It showed weak starch presence from iodine test, but I let it rest, separate and held back the starch “trub.” Hopefully I will have time to use it in a sorghum LME batch to brew this week, meanwhile I am storing it in fridge. Since I had some starch, I assume the real ppg numbers are higher.
I have seen several breweries starting to use lentils. Some to add mouthfeel and head retention to GF beers. It seems like maybe GF beers would benefit from more protein, since gluten is a protein and is absent. Yesterday I bought some sprouted lentils from Whole Foods, lightly roasted them in the oven (300 F for about hour), ground them with mill set to 0.025”, then did a mash in a temperature controlled crockpot (155 to 163 F) added 2 type of enzymes and held at that temp for about 4 hours. I did not measure initial sugar, but it seemed to level off to 1.025 after a few minutes and eventually hit 1.035. By the time I rinsed to get 1 gal of “wort” I had 1 gal at 1.014 from 1.56 lbs of dry sprouted lentils. So if my calculations are right, 8.97 PPG. It showed weak starch presence from iodine test, but I let it rest, separate and held back the starch “trub.” Hopefully I will have time to use it in a sorghum LME batch to brew this week, meanwhile I am storing it in fridge. Since I had some starch, I assume the real ppg numbers are higher.