Briess MaltGems endosperm grain

[Brooothru]

So I came across this 'new' product being marketed by Northern Brewer and was curious if anyone has tried it or brewed with it. The Briess website has an interesting PowerPoint slideshow presentation of the grain and I think I'd be interested in doing a pilot brew to see if there's anything behind the hype. What it appears to be is a custom crush that separates most of the husk material from the endosperm and acrospires of the individual grains and boosts the friability of the mash by about 20%. The lack of husks decreases tannins and results in a sweeter, maltier wort with a higher brix per unit of volume, so you can produce higher gravity beers with less grist. The coarseness of the crush doesn't diminish the extraction of sugars, while also allowing a greater amount of gummy adjuncts like wheat or oats without getting a stuck sparge (they claim up to 50% wheat with no slowing of the lauter).

Apparently the process (endosperm mashing) has been around for a few hundred years in German brewing but there are limited references in the brewing literature. I know I'd never heard of it before. Maybe what's old is new again? Anyway, just curious if anybody has any experience with this grain. They claim that it has applications not only in high gravity beers but also in session brews, which is the hook that piqued my interest. I'm thinking a hoppy IPA ( >45 IBUs, < 4.5% ABV) with 20% oats/wheat/maltodextrin to lend mouthfeel and body. Thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Vale71]

Funnily enough they used a stock photo for the webpage that shows crushed malt with lots of husk material...
I'm very suspicious of their claims of a higher yield because of the lack of husks. On the one hand there is about 10-12% less inert material (husks) which can be replaced with endosperm. On the other hand there is no flour which is the fraction of the crush that has the highest yield, so there's a good chance the effects will at least cancel out. Besides that, you could compesate by adding 10-12% more malt to the grist which is not a problem unless you have already maxed out your system and really want to get more out of it.
Finally, unless they seal it in a modified atmoshpere package (lots of $$$ for non-trivial amounts) I wouldn't touch it with a pole as the massive oxidation would negate any advantages from mashing without husks.
Mashing without husk material is done is some very large German breweries (the equipment to separate them costs lots of money) especially if they're still doing decoction. The husks are not introduced to the mash until the decoction steps are all done so that the husk material never gets decocted.

 

[Brooothru]

Besides that, you could compesate by adding 10-12% more malt to the grist which is not a problem unless you have already maxed out your system and really want to get more out of it.

That basically is my problem when trying to mash in my 20L Braumeister kettle. I have gained capacity however thanks to the LoDO mash cap mod engineered by @Die_Beerery. Even with that mod, I'm pretty much limited to less than 14# grist bill.

 

[Brooothru]

Finally, unless they seal it in a modified atmoshpere package (lots of $$$ for non-trivial amounts) I wouldn't touch it with a pole as the massive oxidation would negate any advantages from mashing without husks. Mashing without husk material is done is some very large German breweries (the equipment to separate them costs lots of money)

That's apparently the type of specialty equipment that Briess is using to separate the endosperm from the chaff, so in theory they are addressing the oxidation issue. The numbers they toss about appear to be empirical rather than theoretical, but I am concerned about shelf life oxidation of a pre-crushed grain, and its packaging.

 

[Vale71]

... but I am concerned about shelf life oxidation of a pre-crushed grain, and its packaging.

That's the oxidation I was referring to.

 

[Brooothru]

The 'Inter-web' is truly an amazing toy. It took me to a thread on this very website discussing endosperm brewing dated May, 2008. Not a lot to glean from it though. Between it and the Briess website I get the impression that this process (and grain) has been used only in specialty brewhouses and has not been commercially available to Homebrewers until very recently. It looks as if Briess installed the specialty milling devices a few years back and is now marketing it through Norther Brewer. I'm reluctant anymore to order from NB given all the turmoil over their recently, but I'm thinking I may give them another try. From what I'm reading, this malt might make an interesting Helles (if it doesn't oxidize first).

 

[bracconiere]

I'm pretty much limited to less than 14# grist bill.

i brew OG 1.067 10 gallon batches in a 10 gallon cooler? with 20lb's of normal malt....what are you trying to make? maybe i'm missing something? (it isn't rare for me to)

 

[Brooothru]

i brew OG 1.067 10 gallon batches in a 10 gallon cooler? with 20lb's of normal malt....what are you trying to make? maybe i'm missing something? (it isn't rare for me to)

The Braumeister is a German built electric all-in-one brewing setup that pre-dates the Grainfather and all the other newer e-brew machines by quite a few years (early 2000s?). I got my 20 liter kettle in 2012, after years of extract to coolers to 3V with custom brew pot to BIAB before going electric. I like it a lot and have brewed extensively with it, but due to the geometry of the malt pipe and the recirculating volume constraints, the original setup was pretty much limited to 5½ kg (12.1 #) of grist. The LoDO mod that @Die_Beerery designed inverts a few pieces of the assembly and floods more volume to allow a mash cap to float on top of the recirculating mash water without cascading and splashing down the side of the malt pipe. It's really quite a neat piece of gear and allows greater strike water amounts as well as grain, but is still limited to about 7 kg (15#) of grain, though a more practical limit is ~14# to prevent overflowing the kettle when the recirc pump kicks in. It was a pricey toy but I sure get a lot of use and satisfaction out of it.