Cleaning Wheat

[kblankenship11]

So I am fortunate enough to have availability to as much wheat as I want (my stepdad owns a farm). I asked him to save me a bag or two for my homebrew adventures. My question is this:

How do you clean/prepare wheat for the homebrew process? I'm sure wheat that I buy from my local homebrew shop has been cleaned or dried in some way.

I haven't been able to find anything on this topic in any of my books or online. I'm guessing washing it in any way is bad, and I"m not sure if there is any special drying/treatment process to get it ready for brewing.

Is it possible to take it right from the combine to the brew-kettle?

 

[agentEhrman]

Are you going to malt it?

 

[Lennie]

I buy unmalted wheat by the sack and its pretty clean. As long as you don't see a ton of husks in the stuff its good to go. No need to dry it more than it already is, it is generally 4-5% moisture when its harvested.

Stuff makes a great witbeir. You have to use the unmalted wheat to get that greyish-white color that is why they call it "white beer".

 

[kblankenship11]

At first I'll probably use some just to steep with my extract brewing. I wanted to save some for the year incase I get an all-grain setup before 2013.

 

[Lennie]

You're also better off if the wheat is a variety used for cake flour vs bread. The pastry type is lower in protein. But since you're getting it free, anything free is better than not free. Steeping will give you some nice white-bread flavors and some tartness, possibly with some negative affect on clarity since there is no enzymes to convert starch unless you add some malt.

 

[kblankenship11]

Cool, thanks for the info gents.