Gluten Free might just be getting better! A LOT BETTER!

[BBBF]

Interesting. I had noticed the "Clarified" version on their site the other day and didn't think much of it.

From what I'm reading on the Briess site, the Clarified version provides "Almost no flavor or color". So, it provides fermentables with the addition of proteins for head retention, etc.

At that point, I might just use corn syrup or tapioca syrup.


As to the question on size, I think a lot of the GF brewers are just doing 5 gallon batches and the idea is to use 1/2 rice syrup and 1/2 sorghum, so 3lbs makes more sense for me, but 7lbs wouldn't be a deal breaker if I needed it.

Of course, if the malted rice works out, I'll be less interested in the rice syrup.

 

[ricemaltster]

Rice maltster here,
I finally had time to check out this forum. I appreciate all the work Jaybird has done in addressing questions about my rice malts. Brewing with rice malt is challenging, but the results have fooled quite a few beer drinkers.
We are all on a new frontier in brewing. My journey started about 5 years ago. Not much was available and my wife hates sorghum and turned out to be sensitive to it too. I began malting rice and have been perfecting my process since.
I source rice from local Sacramento valley growers. Equipment for growing, harvesting, storing, cleaning and transportation of rice is quite specialized and not used for other crops. My facility is gluten free with plans to only malt rice. Rice is a smaller grain than barley and has a significant husk which accounts for 20% of the grain weight. Jay addressed the mill setting, be aware the husk on rice is very resilient and holds up to aggressive milling. It should remain relatively intact and serve in filtering. To my knowledge rice has not been bred for malting quality. It has more limited enzyme activity than barley. I endeavor to tease out as much activity as possible. This said, mash time can be very long compared to barley. Efficiency of rice malt is likely less than barley. Addition of enzymes may help with this, but I try to be patient. The rice I use has a gelatinization temperature around 150F (65C). I have had success with a single temperature infusion, but better results with step temperature or decoction methods.
Not to stoke the fire too much, but I do plan on producing malted rice concentrated syrup as soon as I can get the remaining pieces of equipment together. Nor Cal will likely be the first carry this product. Initially producing pale malt syrup, but could add colored malt syrups in the future if there is demand.
I applaud Nor Cal Brewing Solutions for their commitment to home brewers including the gluten intolerant.
Cheers,
Jim

 

[Osedax]

Fire stoked! Want malted rice extract!

Thanks for all of this. I hope your product is as good as I expect it will be.

150F you say? Interesting. This is long grain correct?

Do you have any estimates on color? I know Jay said you don't have any thing yet but, a guesstimate would be great. For instance; how much of your darkest to turn a five gallon batch black(stout)?

Any other specifics would be greatly welcome. Can't wait for this product! Ordering tomorrow.

 

[Jaybird]

Rice maltster here,
I finally had time to check out this forum. I appreciate all the work Jaybird has done in addressing questions about my rice malts. Brewing with rice malt is challenging, but the results have fooled quite a few beer drinkers.
We are all on a new frontier in brewing. My journey started about 5 years ago. Not much was available and my wife hates sorghum and turned out to be sensitive to it too. I began malting rice and have been perfecting my process since.
I source rice from local Sacramento valley growers. Equipment for growing, harvesting, storing, cleaning and transportation of rice is quite specialized and not used for other crops. My facility is gluten free with plans to only malt rice. Rice is a smaller grain than barley and has a significant husk which accounts for 20% of the grain weight. Jay addressed the mill setting, be aware the husk on rice is very resilient and holds up to aggressive milling. It should remain relatively intact and serve in filtering. To my knowledge rice has not been bred for malting quality. It has more limited enzyme activity than barley. I endeavor to tease out as much activity as possible. This said, mash time can be very long compared to barley. Efficiency of rice malt is likely less than barley. Addition of enzymes may help with this, but I try to be patient. The rice I use has a gelatinization temperature around 150F (65C). I have had success with a single temperature infusion, but better results with step temperature or decoction methods.
Not to stoke the fire too much, but I do plan on producing malted rice concentrated syrup as soon as I can get the remaining pieces of equipment together. Nor Cal will likely be the first carry this product. Initially producing pale malt syrup, but could add colored malt syrups in the future if there is demand.
I applaud Nor Cal Brewing Solutions for their commitment to home brewers including the gluten intolerant.
Cheers,
Jim

Jim
Congrats on joining the forum! Great first post my friend.
Thanks a bunch for jumping in and helping answer some questions. So I can guess your just tired of me calling you on the phone huh? LOL just kidding..Maybe

Cheers
Jay

 

[ricemaltster]

There is some Lovibond testing I forgot about on the following malts: Pale rice malt 1.4, Biscuit 4.8, Crystal 16.0, James' 22.0. I do not have analysis of the darker malts, but you can look at the attached photo of equivalent extracts made from both rice and barley. These were all done utilizing the standard method to determine Lovibond level. I do not have a Lovibond color chart that I am confident in yet, but my best guess is that "Gas Hog" is at least in the 70 range. Hopefully, this will give you enough guidance until I can get official analysis done. I feel my "Gas Hog" malt is not too far off from black patent.
I malt medium grain rice only.

View attachment Malt extract color comparisons 2.pdf

 

[Jaybird]

Jim
I am working with Coastal Science Labs right now to get your Gas Hog tested.

Cheers
Jay

 

[Jaybird]

If I was to guess, the Lovibond of Gas Hog is around 300-350

Jay

 

[ricemaltster]

Hi Jay,

As my wife would say "It's all good" as far as involvement. I finally found time from malting to check this out and take a little pressure off you. I appreciate the effort to get testing. I have looked for Lovibond charts and they don't seem to agree, especially in the darker realm.

Cheers,
Jim

 

[JPrather]

Thanks for posting Jim. It all sounds very promising and at least worth testing out. Regardless I think you're going to end up with all the feedback in the world from everyone here on HBT sooner rather than later .

Looking forward to the rice extract as well, as a partial mash brewer who can only mash about 4lbs of grain, I'd love to be able to do more than 1.5 gallon batches .

For that matter, are the mash/sparge water volume requirements for rice malt similar to barley? Maybe something that needs to be experimented with.

Any word on the recipes from before? Jay had posted some recipes for "5 gallon batches", but they seemed to have a lot more rice than the 20% difference.

For that matter, for designing recipes, would entering them in BeerSmith with a potential of ~1.026-1.028 or so be an effective way to estimate the extract potential of these grains?

 

[Osedax]

There is some Lovibond testing I forgot about on the following malts: Pale rice malt 1.4, Biscuit 4.8, Crystal 16.0, James' 22.0. I do not have analysis of the darker malts, but you can look at the attached photo of equivalent extracts made from both rice and barley. These were all done utilizing the standard method to determine Lovibond level. I do not have a Lovibond color chart that I am confident in yet, but my best guess is that "Gas Hog" is at least in the 70 range. Hopefully, this will give you enough guidance until I can get official analysis done. I feel my "Gas Hog" malt is not too far off from black patent.
I malt medium grain rice only.

Great info! Thanks! :rockin:

 

[number40fan]

Any news on the batch sizes?

 

[ricemaltster]

Here is a chart I made a while back. It shows the plotting of 16 brews made with my rice malt. I included all malt in this, but the majority was pale base malt. This shows the pounds of rice malt used per gallon of wort at yeast pitch (after boil) and the original specific gravity achieved at that point. It turns out to be be relatively close to a straight line function and should help determine the malt needed for any given batch size.

I hope this is helpful.

Not sure if I got the pdf uploaded.

 

[ricemaltster]

Ok, second try at getting attachment.

Cheers

 

[Osedax]

This good info. Any mash details? Rests, system efficiency, grist ratio, mill gap, etc. Anything you can provide. This data is similar to what I have been seeing. I put the pale in as 20ppg. Good stuff.

 

[glutarded-chris]

If I understand this correctly, this looks like 14 to 15 ppg after the boil. Taking account for boil off that puts it around 13 to 14 ppg, correct?

 

[ricemaltster]

Ok, so I have to admit I have never looked at the ppg before. From my calculations I would say you are both right on track with estimates. I know this is substantially lower than barley. My earlier estimates of percent rice malt compared to barley malt are under estimates. Since rice grain is substantially smaller than barley, the ratio of germ to starch is higher. In addition, the rice hull is more substantial than barley, accounting for 20% of the weight of the unmalted paddy grain. I have not checked the malted percent, but I would bet it is a bit higher hull percentage than the paddy rice. I will look into this very soon. All this said, it will take substantially more rice to brew equivalent gravity beer.

Brewers rice grain that has been historically used is milled white grain. This has had the hull, germ and bran layer removed. All that remains is the starchy endosperm, which is highly convertible to sugar (depending on variety). Also no flavor or other desirable characteristics of malted grain.

I don't have a good answer for mill setting (I believe Jaybird mentioned a setting he uses in an earlier post). I don't have a good mill yet and I am a bit concerned giving a setting when there are so many different mills on the market that may crush differentially. I would say get a similar crush as barley, but it will take a bit of adjusting down to achieve it. Home brewer roller mills may not be adjustable close enough for rice. Without naming brand, the one I have does not adjust close enough.

Step mash schedule is not so dissimilar to barley. The optimal enzyme activity temperature generally will need to be held longer to achieve full conversion. I generally do decoction mash, taking portions of the mash to a separate kettle to heat just slightly above gelatinization temperature, then returning to main mash. This raises the temp of the mash slowly and does not destroy too many of the enzymes. Very labor intensive!

I hope I have answered all your questions.
Keep me on my toes!

 

[Osedax]

If I understand this correctly, this looks like 14 to 15 ppg after the boil. Taking account for boil off that puts it around 13 to 14 ppg, correct?

That is what the data implies. However, you have to take in to account system/mash efficiency. You need that to backtrack to total extract potential. If you assume 70% efficiency and a total extract of 20 ppg then you would arrive right at 14 ppg post boil. This lines up with my own anecdotal evidence. So, when you enter it into a brewing calculator, enter 20 or 1.020 or 43.5%. Hopefully, that makes sense.

 

[glutarded-chris]

Ah, that makes sense! You are putting in the potential so on that basis you can estimate what you will get with mixing with other grains.

I do partial mashes so I look at what is produced in the end and make up the rest with other fermentables. Everything else that I add is simple ppg so I put my mash yield on that basis.

 

[glutarded-chris]

@ ricemaltster (aka Jim) finally found your website. What is the minimum order size or are we to order through other dealers such as Jaybird?

 

[ricemaltster]

I understand the desire to purchase directly from the malt house. I have a production facility that fills 35lb bags. Unfortunately, I don't have the staff to fill small orders. What I would suggest is either go through NorCal Brewing Solutions or contact your local home brew store to see if they would be interested in carrying my malt. It may be a hard sell until there is enough interest in gluten free malt to warrant the necessary changes to their shop to accommodate separate storage and milling like NorCal Brewing Solutions has done. They are at the forefront of serving the gluten free home brewer.

Cheers

 

[Devinv]

So, quick question. With the mill grains getting crushed so fine, whats the easiest way to prevent stuck sparge? rice hulls?

 

[ricemaltster]

I would not advocate a finer grind than barley. I believe a similar grind will work fine, its just that rice is smaller and therefore needs a tighter mill setting to achieve that grind. With whole grain rice malt there is generally more hulls per volume starch and there should not be a problem with stuck mash. The hulls stay quite intact during milling. If you are adding a bunch of other adjuncts you may want to add more rice hulls.

 

[JPrather]

Thanks for all the info. Two questions:

How does mash thickness compare to barley?

Does Rice have a similar weight/volume to barley?

The reason I ask is that I currently do partial mashes in a 2-gal Cooler, and can mash up to about 5 pounds of barley, and am trying to figure out if my maximum rice mash is similar.

 

[ricemaltster]

My experience has been that mash thickness is similar to barley, although I do not have any scientific evidence compiled yet. As far as weight to volume, I am quite sure volume will be greater with equivalent weight due to rice being a smaller grain and it's hull is a more significant proportion of the weight of the grain and lighter in weight. I obviously have a few things to check to give solid answers to this and at least one other question recently posted!

 

[hipturn]

Ricemaltster and Jay: Thank you.

I've read this entire thread and I'm very interested in brewing the pale ale with the grain bill detailing 18#s pale rice plus adjuncts.

In the brew schedule it states the mash temp as 152F, but later on in the thread you mention that you do a decoction mash with steps that is labor intensive. You state that the cerealization temp is around 150F for this rice.

Questions: What is your mash schedule? Do you do a cereal mash?

Has anyone on the thread successfully brewed this recipe? Can you share your results and tips? thanks!

 

[Jaybird]

Ricemaltster and Jay: Thank you.

I've read this entire thread and I'm very interested in brewing the pale ale with the grain bill detailing 18#s pale rice plus adjuncts.

In the brew schedule it states the mash temp as 152F, but later on in the thread you mention that you do a decoction mash with steps that is labor intensive. You state that the cerealization temp is around 150F for this rice.

Questions: What is your mash schedule? Do you do a cereal mash?

Has anyone on the thread successfully brewed this recipe? Can you share your results and tips? thanks!

hipturn
I am sure Jim will chime in with his recipe guide to this beer.

Cheers
Jay

 

[ricemaltster]

As far as I know there is only one published gelatinization temperature for the variety of rice I malt. It gives it at just over 150F. I guess I was hedging my bets when I stated 152F. This appears to hold true when I am heating the mash, although I do not have hard evidence to back this up. If you look at the info on decoction mash on this website (Homebrewtalk), my method is essentially the classic double decoction method. I do not boil during the decoction, but get a bit above the gelatinization temp. (155-160) and return to the main mash. This takes several intervals to raise the temperature the same amount as one boiled batch. I feel the boiling breaks down the starch to the point of causing problems with lautering. I also do this in order to retain as many enzymes as possible.

 

[ricemaltster]

I just want to clarify a point. Do not cereal mash my malts, please. Cereal mash is for adjuncts that have not been malted and therefore do not have active enzymes. If you want to add these unmalted adjuncts, then by all means go forward with a cereal mash on those grains only. My malt is a bit limited on enzymes compared to barley and you don't want to limit it further with boiling and deactivating the existing enzymes. This would likely result in a non-converted sticky mess and a disgruntled customer.

I hope this does not come across too preachy, I just want to see you guys and gals have good luck brewing with my malt.

Cheers,
Jim

 

[jsmsmk]

Jim,
These two last posts of yours have cleared up the mash process for me. When I did the decoction mash I heated to boiling. I also had problems with hitting the temperatures I was trying to get to. I think this explains my low SG of about 1.038 instead of 1.056. This is on tap now and I am planing on another batch soon.

I now have BeerSmith and been doing much better with temperature control of my mashes.

John

 

[ricemaltster]

Sorry you had difficulty with that first decoction mash. I guess I was not specific enough earlier on or forgot that I had deviated away from the standard decoction mash. I am by no means an expert. If anyone comes up with a better method I am all ears. Anything to further the brewing success for Celiac's.

Good luck with future brews. Let us all know how it goes.