Nonmalted grain?

[Allsup]

I apologize in advance for the newbie question.

What do you have if you brew with grains that have been malted? Like maybe 50% malted and 50% grain that has not been malted?

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

Unmalted grain adds no sugar to the beer, so it won't create alcohol. It's fine to use unmalted grains for small amounts of the grist, but I wouldn't go above 5-10% with most styles.

 

[wonderbread23]

Unmalted grain adds no sugar to the beer, so it won't create alcohol. It's fine to use unmalted grains for small amounts of the grist, but I wouldn't go above 5-10% with most styles.

Um, not really. You can get plenty of sugar from unmalted grains if you gelentinize their starches first (make them water soluble by cooking them) and then add enzymes which will convert the starches (typically sourced from a malted grain like 2-row barley). Different grains gelentinize at different temps; some require higher than mash temps (like corn), some will work in the mash (like unmalted wheat). I routinely do a cereal mash of unmalted wheat (60% or the grist) in a wit bier.

 

[Allsup]

Thanks men.

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

Um, not really. You can get plenty of sugar from unmalted grains if you gelentinize their starches first (make them water soluble by cooking them) and then add enzymes which will convert the starches (typically sourced from a malted grain like 2-row barley). Different grains gelentinize at different temps; some require higher than mash temps (like corn), some will work in the mash (like unmalted wheat). I routinely do a cereal mash of unmalted wheat (60% or the grist) in a wit bier.

I realize that there are certain unmalted grains that work fine. As you pointed out, wheat is one of them. I also use it a lot.

But, from what I gathered from the OPs questions, he wanted to know if he could just toss in unmalted grain without any other process. And the answer is usually, no. Using 5-10% unmalted grains such as barley, oats, wheat, rice, etc... is about the most I would use in a recipe without first gelatinizing them. I suppose using 50/50 malted/unmalted barley would work...but I wouldn't want to drink it.

Yes, I've heard of breweries making beer from 100% unmalted grain by adding enzymes to the mash, but what's the point? If I have a choice between unmalted and malted, I'm going to choose malted most of them time. It depends on style. Why make more work for yourself?