Question about unmalted grain

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Endovelico

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I have seen alot of proponents of cereal mashing for people wanting to convert unmalted grains.

My questions is, since unmalted grains are just like malted grains (ie, starchy) without the enzymatic power why not just mash these unmalted grains as you would with other grains and let the other base grains enzymatic power convert the starch from the unmalted grain? Am i to assume that the fact that that malted grains went through malting facilitates conversion regardless of enzymatic power? Or am i missing something?
 
Not sure what your question is here, malt modification is what releases some enzymes and creates more, among other things.
Brewers have used malted barley to convert other "adjuncts" for a very long time, i. e. unmalted corn, rice, wheat, barley, oats, etc, etc.
 
I think the question is, what is the benefit of a smaller isolated cereal mash over simply combining everything into one mash and letting the enzymes do their job in a bigger playground?

I don't know either.

I should clarify. I know why you'd precook unmalted grains. That's to break down the starch. My question is why would you add enzymatic malt to the pot during that process. Why not cook the hell out of it, then add it to the mash?

Better yet, use flaked products since they are already gelatinized.
 
I like the way Dr Malt explains it here:
There are a few things you need to consider when doing a brew using an adjunct or unmalted grain. What adjunct (starch) or unmalted grain are you wanting to use? How much of the grain bill is this adjunct or unmalted grain?

Different grain or cereal straches gell at different temperatures and the starch has to be gelled to breakdown in the mash. Barley, wheat and oat starches gel in the range of mashing temperatures (126 - 155 F) so they are easily gelled and broken down by malt amylases during mashing. Starch adjuncts like corn, rice and sorgum require precooking to at least 170 F to gel the starch before adding to the mash. This precooking is done with about 5% ground barley malt for the purpose of at least thinning slightly the cooked starch as it gels. The enzymes of this malt are denatured in the heating but at least they start the break down of the starch and thin the cooker mash slightly. 5% to me as a home brewer is a hand full of my ground malt and it can be 2 row not necessarily 6 row. Both have plenty of enzymes to do the job.

If your grain bill calls for a large amount of adjunct or unmalted grain then you need to cook a large volume of water with your adjunct so it is not too thick, assuming you need to do a cooker mash step separate from you main mash. This large volume could increase the temperature of your main mash beyond you target saccarification temperatures when you add it in. This could be tricky. When I have made adjunct brews in 5 gallon batch sizes, I cook about 1 lb of rice starch in about 1 1/2 - 2 gallons of water and then add this to my main mash of the same volume sitting at protein rest (122 F). This seems to work well in bringing my mash up to about 145 F when they are mixed. When cooking my adjunct mash, I watch the temperature and make sure the adjunct starch (rice in my case) reaches it gelatinization temperature of 170 F for at least 15 minutes. You can tell because it becomes extremely thick. Oh yea, I start with precooked rice which helps.

As far as flaked grains you buy at the brew supply, these grains are flaked at supposely high enough temperatures to gel the starch in question. So flaked corn is suppose to have the corn starch gelled in the process so you can add it directly to your mash. However, I have found this to be variable with the various grains and processors. I have switched to gelling my own adjuncts.

Does this help??

Dr Malt :mug:
 
In their raw form, the starch is locked into a crystalline structure that the enzymes can't access. The grain needs to be "gelatinized", which is where the granules absorb enough water to burst that crystalline structure apart, making the starch accessible.
 
I like the way Dr Malt explains it here:

That was helpful thanks. What i take from that however is that despite not being optimal, mashing all the stuff together should work in theory since their gell temperatures fall within the mashing temperatures no? (refering to unmalted oats, wheat, barley)

What would be the downsides? Longer mashing (gelling the starch + mashing)? Just messier?

As an aside, is it safe to assume malted grains already come with gelled starches from being exposed to malting and kilning temperatures? Or does this grain go through additional procedures before being packaged?
 
None of it is "gelled" persay until you start adding heat and moisture after malting (mashing temperature), I like the way palmer explains it here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12.html
keep on brewing my friends:mug:
Edit: Malting = growing the seed (appx. 50F) (aka modification) drying the seed (appx. 120F) Kilning the seed after dried (No moisture) (Unless of course you are creating crystal/caramel malts which are mashed whole (after modification), then dried/kilned)
 
None of it is "gelled" persay until you start adding heat and moisture after malting (mashing temperature), I like the way palmer explains it here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12.html
keep on brewing my friends:mug:
Edit: Malting = growing the seed (appx. 50F) (aka modification) drying the seed (appx. 120F) Kilning the seed after dried (No moisture) (Unless of course you are creating crystal/caramel malts which are mashed whole (after modification), then dried/kilned)

LOL, i understand the process of malting i just never seen any book refer to gelletinization before so i was wondering if this was done through some additional step. In fact what you're saying seems to be what i was refering to.

Still one question remains though, what happens if you don't do cereal mash and mash all the stuff? Lower efficiency? Longer mashing? Messier? What?
 
. . . . . Still one question remains though, what happens if you don't do cereal mash and mash all the stuff? Lower efficiency? Longer mashing? Messier? What?

Well, barley, wheat and oats will work, I think that is why some people use rice hulls in the mash, to keep some more coarse material in the mash for draining? I've never used rice hulls and it's been a long time since oats. And you may have all those problems. I would try it.

For the other adjuncts, Corn, Rice Sorghum, etc, it has to be "cooked" at a higher temp (otherwise wouldn't be worth it, you wouldn't get anything from it, or very little, wasting the potential of the adjunct), thus it would kill the converting enzymes if you had the malt with it during this cooking.:mug:

Brew on my friends:rockin:
 
Still one question remains though, what happens if you don't do cereal mash and mash all the stuff? Lower efficiency? Longer mashing? Messier? What?

If you don't pre-gelatinize the adjuncts then you don't get anything convertable in the mash and you end up with useless starches in wort and likely a lot of haze.

In my readings on wheat, I am finding that wheat for baking milled into flour is pretty common. Who'da thunk.
 
Semi conflicting answers it appears. Some say it will gell others say it wont. If the gelling temperature is close to the mashing temperature one would think it would gell the cereals, right?

Unless the last poster took it to be something other than oats, barley and wheat.
 
Semi conflicting answers it appears. Some say it will gell others say it wont. If the gelling temperature is close to the mashing temperature one would think it would gell the cereals, right?

Unless the last poster took it to be something other than oats, barley and wheat.

Alot depends on your system and techniques, there is hardly ever only one correct answer, try it and see what your results are.
 
Alot depends on your system and techniques, there is hardly ever only one correct answer, try it and see what your results are.

What of it depends? The temperatures are within range, it either gells or it doesn't. My only concern was since gellitinization is occurring aswell as mashing, maybe a longer temperature hold was necessary.
 
I would think (having never done this before) what depends is, since you are mashing it, what type of mashing system you have and what your procedures are for using it.

Its also hard to make an intelligent answer when we don't know what adjunct you want to use.

Try it, thats the best way to know.
 
I would think (having never done this before) what depends is, since you are mashing it, what type of mashing system you have and what your procedures are for using it.

Its also hard to make an intelligent answer when we don't know what adjunct you want to use.

Try it, thats the best way to know.

I was asking it more out of curiosity to be honest, i hate taking things for granted. But i've got a more clear idea now.
 
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