Rice Beer for the 1st Time - Some Questions for the Talk

[FunkedOut]

Want to try my hand at a rice beer this summer. Never played with rice in my brewing.

1st question is about gelatinizing the rice:
I don't want to use minute rice, flaked, gelatinized, torrified, syrup or anything else right now. I am wanting to cross the plain rice bridge at the moment.
Learned some about gelatinizing the rice first, before the mash.
Also read some about a cereal mash, and got to thinking, "why?"

Let me explain the differences between the two as I understand them, so we can set the stage for communication.
Gelatinizing, is roughly making the starches in the rice easily accessible to enzymes in the mash.
For rice this happens at 162*F - 176*F. These temps denature the enzymes that convert starches to sugar.

What I've read about a cereal mash, suggests taking a portion of the malted barley, and adding it to the rice during the gelatinizing process.
If the temps in the cereal mash are denaturing the enzymes in the malt, why would anyone "waste" that malt?
Seems to me, simplifying the gelatinization of the rice as a first step is all that is needed prior to the mash, where all the starches will be available for all of the enzymes to convert to sugar.

Am I missing something in the practice of adding some malt to the cereal mash for rice?

2nd question is about diastatic power:
I rarely use any adjuncts in brewing, and the occasional wheat or oats have always been less than 15%.
I am planning on 1/3 of the grain bill being rice, with the remainder being Pilsner malt.
Do I have enough enzymes to convert 33% rice?
I would love to understand what is acceptable in terms of diastatic power.
Weyermann Floor-Malted Bohemian sheet says 36-44% Kolbach Index.
I use Beersmith and that uses Lintner scale. No idea how to convert or what is enough.

3rd question is about sugar predictions:
Will rice yield/potential be about the same as flaked rice?
I could not find anything other than flaked rice as and ingredient in Beersmith.
Seems like flaked rice is lighter than whole rice. Wondering if the yield/potential would be lower.



Thanks for your thoughts in advance.
Looking forward to learning more about rice.
I love rice with black beans on top!

 

[day_trippr]

Wrt diastatic power: you want the net Lintner rating for the combined mash ingredients to be above 40. At 33% rice usage you can pretty much guarantee the Lintner will be somewhere above 70 for pretty much any barley base malt used, so conversion should be well assured. If you want to play with the specific numbers you can use a diastatic power calculator like this one: https://www.topdownbrew.com/diastaticPower.html

Wrt comparative fermentation points between whole rice and flaked, I would indeed assume they'd be equivalent on a weight basis as there's no reason to believe otherwise, with the assumption that the whole rice is properly prepared.

And wrt preparing the rice: I agree it doesn't make a lot of sense mixing malts into cooking rice well above the enzymes denaturing temperature, so I would thoroughly cook the rice and add it and the water it was cooked in to the mash after it's cooled (factor the water volume against the required strike volume)...

Cheers!

 

[Lampy]

Might not address all points, but I've had success with up the 50% weight of pressured cooked white rice being added to my mash (~50% 2-row).

 

[BigEd]

The addition of malt to a cereal mash doesn't waste the malt. The malt and its enzymes keep the mash loose and prevent the creation of one big lump of sticky rice. Yes the higher temperatures will denature the enzymes but those in the main mash will be sufficient to do the final conversion job. As day_trippr stated a mash with 1/3 rice and 2/3 pale or pilsner malt will convert just fine.

Yield potential for whole rice, flaked rice, and Minute Rice will be very much the same based on weight. Yes whole rice is denser but you want to measure your ingredients by weight, not volume.

 

[JAReeves]

I boil the rice in more water than is required if it were going to be eaten, making sure that it is fully cooked. I like to use whole brown rice because it adds layers of flavor that hulled rice doesn't, but it's not to everyone's taste. When all the grains have gone boom, ~45 min or so, I can add them to the mash. If they are fresh and hot, I have to judge how much it'll raise the mash temp; sometimes I do the rice the night before and refrigerate it, and then I have to calculate what higher temp my strike water needs to be, as opposed to straight room temp grain. This works for steel-cut oats and whole grain rye or wheat if you do that as well. I've never had trouble with the enzymes in the malted barley knocking out the starches in the unmalted grains, but I try to keep the unmalted to about 1/3 of the bill. As long as I use my @wilserbrewer bag, I don't get stuck mashes, either.

 

[doug293cz]

The addition of malt to a cereal mash doesn't waste the malt. The malt and its enzymes keep the mash loose and prevent the creation of one big lump of sticky rice.

How does this work? The enzymes can't do anything to ungelatinized rice, and very little of the rice will gelatinize before the enzymes are denatured due to the high temps.

Brew on

 

[hottpeper13]

Some say this is a waste of time but here gose. I use ~36% jasmine rice in my American Lager.
1- soak rice(don't rinse) overnite in the amount of liquor needed to cook it (2:1)
2- bring to 189* and let sit 20-30 min
3- chill with ice to sacrification temp so when you add 1 lb of pils malt it is at 143*
4- rest 20 min then bring to 160* and rest 20 min
5- at this point the grains are totally disintegrated and has the consistence of soup.
6- bring to boil, I do it for 30 min to add some color cause I don;t want it to look like bud.
7- While waiting for the 160* mash I strike in the main mash at 143* and then add the cereal mash to the main to raise temp to 160*
I use this as a step mash and proceed from this point as you normally would.

 

[BigEd]

How does this work? The enzymes can't do anything to ungelatinized rice, and very little of the rice will gelatinize before the enzymes are denatured due to the high temps.

Brew on

There is at least a brief time when some enzyme activity will be present. It's not comparable to a full standard mash but it does help things get started. Also the malt husk content helps keep the rice clumping to itself to a minimum.

 

[doug293cz]

There is at least a brief time when some enzyme activity will be present. It's not comparable to a full standard mash but it does help things get started. Also the malt husk content helps keep the rice clumping to itself to a minimum.

And yet, people cook rice all the time without enzymes or husks, and don't have excessive clumping issues.

Brew on

 

[Agent]

Most of your questions have been answered - and I agree with you that the traditional cereal mash is bass-ackwards.

For my rice/corn I boil between 1-2 quarts of water/lb of adjunct. Then I turn off the heat and add my milled grains. Don't keep heating unless you love scotch.

At this point I start heating my mash water which has an ~30 minute heat up time. After 15-20 minutes the adjunct should be goo or harder and can stand to have 2-4 handfuls of milled malt stirred in to liquefy the mess. By the time my mash water is ready, the cereal mash is usually +/- 10F from mash temp which is an easy adjustment to hit target, and is able to be poured without too much splashing.

 

[BigEd]

And yet, people cook rice all the time without enzymes or husks, and don't have excessive clumping issues.

Brew on

And some homebrewers make beer without a chiller and wash their equipment with dish soap. The addition of some malt to a cereal mash is a old time method perhaps but I'm an old timer. Your methodology is your choice.