Rice Hulls

[Hammy71]

I am now a believer..... If you are doing AG....no other way to go. No matter how fast your drainage from your MLT....it'll only get better. Wow...did a stout that a couple of months ago was sooooo slooooow. Today I used two handfuls of the hulls....holy crap. I had to check afterwards to make sure my braid was still attached. wow.....

 

[Greekbeerguy]

I had the exact same thought yesterday. After a couple stuck sparges, I thought Id give them a shot. A couple of handfuls made a big difference.

 

[Picobrew]

Are you guys mixing them in evenly with the grains before you mash in, or how do you add them?

 

[karmabrew]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That was going to be my question!

 

[Spludge]

I add them mixed in with the grains, usually around a 1/2 pd.

 

[Greekbeerguy]

Yup, once I milled the grain, I threw a couple handfuls in and mixed them in to get a good distribution. Then I mashed in as normal.

 

[InfernoBrews]

Im brewing a Vanilla Cream ale Right now as i type and I used Ricehulls About 3/4 of a pound and i using roughly 9lb of grain i kinda mix em in the bag of cracke grain then dump it all in my cooler and mix it really good!
I Agree Rice Hulls make a great improvement

 

[Hammy71]

All I did was throw 2 handfulls (that's Biermuncher terminology....if it's good enough for him it's surely good enough for me....) on top of my crushed grains before I added them to the strike water in my cooler. Nothing scientific about it.....I never really thought much about it....but I saw a bag of the rice hulls at my LBS and I thought...what the heck... Best thing I've done in a while.....

 

[InfernoBrews]

I must agree i saw a huge diffrence in runoff when i started using the hulls too.

 

[bigzippo]

How do they work anyway?

 

[rico567]

The rice hulls simply add to the effect of the hulls of the other grains in enabling the grist not to pack so tightly that the flow of the wort is obstructed, i.e., it increases the amount of small openings or "channels" in your mash through which the wort can reach the exit (false bottom, braid, manifold, etc.)