Tannins and Rice Hulls

[AnOldUR]

I did a weizen last night that was 30% flaked grains, so I was worried about a stuck sparge. Somewhere I read about adding rice hulls at the end of the mash, so I tried a twist on this. I rinsed and then added them to the thin mash of my decoction mash-out and boiled for 15 minutes. It seemed to work fine. I hit mash-out temperature and had no lautering problems, but in hindsight I’m concerned about tannins from boiling the hulls. Can you even get tannins from rice hulls?

 

[bradsul]

I'm not sure if you can get tannins from them. But I would imagine the same rules that apply to a decoction boil of barley would apply to the rice hulls and there isn't really a worry.

I don't think you really need to bother boiling them though, you're not worried about them being sanitized or anything. I would just make sure they're hydrated in hot water so they don't soak up any wort (or drop the mash temp) and then add them in right before you vorlauf the first time.

 

[AnOldUR]

. . . I don't think you really need to bother boiling them though, you're not worried about them being sanitized or anything. . .

I wasn't really thinking about sanitation. I did rinse them first to remove any dust or debris. My hope was that they would add to the heat holding capacity of the decoction to help give me a better chance of hitting my mash-out temperature. In the past I’ve found that you need an awful lot of thin wort to compensate for how hard it is to get the temperature of the thick stuff up to mash-out temperatures. If tannins are not an issue with rice hulls, this seems like a good way to do that.

Or is this just another one of my half-wit theories

 

[bradsul]

Any extra mass in the thin decoction will certainly help bring up the temperature. When I do a mash out decoction I pull basically the entire thin mash, anything less and I find I can't hit mash out.

And +1 on the rinsing, the stuff that comes off the hulls looks nasty, I don't want that in my beer either.