Wheat Beer Mash W/O Rice Hulls

[Whatsgoodmiley]

I ordered everything but the rice hulls for my wheat beer recipe. The recipe will be 36% wheat, 7% flaked oats, and the rest barley. Can I do a glucan rest or any other technique that will help me avoid a stuck sparge? I would like to avoid having to make the 30 minute drive to the LHBS but I will if I have to. Thanks!

 

[RM-MN]

This might be the time to learn about BIAB. You can get a Swiss voille curtain and use that to line your mash tun or do the mash right in the boil kettle. The fine weave of the curtain material will take the place of the rice hulls. When your mash is over you can lift up the curtain material to form a "bag" and let it drain better if you need to, then do your sparge step and repeat. You'll never get a stuck sparge with this system since you have such a large filter area.

This also works great for rye which also does not have a husk to form a filter bed and is even stickier than wheat.

Read up on a beta glucan rest. It may help but it isn't the entire answer.

 

[Smellyglove]

I use 55% in my wheats, before I only did a protein rest, now I also do a 4-VG rest (which I call the beta-glucan-rest). Never had an issue with wheat. I recirculate for almost entire mash-time.

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

I'm familiar with BIAB and that sounds interesting. If I use the bag in my mash tun, I have the best of big worlds since I'd maybe be able to still vorlauf and sparge. I will have to look into that further.

I didn't mention it before but I'm brewing an American wheat beer. So any clovy phenolics are out of place. Should I probably avoid the 4-VG rest?

 

[Smellyglove]

I'm familiar with BIAB and that sounds interesting. If I use the bag in my mash tun, I have the best of big worlds since I'd maybe be able to still vorlauf and sparge. I will have to look into that further.

I didn't mention it before but I'm brewing an American wheat beer. So any clovy phenolics are out of place. Should I probably avoid the 4-VG rest?

Well, it's the same as the beta-glucan-rest.. So it's up to you. But the phenolics also are dependent on yeast-strain and ferm-temp. I've dont wheat beers without being very phenolic with this rest. It's more about the yeast. That step doesn't add THAT much phenolics itself.

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

I was starting to look into whether or not they were the same thing so thanks for that. I'll probably do the rest. Any idea how it would interact with a strain as clean as US-05? And I'll definitely be fermenting at room temp. That's not too hot as it's freezing in the apartment now. Like 65-70 so far.

 

[Smellyglove]

I was starting to look into whether or not they were the same thing so thanks for that. I'll probably do the rest. Any idea how it would interact with a strain as clean as US-05? And I'll definitely be fermenting at room temp. That's not too hot as it's freezing in the apartment now. Like 65-70 so far.

Wouldn't worry about it with us-05. But, I've never tried though. I mostly use WLp380, which is a phenol-bomb. But with wb-06 or M20, it didn't do much.

 

[dwhite60]

If you're grinding your own grain condition it first. Do a search on the forum.

I do this and have my roller gap set at 0.025" (0.6mm). I get a great crush with very good husk integrity. This gives me a very good run-off even with some wheat in the mix.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

Thanks everyone! I went around and did my original mash schedule. A single infusion at 154F. I did it without rice hulls and without the beta-glucanase rest in order to sort of test out my system in a somewhat risky way. I had no stuck sparges, only a slightly slower sparge. I contribute that to the crush of the barley and the fact that close to 60% of the grain bill was barley.