Which wheat variety?

[AllHoppedUp]

Anybody know which variety(s) of wheat are typically used in brewing? I know a lot of farmers who'd give me free grain in exchange for a little end product. Hard? Soft? White? Red? Winter? Spring? Anybody know?

I see both red & white varieties on supply house websites, but they also go on to describe "pale" and "dark" varieties which leads me to believe they may be describing the level of roasting more than the actual variety of wheat. Other websites sell just plain old "wheat". What's up?

AHU

 

[Grimace]

According to Eric Warner in German Wheat Beer you want winter wheat with no more than 3 discolored (red) kernels per 100 grams. Summer wheat has too much protein, and the red kernels may harbor fungi. Pale wheat malt is kilned at 167 degrees for two hours, then at 176 degrees for three hours.

 

[alemonkey]

I've been using hard red winter wheat because that's what I can get. I've heard white is what's normally used, though.

 

[Kaiser]

Are you guys using unmalted wheat or do you malt your own?

Kai

 

[alemonkey]

I've been using unmalted in my boulevard clone. The efficiency is horrible, but it definitely gives it a different taste.

 

[Alvin]

For information on Wit beer check out: http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/styles/2_4style.html

 

[Kaiser]

I've been using unmalted in my boulevard clone. The efficiency is horrible, but it definitely gives it a different taste.

Make sure you step mash or even decotion mash if you are using a significant amount of unmalted grains (adjuncts).

The important additional rests are the beta glucanase (~105F) and the protein rest (~122F). This will help making the lauter more viscous. Boiling of decotions will further improve the efficiency since the starches are getting gelatinized and made more accessible to the enzymes.

BTW, flaked wheat has already been boiled for that reason.

Kai

 

[alemonkey]

I've thought about doing a step mash. I have been pre-gelatinizing my wheat before mashing.

 

[Kaiser]

I've thought about doing a step mash. I have been pre-gelatinizing my wheat before mashing.

Give it a try . A mixture of infusion and decoction works best if you have a cooler mash-tun. Or you can just mash in your boil kettle and transfer to the mash tun for lautering.

Kai

 

[alemonkey]

I'll give it a try - I'm brewing a wit tomorrow. I found some soft white winter wheat yesterday, so I'll see how that works out too.

I thought the hard red wheat was hard to mill, but the soft white was terrible. The hard red took a lot of power, but at least it broke up into chunks. The soft white just wants to squish until you close the gap down, then it turns to flour. Lautering should be interesting

 

[Mykel Obvious]

I'll give it a try - I'm brewing a wit tomorrow. I found some soft white winter wheat yesterday, so I'll see how that works out too.

I thought the hard red wheat was hard to mill, but the soft white was terrible. The hard red took a lot of power, but at least it broke up into chunks. The soft white just wants to squish until you close the gap down, then it turns to flour. Lautering should be interesting

Make sure you use great big gobs of rice hulls!!!!



later,
mikey

 

[alemonkey]

Oh yeah....this stuff looks like it's going to be much stickier than hard red wheat.

 

[alemonkey]

Well, just started my boil about 20 minutes ago. I gained 7 points efficiency over my previous tries with unmalted wheat. I'm guessing this is primarily due to the step mash, but the different wheat variety could have something to do with it as well. Sparge was slow, but I've seen worse.