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Author Topic: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat  (Read 7450 times)

Offline tomsawyer

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Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« on: March 05, 2012, 09:26:00 am »
I made a lambic wort yesterday and used raw wheat in the recipe.  I wanted to gelatinize it so I'd get a better recovery of starches.  My first attempt involved putting 6lb of wheat and 3lb of pils malt in a kettle with 1qt/lb of water, starting at 125F for a protein rest and then ramping to boiling (per Wyeast mash in Sparrow's Wild Brews).  This was a disaster because I scorched the grist when I put the heat on (a induction cooktop on high is a bad idea).  I could smell burnt grain so I pitched this out and started over.

Rather than risk another scorch, I boiled 1qt/lb of water and then added the crushed wheat, the resultng temp was 180F which I think is enough to gelatinize.  This stuff turned to a thick solid after 15min, but it certainly seemed to gelatinize.  Took awhile to mix into the main mash of pils malt, but it seemed to do the trick.

It was a long day making the lambic but the wort came out well.  Used plenty of aged hops, it gave the wort a nice sour aroma early in the boil.  I got a terrible efficiency but then between the raw wheat and Old World Pils malt, there was a humongous protein break and the large whole hop charge didn't help matters.  Fortunately I made a large batch so I managed to eek out 5gal.  The Wyeast 3278 lambic blend smelled wonderful.
Lennie
Hannibal, MO

narvin

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2012, 09:51:30 am »
How are you grinding the wheat?  This is one case where a corona or flour mill works great.  The traditional lambic turbid mash doesn't do a cereal mash, and actually involves multiple steps of running off liquid that hasn't been through saccharification.

Offline nateo

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2012, 10:23:04 am »
This might be of interest: http://hbd.org/brewery/library/GelTemps_RL0796.html

Wheat gelatinizes around 125*F.

IIRC from Raj Apte's article, you want a large amount of unconverted starches to feed the bugs over the course of the 9-12mo secondary.
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Offline tomsawyer

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2012, 10:45:33 am »
I ran the wheat through the crusher three times to get a decent crush, the drill I run my MM with wouldn't turn first time through with a narrow gap.  Guess I didn't need a cereal mash after all, oh well.  I was kind of following the Wyeast mash in doing this, its not quite a turbid mash but probably does bring a fair amount of starch into the fermentor.  I've done lambics with conventional mashes and they turned out well so I don't subscribe to the notion that a beer will have no body without a turbid mash.  Maybe I'll throw in a little flour though.
Lennie
Hannibal, MO

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2012, 11:06:33 pm »
If you're grinding the wheat three times to get flour, why not use actual flour?
Tom Schmidlin

Offline tomsawyer

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2012, 06:10:33 am »
It was far from flour, I had to run it through three times just to get it through a gap that I normally use for malt.  i did get some flour but a lot of it was chunks.  And this is also a locally grown soft red winter wheat that I have a 50lb bag of.  I've used plain old white flour before and it does work just fine.

I needed a little more wort (I got 5gal but want to fill a 6gal carboy for storage) so I mashed 3lb of pils and 1lb of wheat last night.  This time I did a simple single infusion at 156F for just 30min then ran off and sparged.  It went to easily compared to the previous ordeal that it made me question why I wanted to do it at all.  Live and learn.  Now I have a fermentor full of lambic fermenting away, I'm happy and by the time it is ready I'll have forgotten the pain.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2012, 06:16:41 am by tomsawyer »
Lennie
Hannibal, MO

Offline bo

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2012, 06:20:14 am »
Using flour would almost guarantee a stuck sparge.

narvin

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2012, 07:17:24 am »
I pulverize raw wheat berries to what is basically a flour.  Haven't had a stuck sparge yet.

Why not just use flour?  You could, but you want to make sure you know what's in it.  Go with whole wheat, or you might be missing something.  Maybe I'll try this next time:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/king-arthur-white-whole-wheat-flour-5-lb

Offline tomsawyer

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2012, 07:26:58 am »
I've used flour without it sticking the mash.  I think you just have to hydrate it so you don't get doughballs and then make sure it converts.  Most of it goes away at that point.
Lennie
Hannibal, MO

Offline Jimmy K

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2012, 08:05:53 am »
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Offline brewmanator

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2012, 08:23:23 am »
We just did a lambic as well.  I detailed our brewday on another forum, but have placed that post below.  We used ~1.4 quarts of water per pound of grain and the cereal mash turned out just right.  Very little scorching.

-------------------------------

A while ago we were given a 5 gallon bucket full of raw wheat. The only beer styles that I can think of to use this in are Witbier or Lambic. Well we went with a lambic yesterday. Here is the recipe and procedure we used. It is based on the recipe for Gueuze-Lambic in the Classic Beer Styles book Lambic

Beer Name: Hope
Style: Lambic
Batch Size: 11.5 gallons (10.5 gallons in the fermentor)

14.5 lbs Pilsner Malt (Gambrinus)
7.75 lbs Wheat, Raw
1.0 lbs Crystal 40
6.0 oz Willamette (Aged warm for 2 years)
2 pkg fresh WYeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend (dates: 2-22-12 and 2-29-12)
2 pkg of old WYeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend (dates: 7-2011 and 10-2011)

Mash: Did a cereal mash with the wheat (7.75 lbs), 1.5 lbs of pilsner malt and 13 qt of water (168 oF). The initial temp was lower than the rest temp we desired so we heated this with stirring to get up to 158 oF. We let this sit for 10 min and then slowly and with constant stirring brought the CM to a boil. We stirred constantly for 30 min and it thickened up to the consistency of thick oatmeal. We then added the near boiling CM to the main mash ( 13 lbs pils malt, 1 lb crystal malt and 14 qts of water) which was resting at 120 oF. This got the temp of the main mash up to 150 oF. We added some rice hulls (~3/4 lb) and hot water to raise the temp of the main mash up to 153 oF and let this sit for 30 min. No mash out.

Vorlauf/Sparge: We vorlaufed with a pump for 15 min and then continuously sparged with 180 oF water to obtain ~13 gallons of wort. No stuck sparge!

Boil: We boiled for 90 min, and added the hops with 80 minutes left in the boil.

Cool/Aerate/Pitch Yeast: We circulated 1-2 gallons of hot wort before sending it through a small Shirron plate chiller. After running the cooled wort (66 oF) into two carboys, we pitched 2 pkgs of yeast (one old and one new) into each carboy. We then slowly bubbled oxygen (2 min) using an aeration stone into each carboy.

Fermentation: Started a controlled fermentation at 66 oF, bubbling away nicely...

We forgot to get a hydrometer sample of the chilled wort, but were able to get a refractometer reading of 14.4 Brix. Which suggest around a 1.058 OG.
- Mike

Offline tomsawyer

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Re: Gelatinizing Raw Wheat
« Reply #11 on: March 06, 2012, 12:46:04 pm »
Thanks both of you for the info, Mosher's observations on efficiency is similar to my own which is why I was doing to cereal mash in the first place.  I didn't do the glucanase rest, I think that would be counter to Sparrow's idea that sours can be too thin.  Probably important for a wit though.

Brewmanator sounds like a good brewday, mine would have gone smoothyl enough had I not smashed the crap out of my braid.  My OG is 1.054, anything under 1.060 is to style for a gueuze.
Lennie
Hannibal, MO