Raw wheat

[pvtpublic]

I haven't used it yet, but I'm about to. How do you use it? I'd love to see a good debate.

 

[hottpeper13]

Pretty sure you have to do a cereal mash. Check the gelatinization temp for raw wheat,hold it there for 20-30 min then bring the temp down(I use ice cubes ) so when you add the pils malt(highest DP other then 6 row) rest at 143 for 30 min then raise to 160 for 30 min then boil for 30 min. Or you can do a turbid mash, which is more of a pain then the cereal mash.

 

[Miraculix]

Crush it and throw it into the mash.

 

[whattabrau]

I use raw wheat regularly, e.g. witbier with 40% raw wheat, saisons with 20-30% raw wheat, and throw some into tripels, pale ales, etc. (yes yes unmalted grist and hoppy beers don't mix in theory, but I haven't noticed a difference in terms of oxidization)

Hard wheat is, well, hard, so I crush it with the bread mill on a coarse setting as opposed to using the barley crusher, because at least mine doesn't seem built robustly enough to handle wheat. I did use the barley mill for some batches when I started using raw wheat more than 5 years ago, so it won't instantly disintegrate, but decided to stop using it eventually. You probably need a smaller gap for wheat than barley, unless you're doing to a BIAB crush.

Beyond the above, it's just a matter of throwing it into the mash. You will get slightly better conversion if you do a step mash with the higher rest at 70+C, but there's no dramatic difference compared to plain barley. If I'd have to throw some numbers, I'd say with a single rest my witbier gets 85% conversion, and with a step mash it's 95-100%, and a pure barley mash gets high 80's with a single rest. Modern malts have so much diastatic power that unless you're doing something extra-weird such as a 100% raw wheat mash, you don't have to think about it.

 

[pvtpublic]

Ok, cool. Thanks for the input! What gap setting would I be shooting for, say .5mm? How would that compare to the flour mill, @whattabrau ?

 

[whattabrau]

Ok, cool. Thanks for the input! What gap setting would I be shooting for, say .5mm? How would that compare to the flour mill, @whattabrau ?

I have no idea about the mill gap size, because I never measure it. I eyeball it erring on the side of too big, mill, and examine the result. I doubt my mill and your mill or grains are the same anyway, so whatever number I'd give you would produce different results.

The flour mill is a, well, flour mill, so anything on a malt crusher will give you a coarser crush, and even with the flour mill coarse grind and 40% wheat the mash lauters just fine without rice hulls as long as you crack the barley malt properly (and to boot my current MLT is a pretty horrible hack of bubblegum and yoyo-string). What you're looking for with wheat is to crack the kernels.

I guess *theoretically* you could even not crack them at all -- you don't crack them if you boil them to make cooked wheat berries -- but I haven't ever tried not cracking with beer. Soaking the kernels overnight might improve the results there. But, like I said, this paragraph is theory and might not actually work.

 

[pvtpublic]

I would be worried about turning the wheat into acidulated malt by soaking them overnight.
Looking into it, it looks like wheat starts gelatinizing at 125*F, so it looks like there's nothing to worry about.

 

[belgabrewing]

Ok, cool. Thanks for the input! What gap setting would I be shooting for, say .5mm? How would that compare to the flour mill, @whattabrau ?

A brewmaster told me some time ago to set my gap to the width of a credit card at the numbers on the card. Since then I have always hit my "numbers" with that setting on a cheap 2 roller mill.

 

[whattabrau]

Looking into it, it looks like wheat starts gelatinizing at 125*F, so it looks like there's nothing to worry about.

Yes and no. See my first post in this thread. If you choose to leave some starch unconverted, it's your prerogative as a homebrewer.