rice hulls

Ingredients
1

I tried a search on the topic but only came up with a thread in all grain for malt conditioning. I apologize if this has been asked before.  I am still rather new to all graining…I made a 10 gallon batch of wheat beer and had no idea how much rice hulls to place into it. I ended up dumping in a pound to alleviate the visions of stuck sparges dancing in my head.  Wow… talk about my grain absorption rate going through the roof (didn’t know at the time I should have presoaked them).  :o …Two questions, would this much rice hulls have lead to a slight “greyish tinge” in the final color of my wheat?  It still tastes great…  and just how much rice hulls is enough?  Would an amount eqivalent to 1 ounce per pound of hull-less grain be appropriate?  thanks all…

2

Its best to soak the rice hulls in water first, preferably at around the same temp as your mash.

3

I usually don’t measure them and just use a couple handfuls per a 5 gallon batch.  As babalu87 mentioned. Soak them in water before adding to the mash.  Not sure about the “greyish tinge” thing???

4

Why you’re adding them TO water…they’ll soak in there…this doesn’t make sense.

5

Exactly, If you don’t "presoak’ the rice hulls they’ll soak up a sizable amount of wort.

6

I suppose that would depend on how much you’re adding.  I don’t imagine a couple hand fulls would make that big of a difference…

7

I guess it matters enough for me, but I’m stingy  :wink:

8

Its a HUGE difference
2 hand fulls of first runnings is the difference between 80+% efficiency and 75% efficiency

9

thank you for the help.  Is a couple of handfulls for 5 gallons, correct? So I should have only used about 4 handfulls? Would it be the same for brewing a rye also (thinking about denny’s rye ipa here) ?  thanks again.

10

I use rice hulls regularly in my brewing.  I put about an inch thick layer
over the braid in the tun. I add hot water to the tun to Preheat the critter.
Then I swish the hulls and hot water around to wash the hulls…Yes,
the rice hulls are dirty as you will see.  Then I just open the drain on
the tun after the preheating and drain the dirty water out. Couple of times
of seeing the run off from them, no way do I want that in my beer.