I’m planning on brewing a weizenbock that has a total grain bill of 16lbs, and 4 lbs of that is red wheat malt. Trying to avoid a stuck sparge, I’m using rice hulls. What’s the amount of the rice hulls should I use, and do I include that in my calculation of strike water volume?
I go with 1 oz hulls per pound of huskless adjunct/malt. In your case, 4 oz would be plenty. BUT, I also weight that against the amount of barley malt I’m using. In your case, you have a scant 4 pounds huskless to 12 pounds husked. I would probably skip the hulls altogether if it were me, and because I’m familiar with my system.
Edit: stuped speling 
I actually double that amount. I would use 1/2 lb. of rice hulls in my system. I mash in a 10 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker with the Blichmann false bottom. I also don’t account for any additional water because the rice hulls make up such a small percentage of the overall grist.
And if you soak the hulls in water overnight you don’t have to account for any extra water at all. They’ll be saturated by that point.
If you have a good lautering system you won’t need any at all. I never have.
at some point i realized I didn’t need them either- and stopped using them also…even on 60-65% wheat grist.
I used them a couple times, on a wit and a hefe, thinking ‘I’d better or I’ll get a stuck sparge’. Didn’t with the hulls, but I never got stuck without the hulls since, either.
think that’s how many of us ended up using them…read that we had too or trouble with stuck sparge. somewhere I said “let’s see what happens without it”.
Yep. I followed the conventional wisdom back then as gospel. Shouldn’t have. Now I’m all about trying things differently.
I don’t use them and haven’t had issues with wheat in the grain bill (often use up to 33%).
That being said I have considered using rice hulls when making Denny’s Rye IPA recipe. It gets solidly stuck once in a while when I make it. It’s on deck for Monday so I’ll see what happens this time. ;D
Paul
I’ve had a couple of issues with stuck/slow recirculation and sparging. Mostly with wheat, and rye in the grist. Maybe I recirculate to quickly, but for me rice hulls are cheap insurance against the headache of stopping the process, stirring everything up, and getting everything going again.
To each his own, I guess.
They’re solidly in the “cheap insurance” category for me. No downside to using them (that I know of), inexpensive, easy to use. Probably rarely, if ever, necessary, though.
I agree with the cheap insurance statement, but if you run off a bit more slowly than wide open, you will likely have no problem with a stuck sparge (the only stuck sparge said were high adjunct beers that I drained so quickly with a pump that it compacted the grain bed.)
The only downside is you can’t use your grains for spent grain flour [emoji6]
I only seem to need them with using a false bottom. Didn’t use them for years, except for a few times before using a false bottom and again now using a false bottom. To each their own, I use them to save me the headache if I don’t.
I use them with a heavy wheat or rye bill. Had a stuck spare once and don’t want to go through that again.
BV
I use with a Rye IPa with 40% rye malt in the grain bill. I use 8 oz of hulls. I batch sparge in a 10 gal. cooler. I wanted to find out if I needed them the last time I brewed it, so I left them out. I need them… :-[