I brewed a Rye IPA yesterday with about 40% rye malt, 5% cararye, and 55% 2 row malt. I used my normal calculations for sparge water to get my target pre boil volume, but came up a good bit short. I was aiming for 8 gallons, but only got about 7.4 gallons. My efficiency was also a little low, which I expected with the amount at rye I used. The only water loss I can come up with is that the rye adsorbs more water then barley does. There was no extra liquid in the mash tun when I emptied it, and I had no issues with a stuck sparge (I batch sparge in a 10 gallon igloo cooler). Has anyone else seen higher water adsorption with rye?
Since Rye and Wheat have no husk, they tend to absorb more water per unit mass than typical barley malt. I’ve seen numbers like 12.5% water absorption for malted barley and 20% for rye and wheat malt. Basically about 2 gallons of water loss for every 10lb of rye. YMMV
Nope, exactly the same rye or not.
Really? As you know, I’ve brewed a few rye beers. I’ve never seen that happen.
I don’t have any scientific data to support this, but this has been my experience and that of some others as well. Again YMMV.
Since I brew Denny’s RyePA at least 3-4x per year I can say I haven’t seen a difference in absorption either, are you sure you measured your sparge volume properly?
rapurcell85, my recent experience is like yours. I brewed a 60% rye roggenbier a few weeks ago and came up about 1/2-3/4 gal short (7 gal recipe). I also attributed it to rye absorption as there were no other differences in my process. I batch sparge.
On the other hand, when I brew Rye IPA with closer to 15-20% rye, I don’t notice a volume difference, but perhaps at that lower precentage the volume difference is in the noise.
No specific experience with rye here, but perhaps you used rice hulls which would reduce yield some.
What’s your mash thickness? Maybe with thicker mashes the beta glucans from the rye are enough to gum up the works a bit, but with a thinner mash it’s able to flow a bit more freely? Just a WAG here, no experience to back this up…
I did not use rice hulls. I don’t tend to have problems with batch sparging up to at least 50% wheat, so I assumed I wouldn’t need them for rye, and didn’t have any issues with a stuck sparge. I believe I had around 1.5 quarts per pound for my mash thickness. My notes are not with me, so I can’t say for certain. It may have been a little thinner than that, say 1.7 quarts per pound. I haven’t brewed a wheat beer in a while, but I don’t recall having the same issue. I’m also fairly certain I had the volumes correct, but can’t say for sure.
I use Brew in a Bag, and I find if I use wheat my grain absorption is less because of no husks. My normal rate is .07 gallons per pound of grain. If half my grist is wheat the the absorption is more like .03.
This means I come out with more liquid not less. I am actually brewing with rye for the first time today. Well see if its the same.