Hey all! I’ve been thinking about adding a small percentage ( about 2lbs for 10 gallons, maybe…) of rice to a future brew. Can I just add the rice straight from the bag to my tun? I’ve read some online about cereal mashing, but I’m not quite sure how to do this.
I’ve heard rice will give you a nice crisp finish to the beer. I’d like to experiment and find out if it makes a difference.
So basically, what type of rice, how and when to add it to the mash would really help! Thanks!
You’d use plain white rice, and you have to boil it first to gelatinize it. Just like you were making rice for the table, boil covered for something like 30min. It is pretty much like adding sugar to the batch.
I use Minute Rice, which is pre gelatinzed and can go right in the tun. I’ve also used wild rice and jasmine rice, both of which do need to be pre cooked.
Minute rice, good idea. not sure why I didn’t think of that.
A cereal mash is not much harder than cooking it. Just add some base malt (about 33%) to the adjunct and warm it up to 155-160F for 20-30 minutes then boil it until fully cooked. I seem to get more flavor and better extract this way.
You can use any rice you want, some of the wild rices can give you an interesting flavor.
But yes, you can just use cooked rice as people have mentioned.
I’ve ground it fine and added it to the mash before. Seemed to me ground rice would gelatinize at mash temps as opposed to precooking. Done it both ways and the only time there was a problem was with a equal amount of rye. Hella chill haze. But that could have been the rye.
Plain white rice starch granules are small and dense and take a higher heat to gelatinize from what I understand, although I couldn’t find a temp in a quick online search. Not sure you’d get a good gelatinization at mash temps even if you milled it first.
By the way, is rice much different than just using sugar? I did see that it is 20% amylose, 80% amylopectin, so I suppose there would be some dextrins left after mashing, that you wouldn’t see in table sugar. Is it unique in what it brings to a mash as an adjunct? Or is it primarily used in commercial brewing because of cost?
I would worry about the rice absorbing some of the flavors of the base malt at it sucks up all the water. Same way it will absorb broth when cooking. Is this something to be concerned about? I would probably want to cook it alone in water first before adding to the mash.
Just a thought,
I’ve never done a side by side, but my feeling is that using rice is very similar, but not the same, as using sugar. Of course, I could be fooling myself…
Ok , thanks for the tips guys. I think I’ll give one of these options a try. Probably the minute rice one, but who knows, this will just give me something to obsess over until I brew it!!
Thanks!! ;D
I rice does add some flavor. It’s not all starch.
With the cereal mash what the base absorbs is not important. All of it goes into the main mash along with the water. You can use it to step the mash up in temp if you have the main mash already started in the low 140s. Normally I just add it to the strike water before I dough in.
Just curious: What is the best way to use wild rice?
Capture it first.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’d treat it like ordinary rice, mill and boil it first. You may do a cereal mash and add some malt or boil the grain in a large amount of water. The amount of water should be as large as it takes to get to your strike water temp by adding cold tap water. If you are not adding malt, rice wants to be boiled in a large amount of water since it’s starches can swell to 30x their size which makes a very sticky goo that easily scorches.
This means you boil the rice in water and then add this rice water to your mash tun.Then you add cold water to adjust your water temp and add malt to get to your sacc rest temp.
Kai
“…catch it first!” LOL, that’s funny.
I guess wild rice is actually a type of grass (and it is gluten-free).
I assume since it has such a strong and distinctive taste that it probably needs to be used in moderation (like a roasted malt). Any recipes from those who’d like to share? Please include comments as to taste and aroma for the % of wild rice used in the grain bill.
sorry for this probably obvious question, but when using the minute rice, if a recipe calls for a half pound of flaked rice, then would a half pound of minute rice be the equivalent substitute? thanks