Mashing Rice

I’ve had some requests to do some lagers from the BMC posers I know. Due to my endless curiosity, I want to mash with some rice, but not necessarily use rice syrup. Any advice you guys could give me would be a step in the direction I wish to go.

P.S. I’ve been all-graining for a couple years now and experimenting with different techniques (single infusion, step infusion, decoction and such), and I’m pretty comfy with my set-up. BUT I haven’t used rice before. I really want to try it out.

I just recently used rice for the first time in a cream ale. I boiled the rice on the stove top as usual then added additional boiling water a few times, letting the rice absorb it all. I added it to the mash after I stirred in the grain. No problems with stuck mash or sparge.

For small amounts of rice just cook like normal and add to mash.
For larger amount you want to do a cereal mash which is just a mini step mash with 50/50 rice/malt.

Oh I did forget the important part of the cereal mash. Boil for 15- 20 mins.

You should also mill the rice for better efficiency.

Minute Rice can be added to the mash without boiling as it is already gelatinized.

I made rice per the direction. When finished I continued to add water to the pot, keeping the level just above the grains. Before going to bed I added an extra inch or two.

The next morning I added some water if it needed it and heated it while the mash water was heating. Dumped the whole pot into the MT after adding the barley.

At the end of the mash you could not tell there was any rice in the mix. It all dissolved. I didn’t mill it or do any cereal mash. OG was in line with BeerTools.

edit: All water additions after the normal cooking time (20 minutes) are done with the rice off of the heat. Apply heat to bring up to mashing temp before adding to the grain.

The October Issue of Brew magazine has a couple of pages dedicated to Retro clones. Follow the instructions for the all grain Olympia beer. These instructions are similar for all rice cooker beers that I have been able to find.

I do a lot of cereal mashes. I’ve done up to 33% rice before.

I’ll start the strike for the cereal mash and main mash at the same time. The cereal mash is 20-33% base malt. Put the cereal mash in about 100F (some adjuncts dough up badly at higher temps) and dough in the main at 130F. As the cereal mash heats to 160F I heat the infusion for the main mash to get to 145F. The cereal mash rests at 160F for 20-45 minutes then boils for another 20-30 minutes. The main mash will rest at 145 as the cereal boils (or longer.) I add the cereal in slowly to hit 155 or so then cool the rest with ice to mash temp before adding it. Let the main rest another 20-30 minutes. You could infuse a mash out (I don’t.) It may seem harder than it is but the results are very nice. The dextrins left form the cereal mash make for nice mouthfeel and head retention. Perfect for a CAP.

The easy way is to just boil it for 20 minutes with 2qt/lb water and then add that in with the strike water.

Awesome!! Thanks for the info. I’ll probably try the simple boil-it-a-lot at first. It’s kinda hard to break a tradition, because I’m so much of an all-malt enthusiast. Hopefully I can appease some of my stubborn friends.

I’d be interested in perusing some recipes using rice so I can formulate my own. Any links would be appreciated.

This is where I found a lot of info on brewing with adjuncts. As old as it is it’s still really good.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ppYKAA ... &q&f=false

Here are some of my rice recipes.
Dark Oryza
http://hopville.com/recipe/915360/dark-american-lager-recipes/dark-oryza

Lager Oryza
http://hopville.com/recipe/888031/premium-american-lager-recipes/lager-oryza

Rice CAP
http://hopville.com/recipe/901078/classic-american-pilsner-recipes/the-classic-american-lager-2011-09-24-version

Ries Bier (cream ale)
http://hopville.com/recipe/614893/cream-ale-recipes/reisbeir

Most are lagers.

[quote=“karithna”]Awesome!! Thanks for the info. I’ll probably try the simple boil-it-a-lot at first. It’s kinda hard to break a tradition, because I’m so much of an all-malt enthusiast. Hopefully I can appease some of my stubborn friends.
I’d be interested in perusing some recipes using rice so I can formulate my own. Any links would be appreciated.[/quote]

All malt is great, but after years of all malt brewing I found that it is definitely not the be-all-end-all hallmark of great beer.

Enjoy the experiment and be surprised, like I was, at the results you can get. I find that I like to use corn rather than rice after trying both…but either way, the quality of the beers certainly didn’t suffer compared to their all malt counterparts.
I’ll go even further and say that in some cases, one can sometimes actually get a better result than if brewed with all malt.

I like cornmeal over rice most of the time. They add different aspects to the beer. But there are some beers where rice seems more appropriate. Honestly, each are not all that much different anyway. Used under 20% nobody could tell the difference. 10% (total of extract) of any untoasted adjunct in almost undetectable in flavor.

Corn and rice are far from the only adjuncts. I use raw wheat a lot. I can toast it to many different levels and use it like a specialty malt. It does improve head retention (and it’s cheap.) There is also sugar, starch and many other grains.

I brewed what I later named “Dudweiser” using corn, rice and oats in a rather large proportion.

6# 2-row
1# Grits (corn)
1# Rice
.25# Oatmeal (the 5 min kind)
.25 oz Centennial 60
.50 oz Cascade 10
WLP001
1.038-1.004

Turned out great! It was very dry but I think will please the swill drinking friends I have!! I will change my hops for the next recipe and bump up the base malts a little, maybe 8# or so. I just put the grits, rice, and oatmeal in one pot and brought to a boil with about 2 qts of water and let simmer for about 30 min and dumped in on top of my mash for the final 30 min of mash.

May not be the “right way to do it” but it sure did make me some beer!!!

Here’s one I brewed last spring, I used corn but you could use rice instead. It’s basically a cream ale.

6 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 65.8 %
3 lbs Corn (1.3 SRM) Grain 2 31.6 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 2.6 %
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - First Wort 30.0 min Hop 4 16.7 IBUs
0.25 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 5 2.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [25.00 ml] Yeast

I use honey on occasion. Last time I did a barleywine and added 3 # honey to a second runnings and made a dry pale ale. My friend who only drinks Budweiser (as hard as I push) said he liked it.

As for using rice, the idea of a less expensive homebrew does sound very appealing these days.