I am brewing my house wit this weekend and I am using 1/2 of rice hulls. In the past I used to soak the hulls in water that was near room temp over night then drain them the next day and mix in with the rest of my grains. I did this because I was under the impression that rice soaks up a good deal of water and this may result in less wort than desired.
I got to thinking, would it matter if I just mixed my rice dry with my grains in the mash tun? With no overnight soak?
I usually only use the rice for my Wits; which are only once per year, but I am figuring that if an unnecessary step can be eliminated, then I am all for it.
Plus with my luck I may forget to add them and have a gelatinous mess in my mash tun.
My issues with draining my mashtun seem to be a thing of the past so I am starting to experiment with less and less rice hulls though I would probably put a few handfuls in if I were to brew my Weizenbock again.
I didn’t realize that a little bit of rice hulls goes so far. Before my brewing hiatus I was brewing a lot with Valley Malts 2-row pale (smaller grain than most commercial offerings) and after several batches with poor efficiency I started to crush it twice which pulverizes it. Then I started using an entire pound of rice hulls to avoid stuck mashes. Efficiency went from 65% to 80%.
By the way I was tossing in the entire pound of hulls without a soak and didn’t have any problems.
Even if you soak them ahead of time, you’re still going to leave the same amount of wort absorbed into them at the end of the mash, correct? Meaning, I think you can just adjust by adding more strike water up front once you understand how much will be absorbed by adding the rice hulls.
Another way of saying it is, I think you will still leave the same gravity points absorbed in the hulls whether you soak them ahead of time or stir them in at the mash.
Even if you soak them ahead of time, you’re still going to leave the same amount of wort absorbed into them at the end of the mash, correct? Meaning, I think you can just adjust by adding more strike water up front once you understand how much will be absorbed by adding the rice hulls.
Another way of saying it is, I think you will still leave the same gravity points absorbed in the hulls whether you soak them ahead of time or stir them in at the mash.[/quote]
If you soak them ahead of time, they won’t absorb any mash water. Yeah, you can account with a higher liquor grist ratio. But I think you want to do what you can to avoid having them soak up wort.
Even if you soak them ahead of time, you’re still going to leave the same amount of wort absorbed into them at the end of the mash, correct? Meaning, I think you can just adjust by adding more strike water up front once you understand how much will be absorbed by adding the rice hulls.
Another way of saying it is, I think you will still leave the same gravity points absorbed in the hulls whether you soak them ahead of time or stir them in at the mash.[/quote]
If you soak them ahead of time, they won’t absorb any mash water. Yeah, you can account with a higher liquor grist ratio. But I think you want to do what you can to avoid having them soak up wort.[/quote]
Hmmm…
I believe that even if the hulls are soaked ahead of time, when you stir in the grains and mash water and begin to extract the sugars, those sugars are going to evenly disperse into all the liquid in the mash tun, including the liquid already absorbed into the rice hulls.
I believe that even if the hulls are soaked ahead of time, when you stir in the grains and mash water and begin to extract the sugars, those sugars are going to evenly disperse into all the liquid in the mash tun, including the liquid already absorbed into the rice hulls.
That’s just my guess and I could be wrong.[/quote]
I would think that once the rice hulls are saturated, they aren’t going to absorb any more of anything.
Even if they do, at this point it will be negligible.
I could be mistaken, but I think his point is that the rice hulls won’t absorb any more liquid, but they will be saturated with sugar water and hence some sugars will stay behind in the mash tun. This is true, although I doubt the effect would be noticeable. It’s like taking a sponge, pre-soaking it in water, and throwing it in the mash tun for an hour. It won’t absorb any more liquid, but the dissolved sugars in the wort will leach into the sponge, staying behind after sparging. If you take the sponge back out after sparging and give it a good squeeze, you won’t be squeezing pure water out of it…
That’s exactly my point, and I agree it’s not a big deal. I was just trying to explain that pre-soaking the hulls was no different than adding extra mash water, because ultimately the same small amount of sugar would be left behind in the liquid which is absorbed in the rice hulls.
My experience is that if the rice hulls are presoaked in water, they won’t absorb any wort. Just like when you add sparge water in a batch sparge, you get out what goes in becasue the grain is already saturated.
My experience is that if the rice hulls are presoaked in water, they won’t absorb any wort. Just like when you add sparge water in a batch sparge, you get out what goes in becasue the grain is already saturated.[/quote]
I feel silly arguing with you because you have so much more experience, but I’m nearly certain I’m correct about this.
Regarding the bolded in your quote, you get the same volume back, but now it has a good percentage of the sugars that had been left behind from the first lautering. This is because when the sparge water comes together with the saturated grain the sugars in the saturated grain migrate out into the sparge water until the sugar in all the water (both the water in the saturated grain and the water in the saturated grain) reaches equilibrium. There is no gate between the soaked grain and the sparge water and the sugar moves freely between them.
So the same thing happens in reverse with your pre-soaked rice hulls. You don’t lose any more liquid because you compensated up front with soaking the hulls, but you do lose the same amount of sugars as if you had put unsoaked hulls in with the mash and just increased the initial volume of mash water to compensate.
Basically you can either,
pre-soak
or
put in dry and increase volume of initial mash water
Either way, and all other factors remaining equal, you should get the same amount of sugar in your kettle. And the same volume.
You’re absolutely correct in this one. Diffusion will result in equal concentrations of sugar in the wort and rice hulls. And I have tremendous respect for Denny’s input, too.
My experience is that if the rice hulls are presoaked in water, they won’t absorb any wort. Just like when you add sparge water in a batch sparge, you get out what goes in becasue the grain is already saturated.[/quote]
I feel silly arguing with you because you have so much more experience, but I’m nearly certain I’m correct about this.
Regarding the bolded in your quote, you get the same volume back, but now it has a good percentage of the sugars that had been left behind from the first lautering. This is because when the sparge water comes together with the saturated grain the sugars in the saturated grain migrate out into the sparge water until the sugar in all the water (both the water in the saturated grain and the water in the saturated grain) reaches equilibrium. There is no gate between the soaked grain and the sparge water and the sugar moves freely between them.
So the same thing happens in reverse with your pre-soaked rice hulls. You don’t lose any more liquid because you compensated up front with soaking the hulls, but you do lose the same amount of sugars as if you had put unsoaked hulls in with the mash and just increased the initial volume of mash water to compensate.
Basically you can either,
pre-soak
or
put in dry and increase volume of initial mash water
Either way, and all other factors remaining equal, you should get the same amount of sugar in your kettle. And the same volume.[/quote]
I feel silly arguing about it because it really doesn’t matter, but I’m going to disagree. The very definition of saturation means that the rice hulls cannot absorb more liquid once they are fully saturated. Additionally, the sugar dissolved in the liquid needs a vector to be absorbed by the rice hulls. That would be the liquid water it is dissolved in. The hulls need to be able to absorb more liquid in order to absorb some of that sugar. Since they cannot take in any more liquid, they don’t take in anything. The sugars aren’t “leeched” into the rice hulls.
Even if by some chance you’re theory is correct, the amount of sugar “left behind” in the rice hulls would be so negligible that you’d never be able to detect it in the wort. Also, if you’re correct, sparging could essentially “leech” this sugar back out into the sparge water, resulting in even less of a loss of sugar, right?
We could do a simple experiment here - Test 1, dunk a dry paper towel into your cup of coffee. Pull it out after a few minutes, and the liquid level drops. Paper towel comes out stained with coffee.
Test 2, soak the paper towel in water first, then dunk it into your cup of coffee for a few minutes. Pull it out, and the liquid level should be pretty much the same, and the paper towel comes out stained with coffee. Also, the coffee left in your cup is slightly diluted with water, because the concentrations want to normalize.
But I completely agree with you, this is one of those things that really doesn’t matter in the least. :lol:
But then wouldn’t you have to consider the density of the solution? Coffee not being as dense reacts differently. Dissolved sugar is another story.
It’s been a while since I’ve done any sort of actual chemistry though.
But like I said, at the end of the day, we’re probably talking a change in gravity at 0.00001 or less. Hardly something that you need to plan for. If you soak your hulls beforehand, no change is needed. If you don’t, add a bit more water to account for the loss to the hulls.
Or, just don’t use rice hulls. I didn’t need any in my batch sparge hefe and it was 50% wheat.
Boom! Nailed it! Since going to Denny’s braid set-up, I’ve found rice hulls to be completely unnecessary. Last brew day, I made a saison with a significant amount of rye, no issues. :cheers:
