# Raw Wheat Supplies& Barley Seeds?



## chefeffect (18/1/12)

Just wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction for raw wheat other than a home brew store as the nearest is 2.5 hours away. I have seen on some american forums people have used wheat from stock feed stores, has anyone given this a crack?

Also I am wanting to grow some barley on my property, does anyone know where to get seed for 2 or 6 row?


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## punkin (19/1/12)

chefeffect said:


> Just wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction for raw wheat other than a home brew store as the nearest is 2.5 hours away. I have seen on some american forums people have used wheat from stock feed stores, has anyone given this a crack?
> 
> Also I am wanting to grow some barley on my property, does anyone know where to get seed for 2 or 6 row?





I buy lots of grain from feed stores or direct from the seed grader. Just make sure you ask for feed grade as a lot of seed grade stuff is sprayed with fungal inhibitors.



Don't use it if it's pink


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## chefeffect (19/1/12)

Awesome cheers, I will be giving it ago then..


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

chefeffect said:


> Awesome cheers, I will be giving it ago then..



Well if anyones interested I bought a 25kg bag of gograins feed wheat from Hunters for $12.50, did a bit more research and punkin your right the feed grain is not sprayed with fungicides which was a big concern for me. Turns out my wife has been cooking with wheat from pet food stores because you just can't get it anywhere except at health food stores which are super expensive. Just about to put on Tonys Bullshead Witbier!!


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## brettprevans (20/1/12)

chefeffect said:


> Well if anyones interested I bought a 25kg bag of gograins feed wheat from Hunters for $12.50, did a bit more research and punkin your right the feed grain is not sprayed with fungicides which was a big concern for me. Turns out my wife has been cooking with wheat from pet food stores because you just can't get it anywhere except at health food stores which are super expensive. Just about to put on Tonys Bullshead Witbier!!


thats good news for you, but just be aware that feed grain is a lesser quality than brewing grain. there are differant grades of grain that go to use for differant markets. im not saying your beer will be shit, im just saying that it may not be the best quality beer. kind of like using joe white instead of wyermann, except on a bigger scale.

also if your interested, keep an eye out for the grain bulk buys we do (generally 2 a year), then it would be worth your while coming into melb for a trip to pick up cheaper bulk grain


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

Thanks citymorgue2 good sound advice, yeah I need to get in on a bulk buy for sure its gets expensive getting grain shipped and I probably only goto Melbourne twice a year. It will be interesting to see how I go extracting the sugars from the wheat, and you response makes me think maybe I will get a lower yeild? Anyway's its a good experiment just hope my labour doesn't turn out crap, will let you know how it goes..


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## brettprevans (20/1/12)

chefeffect said:


> Thanks citymorgue2 good sound advice, yeah I need to get in on a bulk buy for sure its gets expensive getting grain shipped and I probably only goto Melbourne twice a year. It will be interesting to see how I go extracting the sugars from the wheat, and you response makes me think maybe I will get a lower yeild? Anyway's its a good experiment just hope my labour doesn't turn out crap, will let you know how it goes..


im not sure about whwther the yield will be less or not. i cant remember what i read on other similar threads. it could just be that the wort you get isnt as good a quality. it could mean 1/5th of **** all differance in quality, im not sure. I know the guys doing the professional brewing course and those involved in the grain industry will tell you that there is a differance in quality.


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## seamad (20/1/12)

I have found( along with others) that effiency goes south with raw wheat in a wit anyway. When calculating your recipe lower your eff. [email protected]% to compensate. At that price it is sweet fa anyway.
Cheers


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

No worries thanks for that, the beer recipe was on the low end of the wit SG recommendation at 1.044 SG to start with so I added some more wheat to bring it up to 1.046 SG that way I lessen my chances of a Mid Strength.


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

Im also doing a 4 step cereal mash just over 2.5hrs so that should help.


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## punkin (20/1/12)

I'd like to add that the grain _could_ be a lower grade. It could also be exactly the same as food grade, brewers grade or export grade, depending on the market and a hundred and one other factors.

It could be that less effort went into grading (filtering and sorting wheat from chaff and weed seeds) although the amount of crap weed seeds, rocks and other stuff i've found in good quality malt is suprising.


For our purposes it will make **** all difference. 


The one thing i will advise about is that feed grade WILL carry weevils, moths and other fauna, where malt seems to be 'treated' (fumigated with poison) to a much greater extent extending shelf life if kept sealed.


So us it quick, and don't store it with the exe stuff.


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## brettprevans (20/1/12)

thread on feed grain if your interested chef
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&hl=quality


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

Thanks for the link, I need to learn how to use the search function a bit better as this link was what I was after. Took sometime to read and quite a few laughs, man this forum can be full on sometimes....

All I can do is experiment I guess, I would like for the sake of it to grow and malt my own barley just to say hey, check this out, it might taste like horse piss though and after all the work is it worth it? It would be nice to add grain to my self sufficient list along with all my other wacky hobbies, cost it not really a major issue, but bragging that a beer cost 20 cents is lol Anyways not far off from boiling...


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## ekul (20/1/12)

You could try malting the barley from the feedstore before growing it to see how you go with that. If the home malted grain makes a good beer then you could take the finla step and grow the barley yourself, malt it and make beer out of it. 

I looked into malting my own barley for a little while. It was going great but then it got real humid (or rained?) and a bit of mould set in. So make sure you got some hot dry days ahead of you so that you can dry it (or dry it in the oven!)

The place i found the most info on it was at distiller forums. Spirit home brewers seem to get into it a fair bit more than beer homebrewers.


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## hoppy2B (20/1/12)

I can send you some premium wheat seed if you like. Premium wheat is the right protein level for malting. Its the protein level which is most important. Funny thing how different varieties produce grain at specific protein levels.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can't thresh barley by hand. I've tried it and its impossible. You'll only regret growing barley.
On the question of quality, wheat should give you a higher yield. Pound for pound wheat provides higher levels of energy and contains less fibre. And surprise surprise better quality beers usually contain wheat. Wheat is a higher priced grain and the only reason barley is used for brewing beer is because it was 'relegated' to this task and also because the husks provide a filter. Modern BIAB eliminates the need for barley husks.
Its a pity people are so ready to accept the law of some fucken beer nazis. :lol:


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## hoppy2B (20/1/12)

ekul said:


> You could try malting the barley from the feedstore before growing it to see how you go with that. If the home malted grain makes a good beer then you could take the finla step and grow the barley yourself, malt it and make beer out of it.
> 
> I looked into malting my own barley for a little while. It was going great but then it got real humid (or rained?) and a bit of mould set in. So make sure you got some hot dry days ahead of you so that you can dry it (or dry it in the oven!)
> 
> The place i found the most info on it was at distiller forums. Spirit home brewers seem to get into it a fair bit more than beer homebrewers.



Wheat will germinate in half the number of days and if I recall correctly it will do it at around 20 degrees as appose to the 18 degrees used for malting barley.
Shorter malting time means less likelyhood of mold.


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

Its a pity people are so ready to accept the law of some fucken beer nazis. :lol:
[/quote]

Laughing with you. I BIAB as well so that might say something? 

Wheat seed would be awesome mate, where did you get the barley from? I've got a book called 'The homebrewers garden' and it has some very basic ways of making beer from home grown ingredients, I love experimenting and you will find all Chefs do, it's the only practical way to get better at something reading a book is a good start. I guess I can understand the beer nazis because beer making has been around for so long who wants to reinvent the wheel.


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

Crap, not wrong about the efficiency going south, I have a mid strength beer for sure!!


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## ekul (20/1/12)

Interesting, wheat from the feed store is pretty cheap as well. Will have to acquire a taste for wheat beer 




hoppy2B said:


> Wheat will germinate in half the number of days and if I recall correctly it will do it at around 20 degrees as appose to the 18 degrees used for malting barley.
> Shorter malting time means less likelyhood of mold.


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## chefeffect (20/1/12)

I love wheat beers, must be the sweetness? Turns out if I had adjusted my efficiency by 15% as seamad mentioned I would have been right on the money!!


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## hoppy2B (20/1/12)

I grew about 5 tonnes of premium wheat this season. I still have some of the original seed left. I can send some in a standard envelope if you want some. The envelope can't be more than a certain thickness but I think the weight might be up to 200 grams. Not sure about that I will have to check. I'll send that free.
I would recommend growing potatoes and just a small amount of wheat to use for converting the starch into sugar. 
Other alternatives could include corn or at this time of year you might get away with a quick millet crop, which incidentally can be malted.
I've had a really good corn beer from South Africa called 'Oranjeboom' which my old man bought a couple of times and I pinched a few. lol
IMHO a back yarder should just concentrate on growing hops. That will provide the opportunity to save a few bucks as I believe its possible to achieve a good yield with hops on a small scale even in the first season.
Cheers, let me know if you want some wheat seeds.
P.S.: Wheat should be given a protein rest when mashing.


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## Anofre (21/1/12)

Good work chef.
Love seeing people mucking around with their own grains.
Planning to malt again myself, but havnt been arsed yet. Your thread inspires me to get back into it.Single source attempt

+1 that feed barley is identical to malt sometimes.
We grow malt variety which passed regulary & now only sell it for feed.

If u r in a rural area, get to know a farmer.
That way u can get fresh seed before poisons added for nix.
U could also throw your hand grown & cut grains through his harvester to thresh.

Malting is quite easy. There's a beaut video article in here about it somewhere.
The trick is not to let the grain 'sour' which is hard in summer in Oz.
Barley & wheat are winter germinating plants.


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## humulus (21/1/12)

Just about to carb up my wit that i used raw wheat in that i got from a flour mill near work.
The bloke at the mill said it was the export grade stuff,theres no husks or other shit in it,but does your eff go south!,but 25kg for free i can live with that :lol:
Let you know what its like!!


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## chefeffect (21/1/12)

Yeah not wrong about the efficiency my beer was 9 points under jezzz.. Does anyone know how to add it to the ingredient list in Beersmith2 I put it in as 'wheat flaked' but clearly that didn't work, surely there is a way to incorporate it into the recipes and get a closer conversion rate?


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## chefeffect (21/1/12)

Im going to try this :


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## brettprevans (21/1/12)

Terrified wheat is great. No cereal mash required.


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## emnpaul (21/1/12)

citymorgue2 said:


> Torrified wheat is great. No cereal mash required.




And you'll get reasonable efficiency from it too, which is nice, but as such it's not a suitable yardstick for raw wheat. 

Sorry I don't use beer smith so can't tell you how to add raw wheat.


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## Arghonaut (3/2/12)

Keen to hear how these turned out, no-where near here stocks brewing grains, and delivery is a killer ($40+ for a 25kg sack), if i can use raw feed wheat from norco in a wheat beer it will save me a fair bit.


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## chefeffect (3/2/12)

Arghonaut said:


> Keen to hear how these turned out, no-where near here stocks brewing grains, and delivery is a killer ($40+ for a 25kg sack), if i can use raw feed wheat from norco in a wheat beer it will save me a fair bit.



It turned out really well, its still fermenting got a few more days to go, but tastes fantastic. Although I have not tried raw wheat from a home brew store and can't give a side by side taste test, but I honestly don't think it will make much of a difference. The biggest issue was that I didn't get a good efficiency from the mash, but others have said this is an issue with all raw wheat, I would adjust your efficiency by 12-15% as mentioned earlier..


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## DJR (3/2/12)

I've always used Burghul as it's already cracked and gelatinised/boiled for Wits so no efficiency drop.

The popcorn maker trick looks OK, but you'd be there for ages doing a couple of kilos!

The thing that always worries me about raw wheat is how hard it is to crush and the amount of damage it can do to the rollers while crushing.

You can add in Raw Wheat into Beersmith, there is a couple of things to set - easiest is to copy Flaked or Torrified wheat and drop the yield to whatever your system will do with it - maybe only 40-50% yield depending on how you process it - e.g. b-glucan rest, cereal mash, how you crush it, etc. 

With Burghul i've usually just used Torrified in beersmith and haven't been too far out, 2-3 points at most.


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## DJR (3/2/12)

citymorgue2 said:


> Terrified wheat is great. No cereal mash required.



You shouldn't need to cereal mash wheat. Corn and rice, sure but wheat starch has a gelatinization temp lower than normal mash temps, 52-64C.

I'm sure a cereal mash would help with a small decoction though just the same as any decoction increases efficiency


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## chefeffect (3/2/12)

This is going to sound dodgy  but because I BIAB I use a blender, I put in 2 cups of grain, turn it on high and shake for 12 seconds has been a bit of trail and error but I get a good grist and my trub is still ok.. usually takes about 5 minutes to do 5kg Might be an idea for raw wheat instead of damaging your mill.


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## DJR (3/2/12)

chefeffect said:


> This is going to sound dodgy  but because I BIAB I use a blender, I put in 2 cups of grain, turn it on high and shake for 12 seconds has been a bit of trail and error but I get a good grist and my trub is still ok.. usually takes about 5 minutes to do 5kg Might be an idea for raw wheat instead of damaging your mill.



Not dodgy at all when you are talking wheat - it doesn't have a husk that needs to be milled properly anyway. Might give that a go next time


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## Greg.L (3/2/12)

chefeffect said:


> This is going to sound dodgy  but because I BIAB I use a blender, I put in 2 cups of grain, turn it on high and shake for 12 seconds has been a bit of trail and error but I get a good grist and my trub is still ok.. usually takes about 5 minutes to do 5kg Might be an idea for raw wheat instead of damaging your mill.



I've used the blender often for malted barley, works pretty well for biab, would work for wheat. As you say, trial and error is the way. Back in the 90's grain mills were pretty much unobtainium.


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## hoppy2B (3/2/12)

As I'm a bit of a slow brain, :lol: can I ask what we are comparing wheat to when we are discussing it as lowering efficiency?
For example, will raw wheat lower efficiency when we substitute it for raw barley?


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## gap (3/2/12)

The comparison would be against malted Barley not raw Barley.

I could not imagine much raw Barley being used in brewing beer.

Regards

Graeme


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## hoppy2B (3/2/12)

Thanks Gap. 
Wouldn't take much to roast the wheat in an oven if that helps.


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