# Unmalted Wheat And Barley - I Dont Get It.



## bear09

Hi All.

I just have a quick couple of questions about using grains that are unmalted.

How are they useful? If they are unmalted then there would be no starch available to convert? If you can use unmalted grains then why bother malting?

How do they enhance flavour? What do they add to the profile of a beer?

A post that I put up about 5 mins ago in regards to Hoegaarden yielded this link (thanks for that BTW): http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php...ian_Style_Wheat

After reading it I noticed it said to use unmalted wheat.

Thank you.


----------



## raven19

As I understand unmalted grain does not contain active enzymes to breakdown the starch into sugars. Hence you always need some malted grains so the enzyme (which has been awoken ready to break down starch into fermentable sugars - as part of the grain germination process) within can breakdown sugars in the malted (and nearby unmalted) grains.

If you went all unmalted grain = no available enzymes = no fermentable sugars.

Also if you have a large % of unmalted grain - I would anticipate a longer mash time required to allow the smaller amount of enzymes to do the work.

*Edit*: From Wikipedia...
_Malting grains develops the __enzymes__ that are required to modify the grain's __starches__ into sugars, including __monosaccharides__ (__glucose__, __fructose__, etc.) and __disaccharides__ (__sucrose__, etc.). It also develops other enzymes, such as proteases which break down the proteins in the grain into forms which can be utilized by yeast._


----------



## RetsamHsam

G'day Mate,

It is my understanding that unmalted grains do not contain any of the enzymes necessary to convert starch into sugars. This is why the inclusion of malted grains are necessary in the mash.

Damien

Edit: What he said..


----------



## Supra-Jim

LOL, it appears I'm stalking your posts!!!

From memory it is *generally* only wheat that is use included in brewing in an unmalted state. Not normally other grains.

The reasons for this escape me, though i picked this statement up from elsewhere : The rolling/flaking process is done with heat, and therefore the grain is pre-gelatinized and you can just toss it into your mash with your other malts.

Apparently the pre-gelatinization of the grain does allow access to the starches.

I do stand (and wait) to be corrected on this.

Damn some people can type faster and smarter than me!!!!

:icon_cheers: SJ


----------



## bear09

Supra-Jim said:


> LOL, it appears I'm stalking your posts!!!
> 
> From memory it is *generally* only wheat that is use included in brewing in an unmalted state. Not normally other grains.
> 
> The reasons for this escape me, though i picked this statement up from elsewhere : The rolling/flaking process is done with heat, and therefore the grain is pre-gelatinized and you can just toss it into your mash with your other malts.
> 
> Apparently the pre-gelatinization of the grain does allow access to the starches.
> 
> I do stand (and wait) to be corrected on this.
> 
> Damn some people can type faster and smarter than me!!!!
> 
> :icon_cheers: SJ



Stalk away!!! Thank you!!


----------



## warra48

There seems to be still parts of the original post which appears not to have been answered as yet, and that is:

What is the flavour difference between malted and ummalted wheat?
What difference is there in what each adds to the profile of your beer?

I'm intrigued, as I've never used unmalted wheat, although I see it from time to time in recipes.


----------



## Quintrex

warra48 said:


> There seems to be still parts of the original post which appears not to have been answered as yet, and that is:
> 
> What is the flavour difference between malted and ummalted wheat?
> What difference is there in what each adds to the profile of your beer?
> 
> I'm intrigued, as I've never used unmalted wheat, although I see it from time to time in recipes.



I thought unmalted wheat had a slightly tart finish as compared to malted wheat. People also say that unmalted wheat gives better head retention, im guessing to more intact starches and proteins as compared to the malted counterparts.

'Q


----------



## PostModern

Supra-Jim said:


> LOL, it appears I'm stalking your posts!!!
> 
> From memory it is *generally* only wheat that is use included in brewing in an unmalted state. Not normally other grains.



Unmalted barley is commonly used in Stout and probably other English beers as well. Historically, to reduce the tax burden on beer, which used to be taxed on the malt content. Same sorta thing with Guiness and 10% roasted barley.



warra48 said:


> There seems to be still parts of the original post which appears not to have been answered as yet, and that is:
> 
> What is the flavour difference between malted and ummalted wheat?
> What difference is there in what each adds to the profile of your beer?
> 
> I'm intrigued, as I've never used unmalted wheat, although I see it from time to time in recipes.



Unmalted wheat leaves a little starch haze in the finished beer as well. Mostly used in Wit (as opposed to Weized/Weis). Again, probably a historical thing from when Germany dominated trade in malt in Western Europe, forcing the Belgians to come up with other ways to get their fermentables.


----------



## hazard

Supra-Jim said:


> From memory it is *generally* only wheat that is use included in brewing in an unmalted state.


Flaked barley (unmalted) and roasted barley (also unmalted) are quite often found in stout (and sometimes red ale, in much smaller quantities). Sometimes roasted (black) malt is used in lieu of rasted barley to get that black colour and roasted taste. 
A guineess style recipe would be:
Pale ale malt - 70%
flaked barley 20%
roast barley 10%

So I assume that all enzyme to convert starches in unmalted barley will come from the ale malt.


----------



## Fourstar

I know one thing as an example, the flavour difference between Black MALT and Roast Barley.

Personally, I find Black Patent/Roast malt is very Acrid comparative to roast barley being quite smooth and rounded. I dont know if thats because of the grain being malted or the roast EBC % but I would say its because there are sugars being burnt compared to a base grain being roasted, thus you dont end up with a burnt caramelised taste with base unmodified grain. When it comes to raw unmalted grains like flaked barley and oats etc, they are generally used to increase the dextrins in the wort, consequently you get a fuller mouth feel and a higher FG due to an increase in unconverted starches.

On a side note, if you have a % above 30% of your grist being unmalted grains, it can be advisable to perform a protein rest to ensure you have some gelatinisation of the grains to aid in partial conversion of the starches/enzymes. Basically so you get some converted starches in the process and make sure your mash doesnt set like concrete.

I believe Palmer covers this is howtobrew, under protein rest.


----------



## hosko11

So in my reading of this - and sorry to highjack -, as a lowly Kits and Bits brewer, doing a mini mash of just Torrified wheat (and rolled oats) for a Wit is not going to contribute any fermentables to the beer compared to if I included some form of malt in the mash.

Therefore, am I actually achieving much by doing the mini mash which is then combined with dry wheat extract for the wort?
Cheers.


----------



## ~MikE

hmm was gonna start my own thread but might hijack this one. i've landed nearly 40kg of raw wheat. i found a how-to and started malting a kg (as i don't think i'll get through it otherwise) - anyone have any experience malting grain for brewing?


----------



## Fourstar

~MikE said:


> hmm was gonna start my own thread but might hijack this one. i've landed nearly 40kg of raw wheat. i found a how-to and started malting a kg (as i don't think i'll get through it otherwise) - anyone have any experience malting grain for brewing?




I was going to say, soak the grain, spread it out and turn it every couple of days until it begins to sprout. Then i saw this:

http://www.nogy.net/malthouse/page3.html


----------



## raven19

Ppp said:


> So in my reading of this - and sorry to highjack -, as a lowly Kits and Bits brewer, doing a mini mash of just Torrified wheat (and rolled oats) for a Wit is not going to contribute any fermentables to the beer compared to if I included some form of malt in the mash.
> 
> Therefore, am I actually achieving much by doing the mini mash which is then combined with dry wheat extract for the wort?
> Cheers.



I beleive you are correct, need to add some malted grains so the enzymes can break down the starch in fermentables.



~MikE said:


> hmm was gonna start my own thread but might hijack this one. i've landed nearly 40kg of raw wheat. i found a how-to and started malting a kg (as i don't think i'll get through it otherwise) - anyone have any experience malting grain for brewing?



No experience as such, but you will need a moist (possibly dark too) environment to start germination, and once sprouting has started (once the grains have a certain length of sprout), you need to get them into the oven. I think there may have been some old threads on this from memory though... 

*Edit*: Too slow - what Fourstar said!


----------



## Fourstar

Its got me thinking..

Fourstars Floor malted *insert grain here*... Niiice could go well as a harvest beer with the Hops im growing if i eventually get a yield.


----------



## ~MikE

Thanks for that fourstar, i have a slightly simpler method, soak overnight, strain, rinse+turn daily. my only concern is when to get it into the oven. it says to kill germination when the stem is ~3/4 the length of the seed, but i've yet to cross paths with commercial malt with roots and stem sticking out of it... i'm going to follow it and probably make half of it a crystal malt and half pale wheat, do a minimash and see what the sugar content looks like...

EDIT: after some reading, it seems in a commercial setup, they use a machine to remove the rootlets etc after kilning.


----------



## pint of lager

Mike, as part of the malting process, the roots are removed. Once the grain is kilned, the rootlets are small and dried. The grain is tumbled and these rootlets fall off.

In barley, the acrospire (thats the very small first shoot) grows under the husk and then emerges from the husk. As your grain is germinating, examine a few grains and look out for the acrospire. The husk becomes translucent as part of the germination soaking and the acrospire is obvious when you look for it. You want to stop the germination before the acrospire breaks free of the husk. In practise, start stopping the germination when the acrospire is about 1/2 to 2/3 the length of the grain.

Wheat doesn't have a husk and the acrospire will not be hidden under the husk as happens with barley. This lack of husk is one reason wheat makes mashes more complicated. 

More uses of your wheat. Start baking bread and use a proportion of freshly ground wheat. Sow some in a fallow garden bed and turn it in as green manure. Buy a few chooks and feed wheat as part of their rations. They will also need pellets.


----------



## Fourstar

~MikE said:


> EDIT: after some reading, it seems in a commercial setup, they use a machine to remove the rootlets etc after kilning.



I'd say if you kilned at a low temp for an overly extended period or wanted to try and make some 'munich/vienna wheat' at a higher temp, the extended/increased temp kilning process would be enough to cause the rootlets to just fall off. I couldn't forsee any issues by having the rootlets in the mash as well, they would proably aid in lautering like other stray matter and rice *gulls*.


----------



## pint of lager

The rootlets are a hassle when running the grain through the mill, they form a mesh and can stop the grain falling into the mill.


----------



## ~MikE

thanks for the replies guys, i reckon if the rootlets don't fall/rub off the pale malt - i'll give it the 20ish mins roasting to make it into a vienna/munich type wheat malt thingy. looks like there's plenty of other things i can do with it anyway if i can only take so much wit bier  

will keep posted.


----------



## mondestrunken

bear09 said:


> If you can use unmalted grains then why bother malting?


A question I've been meaning to ask for some time now:

It's my understanding that pale malt (6-row especially) has more than enough enzymes to convert itself as well as other unmalted grains. (In contrast something like Munich/Vienna malt, according to Palmer, has just enough enzymes to convert itself.) So why is a standard grain bill in a profit-maximising brewery (i.e. practically every commercial brewery) not something like 80% pale malt, 20% unmalted barley? Surely unmalted barley must be substantially cheaper than malted barley.

Like the OP (only 5 years later!) I'm trying to get a better understanding of unmalted grains and why/when/how you use them, rather than just putting them in because the recipe says so.

Cheers


----------



## Not For Horses

It has a lot to do with the amount and the type of proteins. During malting, a grain undergoes starch modification as well as protein modification. Some of the long chain proteins are broken down to form amino acids which are consumed both in the kilning process and also by the yeast.
Some proteins also end up in the rootlets which are removed following the kilning.
Using unmalted grains leaves all those proteins in place. Some of these add to mouthfeel and head retention (great in stout for example) but others contribute to haze. Not so good in megaswill.
I think some can cause flavour instability too as longer chain proteins break down during aging.
They also have different flavours. Raw grains taste, for want of a better word, grainy. Go figure.
I'd thoroughly recomend getting some raw grain to eat to better understand the flavours.


----------



## Bribie G

Mondestrucken, you got it in one when you said "six row".

That was the original USA barley and when they started making modern lagers in the middle of the 19th century the only way they could make anything clear and drinkable out of the malt made from six row barley was to use large quantities of rice or maize. This diluted and used up excess proteins that would cause persistent hazes. Some of those beers were over 50% unmalted grains, and in the case of favourites such as Budweiser they still use heaps of rice, not because they need to do so with modern malts but that's just, well, the way that Bud tastes. They own rice farms in Louisiana.

In the UK in the 19th century, artificial fertilisers came into use, particularly after the invention of the Haber Process if you remember your grade 11 Chemistry. This allowed massive crops of grains in particular but barley strains were turning out too high in protein and brewers were getting persistent hazes, not just chill haze (didn't chill beer back then). So use of maize became common to use up extra proteins and enzymes, and was still happening with Fullers of London until recently and still common in many Euro lagers such as Stella.

In Australia during the 20th century we were blessed :unsure: with cheap sugar. Overseas, cane sugar was very expensive until temperate climate beet farming became widespread in the 1950s. As Aussie barley farms were inland but the sugar refineries and breweries were along the coast, guess what happened here.


----------



## pyrosx

Two history lessons in one - necro-thread AND history of regional adjunct usage. I just learnt stuff!

One question I have after reading the whole thread: someone mentioned a "tax via malt percentage", which, apparently lead to guinness' malt bill. Is there any truth to that?


----------



## mondestrunken

Thanks Not For Horses & Bribie G for your very informative replies!

From what you have written Bribie, you actually need umalted adjuncts when using 6-row? Interesting.



Not For Horses said:


> I'd thoroughly recomend getting some raw grain to eat to better understand the flavours.


It's always a good idea to taste ingredients in this way... And yes pearl barley soup/stew is not a great meal in my opinion - it's certainly less tasty than beer! :lol:

Another question on unmalted grains: is there a resource for identifying the names of unmalted grains? (In particular here I'm thinking of Australian/US translations, e.g. what the heck is the Australian equivalent of "grits"? and/or what's the difference between rolled oats, flaked oats, steel-cut oats, etc. etc.)

Thanks & Cheers.


----------



## klangers

The big industrial boys making their swill lager sometimes get less than 30% of the fermentables from malt (obviously varies recipe to recipe). The rest is liquid sugar.

They also add any extra enzymes they need from isolated enzymes directly to the mash (or fermenter sometimes for various reasons). This affords them very consistently high brewhouse efficiency as it gives them the ability to compensate for malt variations.


----------



## dent

Bribie G said:


> So use of maize became common to use up extra proteins


You say "use up" but wouldn't "dilute" be more accurate?




klangers said:


> get less than 30% of the fermentables from malt


I find that hard to believe - I brewed once (as a challenge) a pale lager with 50% white sugar as fermentables. I put a lot of work into the fermentation to make sure it was spot on. It was the most swillingest of swill beer - if I'm stuck drinking something carlton at the pub it brings me right back to that brew - but really I don't see how they could push it any further than that. I'd say 70% malt would be closer to the mark, but I don't have any data to back that up.

Only other thing I have to add is that flaked barley goes wonderfully in a pale lager, really enhances the drinkability. 25% is great.


----------



## GuyQLD

pyrosx said:


> One question I have after reading the whole thread: someone mentioned a "tax via malt percentage", which, apparently lead to guinness' malt bill. Is there any truth to that?


I've seen this mentioned (although not specifically in conjunction with Guinness) over on Ron Pattison's blog at certain times, taxes being on a per bushel rate. It changed a couple of times over the centuries to other, better methods but during this time using adjuncts obviously became popular. 




dent said:


> I'd say 70% malt would be closer to the mark, but I don't have any data to back that up.


I went to the XXXX Brewery tour for a mates party once, they flat up tell you during the tour it's 80% malt, 20% cane sugar.


----------



## Blind Dog

Pretty sure there's no beer currently produced where the ingredients are based on pre MashTun Act (1880) taxes. From then on taxes, at least in the UK Have been based on the gravity of the wort or abv of the finished beer



GuyQLD said:


> I went to the XXXX Brewery tour for a mates party once, they flat up tell you during the tour it's 80% malt, 20% cane sugar.


Jeez that's above and beyond


----------



## dent

GuyQLD said:


> 80% malt, 20% cane sugar.


Wow that isn't very much sugar at all. 

I wonder if malt flavours are extracted from the mash more easily that the rest of the saccharine content - so when you get 100%+ efficiency out of the grain like XXXX presumably would, more sugars are extracted, but not more flavour, resulting in a swill beer.


----------



## Bribie G

A lot of home brewers describe the likes of XXXX as "swill". I feel this is a result of their palates changing as a result of them being bludgeoned by drinking maltier, fuller flavoured beers. Whilst there are indeed some shockers out there such as TED there are some nicely subtle Australian lagers out there. Melbourne Bitter (from glass not can) is an example.

I've often noticed that after drinking "craft" beers at a pub then going onto "swill" at the next pub, the so called swill can often hold its head up quite well.

Couple of examples, when I was staying at Woolgoolga I picked up a couple of Paulaner litre steins with litre cans from Dan's at Coffs on the way through. Very nice and a litre at the motel knocked the rough edges off the journey. Then we popped over the road to the RSL and to my surprise the Reschs Draught held its head up proudly as mentioned.

I defy you to try a few Gage Roads Stone and Wood style beers but intersperse them with a couple of Cascade Pale Ales (actually a lager of course). You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Finally Dent if you ever go to Brisbane then head for the Breakfast Creek Hotel and sink a few XXXX off the wooden barrel. :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2:

edit: PS I often feel that the "swill" tag is put onto lagers by drinkers who prefer ales. So drink your ales but it's like beef eaters decrying the bland nature of chicken without bothering to explore the world of poultry cuisine.


----------



## klangers

dent said:


> I find that hard to believe - I brewed once (as a challenge) a pale lager with 50% white sugar as fermentables. I put a lot of work into the fermentation to make sure it was spot on. It was the most swillingest of swill beer - if I'm stuck drinking something carlton at the pub it brings me right back to that brew - but really I don't see how they could push it any further than that. I'd say 70% malt would be closer to the mark, but I don't have any data to back that up.


When I was told by a brewer who works at Tooheys I also found this hard to believe - bear in mind though that the sugar they use isn't white sugar. It's liquid sugar of some form and it may well be more suited to brewing. He could have been bullshitting me but I don't think he's the type to do so. 

I did a stint over at Vietnam breweries where they brew Tiger, Larue and Heineken. Heineken was 100% malt, Tiger was 50% malt, 50% rice (tasteless fermentables) and Larue was 30% malt 70% rice. All hops were iso hops.


----------



## dent

Yeah, I am using "swill" more of a style descriptor than a disparagement - probably a bad habit - I've lately been brewing beer of my own I label swill too, which is to say pale, lightly hopped lager. 

I agree, sometimes it is impressive how clean and drinkable these beers can be. It's just a shame those good beers are seldom the most popular ones the local pub.


I have had the XXXX on the wood at the BCH - it is fantastic. If only all Australian lager was that good.


----------



## Bribie G

Bugger, only 8.45 Eastern Time and I'm thirsty already. :blink:


----------

