Partial Rice Lager

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Munut

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Was thinking of doing a rice lager for the fast approaching summer time.

Been searching and it seems 20-30% of the grain bill to be made up from rice is the consensus.

But all the recipes and advice I'm finding is for AG brews and the rest of the grain bill is made up of base malt. I just won't to do a mini mash to convert the rice. What ratio of rice to base malt will I need to convert the rice. The rest of the malt will be DME.

If I wanted to use spec grain should I steep separately so it doesn't effect the amount of base malt needed or dose the amount of longer chain sugars not effect the amount of enzymes needed?

I hope that makes sense.

Cheers.
 
I've done a 20% rice extract beer (sorghum - for GF beer) recently. Rice doesn't convert very well by itself. You end up with porridge in the brew that needs to be filtered off with a very fine sieve (with papertowel or chux in it).

I've done a 20% rice all grain brew - the enzymes in a base malt really do turn the rice sludge into nothing but liquid.

From my experience (which is limited given I've only done one extract with rice) - you need a base malt to break it down, though someone may correct me in this regard - or you are going to be straining, which is as much effort as mashing (hell for me, it took longer than an AG brew).

Goomba
 
Usually do a Rice Lager - around 20% rice boiled to a goop or in a rice cooker, then chucked into the mash. Converts well, all that's left is little rice 'ghosts'. Nice and refreshing. Not sure how you'd go with a partial, but maybe try a Cereal Mash with some base malt. I do this with Popcorn for my CAP.

Cheers
 
If you are using the rice to produce a lighter flavoured summer quaffing beer, I'd suggest getting a couple of tubs of rice maltose syrup from a chinese grocers and use that instead. You won't get the smoothness of a rice mash but won't get that sugar "twang" you can get with cane sugar. However the syrup isn't completely fermentable AFAIK so you will get some residual body.

maltose__Large_.jpg
 
Cheers guys but you didn't really tell me anything that I didn't already write in the OP.

I know I have to cook and mash the rice.

How much base malt will I need in a mini mash of just the rice and base malt to convert the rice?

Basically Rice to Base malt ratio.

I run my 2 stroke at 50:1 will that do? :lol:
 
I usually do either 2kg rice -> 1kg malt, or 2kg rice -> .5kg malt. Probably err on the side of caution and go with 2:1 first try. Just remember to boil the buggery out of the rice, then let it cool to mash temps and chuck in the grain. Should start to liquify in a few seconds.

Cheers
 
Ok, so you're looking at 20-30% rice? So in a 5Kg grain bill, that's 1-1.5 kg. I would probably go for the same amount in barley malt for a mini-mash, but if you can fit more, then go for more. I wouldn't go for less than 1:1. Last time i brewed Asher's green tea rice lager, I went 1:2.5 rice to barley malt, then topped up with 1.5kg DME.

BTW, if you use flaked rice, you get the same taste and texture but don't have to do a cereal mash.

Cheers - Snow
 
Ok, back to first principles:

Rice is not a malt, it is an adjunct
To turn rice starch into either fermentable sugars or dextrins (where it will add body and smoothness) you need to zap it with some high diastatic malt.
In an all grain brew you can do two things.

1 Cook the rice to a slurry and add directly to the all grain mash where the two enzymes Alpha and Beta Amylase will chew up the rice carbs for you

2 Do a cereal mash using only about a kilo of base malt to a kilo of rice, at a slightly higher temperature than a "normal" mash, aim for around 71 - where the Alpha Amylase gets free range and coverts the rice carbs mostly into dextrins
Then pour the whole thing into the main mash where many but not all of the dextrins get chopped down by the Beta Amylase - this IMHO gives a smoother more fully bodied beer.

If you are doing a partial - where the bulk of the fermentables are going to be LDME you do not have a base mash to do either #1 or #2


However you can do #2 up to a point - here's a similar exercise I did with maize in the form of Polenta plus a can of Coopers I'd acquired - rice would work the same - and posted it on the BIABrewer forum. You might need to join to view the pictures, not sure about that:

Worked nicely and turned out a great lawn mowing beer.
 
Ok, so you're looking at 20-30% rice? So in a 5Kg grain bill, that's 1-1.5 kg. I would probably go for the same amount in barley malt for a mini-mash, but if you can fit more, then go for more. I wouldn't go for less than 1:1. Last time i brewed Asher's green tea rice lager, I went 1:2.5 rice to barley malt, then topped up with 1.5kg DME.

BTW, if you use flaked rice, you get the same taste and texture but don't have to do a cereal mash.

Cheers - Snow

Cheers snow thats the info I was looking for and is probably on the money because it was Asher that was telling how to do this using rice and base malt. but that was last summer and its nearly next summer now and I haven't had a crack yet. Will give this ago.

You can't pass on the green tea rice lager recipe can you?

Don't know if I'll do that but haven't looked at hops yet so could give me a start point.

Cheers.
 
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