Using Rice In Biab All Grain

[Karlostavitch]

Hi,
I am going to try brewing my first all-grain Japanese style lager, BIAB style. While reading the recipe, a few questions come to mind.

Firstly, what do you use to grind the rice? and how finely should it be ground? Any tips in using rice in beers?
Do I just add the soft ground boiled rice pulp to my mash bag at the same time as adding the cracked grain?

Secondly, the recipe is written for traditional all grain brewing and there is mention of using rice hulls in the mash. My understanding is that rice hulls were present to aid the mashing process rather than being an ingredient in the recipe. Since the mashing process is different in the BIAB style, are the rice hulls still necessary or recommended?

 

[PostModern]

Cook the rice until it's all gluggy then add to the mash. Can't say whether you'd need rice hulls in a BIAB, but I've used 20% rice in a traditional mash tun and didn't need to.

 

[Karlostavitch]

So does the rice need to be ground? Do I strain the rice before adding it to the mash or do you need to keep all the starch in the water too?

 

[PostModern]

If you cook it with the absorption method, you won't have any excess water to dispose of. Doesn't need grinding, just over-cooking.

 

[Bribie G]

Back in my AG days in the UK you could get flaked brewing rice which was like little squashed-flat rice bubbles - you could also get flaked maize, flaked barley etc etc. They were all pre-steamed, rolled and dried. The party line was that they would mash in nicely without causing a set mash which is always possible if you add ground up products. Not unlike the reason we can use rice hulls nowadays. I used it a couple of times in lagers because it was supposed to use up excess nitrogen and avoid hazes. No probs with it. I think this is why the Yanks use so much of it because of their high nitrogen six row barley, plus the fact it is cheap of course

However for BIAB set mash is not a major problem.

Cooking lesson: SWMBO is Chinese on her mother's side and she taught me to do perfect rice. Take a cup of plain old supermarket long grain rice, wash in a wire strainer until the water runs clear. Drain well and place in pan with one and three quarters cup of boiling water, bring back to the simmer, cover tightly and turn down to the bare minimum and forget about it for about twenty minutes to half an hour.

If you fluff it with a fork and stir into your mash to the desired quantity you should be sweet.

Cheers.

 

[afromaiko]

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=25774

 

[Karlostavitch]

Thanks for the info guys, answers all my questions about how to use rice for my next brew.

I won't grind the rice, just overcook the rice in my rice cooker with some extra water to make it real gluggy and it should dissolve in the bag while mashing my grain. Also I won't worry about Rice husks as they probably aren't needed for BIAB.

It will certainly help for my next beer, Japanese Lager!

Domo Arigato, Cianara

 

[drtomc]

Cooking lesson: SWMBO is Chinese on her mother's side and she taught me to do perfect rice. Take a cup of plain old supermarket long grain rice, wash in a wire strainer until the water runs clear. Drain well and place in pan with one and three quarters cup of boiling water, bring back to the simmer, cover tightly and turn down to the bare minimum and forget about it for about twenty minutes to half an hour.

This is an excellent method, and no doubt your SWMBO does it excellently, but if my understanding is correct, the washing it till it runs clear part is to rinse off the surface starch, which tends to make the cooked rice gluggy. For brewing, does it matter much? After all, that starch is exactly what you want to present to those helpful little enzymes....

Probably the amount of starch you wash off is negligible anyway, so I'm probably just wasting bandwidth....

T.

 

[afromaiko]

This is an excellent method, and no doubt your SWMBO does it excellently, but if my understanding is correct, the washing it till it runs clear part is to rinse off the surface starch, which tends to make the cooked rice gluggy. For brewing, does it matter much? After all, that starch is exactly what you want to present to those helpful little enzymes....

Probably the amount of starch you wash off is negligible anyway, so I'm probably just wasting bandwidth....

T.

It's talc.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=353650

 

[drtomc]

It's talc.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=353650

Interesting. I'm sure I've read in more than one recipe/cooking book[*] that it was to wash off surface starch. Well, you learn something new every day.

T.
[*] I've read many more recipe/food books than I've read brewing books. ;-)

 

[afromaiko]

Interesting. I'm sure I've read in more than one recipe/cooking book[*] that it was to wash off surface starch. Well, you learn something new every day.

It can sometimes be starch, but how can you tell?

Despite the hypothetical health risks of talc (such as stomach cancer), talc-coated rice remains the norm in some countries due to its attractive shiny appearance, but it has been banned in some and is no longer widely used in others such as the United States. Even where talc is not used, glucose, starch, or other coatings may be used to improve the appearance of the grains; for this reason, many rice lovers still recommend washing all rice in order to create a better-tasting rice with a better consistency, despite the recommendation of suppliers. Much of the rice produced today is water polished.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice

I'll still keep washing mine all the same. But I guess that a bit of talc on our rice is the least of our worries if it's imported from China. Aussie grown rice prices have skyrocketed due to the drought, and that's if you can even get it. A lot does come from the US though and their prices are quite reasonable, but Japanese grown rice is criminally expensive.

I buy sushi rice in 20kg sacks and was getting locally grown Sun Rice "Koshihikari" but my supplier wasn't able to get it anymore because Sun Rice began substituting it with imported Chinese stuff (appropriately labelled as made in China). But I decided to pass on that and switched to a US grown brand instead.

 

[Katherine]

Broken rice which is Vietnamese goes super super mushy when over cooked....

That is what is supplied to Japan and US beer industry...

You can get it in any Asian Supermarket....

 

[Bribie G]

Actually washing the rice removes surface starch etc - not to mention any talc of course - and if you cook rice unwashed using the absorbtion method this starch tends to cook into a 'paste' that sticks the grains together and it turns out gluggy. The Thais use this property to produce their sticky rice.

Washed rice cooks up with separate fluffy grains, and that's why Basmatti Rice in particular turns out so well because it's pre washed I believe. Chinese restaurants wash their rice to buggery.

On topic I supose that the gluggy variety would be just as suitable for the malt enzymes to get to work on in a mash.

Afterthought, why not try cooking up some McKenzies ground rice (not the rice flour, the ground rice) and add that to the mash? Most poms grew up on ground rice pudding - it's still quite 'grainy' in texture and I bet it would go great in mashing.

 

[drtomc]

It can sometimes be starch, but how can you tell?

Oh - it's on wikipedia, so it must be true. ;-)

Yeah, it's annoying about the rice supply situation. Still, it's cheaper than malt.

T.

 

[sid]

I use rice flakes, no cooking just put it in with your grain, I've noticed that it soaks up a bit of the hotwater though compared to the malt. Cheap to buy in the supermarkets, It's kind of like porridge.
Just done a brew with 200gm rice flakes, another to go down this week.