[COHO] Rice Beer...what a mess

[Ryan Gibson]

Bill,

I've never used rice, but from what I've read, I think you are supposed to mill the dried rice just like you do with your grain, then cook it seperately, using the appropriate amount of water like you are going to eat it for dinner. THEN add the cooked, milled rice to your mash tun. Make sure you use sufficient high-enzymatic grain (ie 6-row barley) to convert all of the starches to sugars.

As far as your current batch, NEVER throw it out. Some of the greatest inventions were accidents. Just see what happens. On the same note, don't give up on the rice either, keep trying until you figure out how to do it!

...just my .02.

-R

Huntkng at aol.com wrote:     09-04-06
 Hello group,
  
 What to do?  My corn beer experiment went so well that the obvious  next step was a rice beer.  Right?  Wrong, geez what a mess.  I  had a few hours free yesterday and decided to brew some rice based beer to  appease some of my Coors and Bud swilling buddies.  I used short brown rice  because from my experience it gets less coagulated then white when cooked.   I cooked 3 pounds in 3 gallons of water for 30 minutes thinking that should  water it down enough to help when I separated the fluid from the enlarged, soft  wet grain.  Wrong.  It turned into one big gelatinized mass of goo.  there was no way to sparge or even water it down enough to strain off the grain  and capture the starches and enzymes.  I used a strainer with 1/8" holes  and it still just sat there quivering like jello.  It just stuck, literally  to everything it touched. I ended up putting it in a cloth bag and squeezing out  as much of the fluid as I could.  This could best be described  as...Yuck.  I mixed
 this with the wort from the 7 pounds of grain and  boiled it up using a batch of wet hops (4 pints by volume) I just harvested at a  friends house.  
  
 Here is the problem.  I have 5 gallons of pretty thin brew.  I  expected a S/G of 1.050 (+ -).  I got 1.032.  I pitched in the yeast  and it is happily doing it's thing with a steady stream of bubbles drifting out  of the air lock.  
  
 Should I:
  
    
   Dump this down the drain and never look at another grain of rice   
   Pull out a gallon or two, add 3 pounds of extract, boil it up, cool it and    add it back into the primary fermentor to raise the S/G?   
   Let it just do its thing "as" is and if it turns out very badly give it to    my enemies and people I hate?
 Whatta da ya thunk?
  
 Bill   
 William (Bill) Herrick
PO Box 7499
Bend, OR  97708
Wk: (541) 318-8862
Fax: (541) 318-0083
e-mail:  huntkng at aol.com

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