Out Of Key Brewing

I just completed the brewing of the Wader Patch Wit. I’d like to say that it was smooth sailing and my family was not pushed to the wayside to make it happen, but then I’d be a liar. This was my first adjunct mash. A normal mash looks like this:

1. Crush Grain and put in cooler(Mash Tun)
2. Put 165 degree water on grain
3. Close Mash Tun wait 60 minutes (Conversion)
4. Drain Mash Tun
5. Rinse grains with hot water (Sparge) (repeat if necessary)

It really a pretty simple process and the end result a sugary wort, which when boiled with hops yields the product that will become beer.

Yesterday I brewed using grains that had not been malted. Malting in nutshell is taking raw grain(typically barley) letting it germinate, then dried it to stop the germination process. Basically its about making the starches available for conversion to sugar during the mashing process. I was using raw wheat and rolled oats to get a strong wheat flavor and creamy mouthfeel for the wit. In order to extract sugars from the wheat and oats this is the process (American Adjunct Mash) that had to be followed:

1. Crush Raw Wheat and Oats very finely. Wheat is MUCH harder than standard barley. So hard in fact that I had to enlist my family to help me crank it after I burnt out two drill batteries and one arm.
2. Heat Oats and Wheat with water to 122 degrees. Hold for 15 minutes.
3. Heat to 150. Hold for 15 minutes
4. Boil for 15 minutes.
5. Add to main mash (at 122 degrees)

The second list really isn’t a whole lot longer in steps, but the fact that I had another mash(the top list) going at the same time made it complicated. I did the adjunct mash using a five gallon stock pot which was filled almost to the top. Once I got the gruel to a specified temperature I used the oven preheated to warm then turned off to keep the grains at that temp. That worked pretty well, I only lost less than a degree with each temperature rest. Thank God I actually did the boiling portion outside on the propane burner or I would still be scraping off the ceiling. When that mess started bubbling I was really thankful that I had my trusty mash paddle. There is no way it could have come off without it.

I ended up with an average efficiency of 65%, I attribute this lower number to not crushing the oats and wheat fine enough. They should be grits consistency; mine were definitely coarser than that. The upside was I did not have any issues with my run off. I collected 10.5 gallons at 1.045, this should yield about 4.5% abv. It has nice straw like color and is happily fermenting away at 69 degrees in right now. I am targeting the first week of May for bottling.