Ask The Brewmasters

  • 1.  Sieving wheat malt

    Posted 05-23-2019 11:43
    Hi Everyone,
    We're experiencing some significant mash efficiency deviations since installing our new mill only with grain bills containing a high percentage of wheat malt. We obviously need to assess our gap settings when switching up to the wheat, and will figure out what works best for our system, but what I'm looking for is any information or data from anyone who has attempted to establish a baseline for wheat malt portions in a standard sieve stack. Internet searches and school notes yield only barley ratios. Thanks for any information.

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    Andrew Starsiak
    Brewer
    Castle Island Brewing Company
    Norwood, MA
    andy.starsiak@castleislandbeer.com
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  • 2.  RE: Sieving wheat malt

    Posted 02-16-2024 12:13

    Hey folks,

    I'd like to revisit this topic. Does anybody have any advice for milling wheat and what we should be looking for in our sieves when using large percentages of wheat?

    Thanks!



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    Calum Hill
    Sonnen Hill Brewing
    Caledon Village ON
    (519) 940-0200
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  • 3.  RE: Sieving wheat malt

    Posted 02-19-2024 19:07

     Hi Calum,
    If you are using a roller mill and lauter tun, I'm not sure you are going to find specific information about it, especially if wheat is used only as a part of the total grist.  I think you will have to use a set of sieves and establish a baseline for your mill grind analysis.  Everyone should be doing this anyway.  You are most likely not able to mill each grain separately and adjust rollers for each type, so you will need to find what roller gap setting works best for your recipe and your materials on your mill in your brewery.  An old rule of thumb is to grind as fine as possible until run-off times become excessive.


    Attached are 2 presentations and 1 paper that touch on milling, all from the MBAA archives.  They offer not so much how to mill, but practical guidelines about what needs to be accomplished in milling for successful brewing.    

    Andrew



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    Andrew Fratianni, Dipl. Brew.
    Sr. Enzyme Application Specialist
    Brewing & Distilling Enzymes
    IFF Health & Biosciences
    andrew.j.fratianni@iff.com
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Sieving wheat malt

    Posted 02-20-2024 11:26

    Hey Calum,  when I grind wheat malt, rye malt, hulless barley malt,  raw wheat and rye I always go as fine as possible otherwise you will never achieve the lab COA extract which for those grains can be very high.  Same goes for flavour.  If you check out spent grains from various breweries you will see the often just cracked wheat along with its undigested starch.  These grains get a case hardening during kilning and most labs will not do a friability test as it can wreck the machine.  Treat it like you would be using a mash filter grind (eg hammer mill).  This comes with the usual flour hydration caveats but don't be afraid as long as your malt barley milling is on point with lots of good intact husks and you don't go way past the gelatinization temps for your intended beer style.

     

    mike

     




    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Sieving wheat malt

    Posted 02-20-2024 14:32

    We also experienced this issue.

    We have set the same sieve standards as we do for our base malts of #14.

    It requires tightening the rollers a bit, but have seen efficiencies go up to expected levels.

    We attempted to go even tighter, but this was the best combination of efficiency and runoff speed.



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    Ivan Dedek
    Brewmaster/Food Scientist
    Meier's Creek Brewing
    Cazenovia NY
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