Home Distiller

The rice harvest is getting close and I'd like to experiment.
Has anyone used whole rice to make a mash?
Either malted or ground up whole and converted with enzymes?

From my limited research it appears malted rice is very low in diastic power.
And only polished rice is used when converting with koji
Grinding polished rice and converting with enzymes has been covered before,
But what about grinding whole grain rice and converting with enzymes?

I mashe brown rice using wheat malt for conversion. The mash smelled just like fresh baked gingersnap cookies. Don't remember the flavour of it though it. The strip ended up in a 9grain blend.

I'm in the middle of a rice run right now.
I picked up a bunch of long grain white rice cheap and it has made a great fermentation.

I ground it twice through my corona and then cooked it with SebStar overnight.
Mashed it with SebAmyl and got great conversion and it fermented very dry.

I stripped it tonight and the low wines just kept coming.

Does the rice you're talking about still have the husk or hull on it? I would think that would help with sparging but be a pain for grinding.

If you can get your hands on some cheap rice though, I say go for it.

Yes the rice still has the husk on.
I can get rice cheaply, straight from the farmers. All I need is a shovel
Figure to do it the same as MCH, grind the whole grain rice, cook with steam and convert with enzymes.
What I'm really hoping for, is the hulls from the rice forming a bed, so I can lauder the mash.
I don't know how well this experiment is going to work
If this is a workable idea, why isn't it commonly done

shadylane wrote:If this is a workable idea, why isn't it commonly done

After just doing this with whole grain rice, no husks, I can say that the rice was the hardest, toughest thing I've ever put through my corona.
And that was just rice, not sure how that would work out with hulls in there to cushion the grinders.
It was like grinding up silica sand. The first pass I felt like I was lucky to break the rice into 3 or 4 pieces, the second pass got me down to something more like couscous. I think. I'm not even really sure what couscous is.

Even at that, after a overnight cooking with high temp enzymes and 190F water the rice wasn't really "cooked", it was still more crunchy than firm. Damn tasty though. I still got great conversion and yield though, not complaining.

Other thing is, I'm not sure I've ever seen rice for sale with the husks on. You're right though, the hulls would make an excellent filter bed for sparging.

MichiganCornhusker wrote:not sure how that would work out with hulls in there to cushion the grinders.

The hulls do a good job of protecting the rice from the grinder.
It took 3 passes through the burr grinder before I was happy with the grind.
But the hulls got torn up, so I'm not sure how much that will effect the lautering.

MichiganCornhusker wrote:

shadylane wrote:If this is a workable idea, why isn't it commonly done

After just doing this with whole grain rice, no husks, I can say that the rice was the hardest, toughest thing I've ever put through my corona.
And that was just rice, not sure how that would work out with hulls in there to cushion the grinders.
It was like grinding up silica sand. The first pass I felt like I was lucky to break the rice into 3 or 4 pieces, the second pass got me down to something more like couscous. I think. I'm not even really sure what couscous is.

.

I've been doing rice mashes pretty regularly and I don't grind them at all any more as long as its hull less I get really good conversion

ive done white rice from the grocery store a couple times with pretty good success with the "no cook " method.

fermented dry, i used bakers yeast. after a strip and spirit run the hearts where very clean and light like a rice " vodka" . im sure if sent it through one more time in my pot it would be a vodka at that point.

id definetaly do it again. it would be a great mash for someone with a reflux still looking for a very clean vodka .

havent played with brown rice.


i can see how the wheat malt would be a nice addion

I realize this is a year old post but can you tell me how much rice per gal of water you used?
Thanks.

MichiganCornhusker wrote:

shadylane wrote:If this is a workable idea, why isn't it commonly done

After just doing this with whole grain rice, no husks, I can say that the rice was the hardest, toughest thing I've ever put through my corona.
And that was just rice, not sure how that would work out with hulls in there to cushion the grinders.
It was like grinding up silica sand. The first pass I felt like I was lucky to break the rice into 3 or 4 pieces, the second pass got me down to something more like couscous. I think. I'm not even really sure what couscous is.

Even at that, after a overnight cooking with high temp enzymes and 190F water the rice wasn't really "cooked", it was still more crunchy than firm. Damn tasty though. I still got great conversion and yield though, not complaining.

Other thing is, I'm not sure I've ever seen rice for sale with the husks on. You're right though, the hulls would make an excellent filter bed for sparging.

bigbone32 wrote:I realize this is a year old post but can you tell me how much rice per gal of water you used?
Thanks.

MichiganCornhusker wrote:

shadylane wrote:If this is a workable idea, why isn't it commonly done

After just doing this with whole grain rice, no husks, I can say that the rice was the hardest, toughest thing I've ever put through my corona.
And that was just rice, not sure how that would work out with hulls in there to cushion the grinders.
It was like grinding up silica sand. The first pass I felt like I was lucky to break the rice into 3 or 4 pieces, the second pass got me down to something more like couscous. I think. I'm not even really sure what couscous is.

Even at that, after a overnight cooking with high temp enzymes and 190F water the rice wasn't really "cooked", it was still more crunchy than firm. Damn tasty though. I still got great conversion and yield though, not complaining.

Other thing is, I'm not sure I've ever seen rice for sale with the husks on. You're right though, the hulls would make an excellent filter bed for sparging.

Same as any other grain, i can remember reading over on the parent site ages ago thats it's pretty much the same starch content as barley possible a bit higher

bigbone32 wrote:I realize this is a year old post but can you tell me how much rice per gal of water you used?

I honestly can't tell you what I had for supper
But I'm guessing 2 pounds per gallon was used.

Thanks fellas.

> it's pretty much the same starch content as barley possible a bit higher

Rice is 90%+ starch so a good mashing protocol will yield impressive OG numbers.