Anyone got a mill in Wellington?

[Toast]

Hey,
Going to buy 25kg of MO plus other bits and bobs of wholegrain malt, but have no mill of my own. Not confident [or rich] enough to buy a mill now, I need to see how it's done before taking the plunge. Does anyone have a mill they are prepared to let me use/show me how to use in the Wellington area?

[Stu McKinlay]

Hopefully they'll have dark wheat when we order... none there when we ordered last time. I wouldn't mind a play myself.

[JoKing]

I'm planning on coming down to Wellys in about a month - I was thinking of picking some up then ish.

I've been using pale wheat for the last 5 weizenbocks - which have been good (and bad: only one though) . The last I did a tripple decoction (12 hour brew day) which was rich and nice. Maybe a dark wheat base will give a similar character without all the extra work!

Sorry about Jacking your thread Toast!!!

[Doublehoppy]

What's your secret for avoiding a stuck mash? I've done two weizenbocks and ended up with stuck mashes both times. Both were single step infusion with 60% wheat.

[Mike Neilson]

With me it is grain bed depth to much grist for my set up.

[JoKing]

Well - let me tell you. The 1st was a nightmare. The 2nd wasn't much better - 3rd & 4th... getting better.

I believe the secret (and the last one was 60% wheat) is to crush the barley seperately from the wheat - at quite a course setting. But not too course. Just heaps of split grains. Not too much extruded flour. Still avoid untouched kernels. Then I smash half the wheat. I find too many quaters of the wheat gum it all up. I'll mill the other half as normal.

This may be a bit of a bullshit though - I still get slow runoffs no matter what! I'll do that just to complicate things and be supersticious.

I think the true key is a 15min protein rest to beging with. 30mins ruins the head - but 15 is good to thin things up a bit (in the mash). Dough in to 52 degrees with a 2:1 liquir grist. Normally I'd add boiling water to bring up to 62: the decoction was a different story. Sit at 62 for 30mins - 1hr. Then boiling water to 72. Decoction is different again. Finally a step to 76 degrees just to thin it out a little more - boiling water or decoction: it's your choice.

Then run off. I fly sparge at 78 degrees. And the sparge should be slow to avoid sticking. The main keys in my mind is final liquor grist is wet. The mash has to finish as hot ass possible to reduce viscosity. The rest is up to you. Patience is the most important thing with the big bad beers.

Good Luck.

[Toast]

People bang on about rice hulls in the UK. Me I've never had one. Yet!

[Reviled]

Could always just resort to BIAB for wheat beers to make it easy, anyone with a 3 vessel set up could easy just sew up a bag and youre good to go with no extra equipment... Then you could even do 100% wheat with no stuck sparge, and finished in 5ish hours... Imagine that :o)

[Toast]

Hey jack away. No that sounds bad. Errr {gazes at shoes}

[Doublehoppy]

Thanks for that detail Joking. I'll follow the temp guide for the stepped infusion. I'm not sure whether I'm up to changing the factory settings on the Barley Crusher thou. Immmm

When you say you 'smash' half the wheat waddayamean?

ps not sure why I can't reply directly to your post Joking...

[JoKing]

I mill it quite fine for half of the wheat grist.

I'm sure if you mill the seperately - It'll be the same. All I was leading to is that I like to have the majority of the wheat at the bottom of the mash tun. It will all depend on what you use as a false bottom. I'm a huge fan of the braided hose.

[JoKing]

Big Edits to the above - I want the BARLEY at the bottom - not the wheat!!!

[Stu McKinlay]

Some cara wheat might hlp too. I'll see what we can do.