Rye, oh Rye, oh Rye!

[Fingar]

So I decided to do something different yesterday and brew a Rye beer, sort of as per Greg Hughes recipe, but in this case, I used 2.5kg of Rye to 3kg of pale malt. I was aware that Rye, not having husks, can be a bit errr sticky, but with over 50% of the grain bill being pale malt, I thought I would be alright and that there would be no need for husks... wrong!

Enter the stuck mash! So with a lot of fiddling around with the grain filter I managed to fill my boiler. Not good practice to delve into the grain bed, which is when I experienced the gunky gloop that seems to be mashing Rye. As a result, the sweet wort looked pretty cloudy, but hey-ho, I managed to get 27L into my boiler, even though I had to sparge a lot more. Does Rye absorb a lot more water than Maris Otter?

Enter the burnt elements! During the boil, I got a faint burnt smell. That must be what Rye smells like I thought... wrong again! Upon draining into the FV, I could see that both elements had a nice, crusty black coating, which I can only assume came about from all the fiddling I did with the filter in the mash tun! In addition to this, my expected OG of 1056, turned out to be 1043! Probably because of the additional sparging.

So, at the moment, I have a very healthy fermentation going on, which will probably result in a beer with an interesting burnt flavour. Oh, well some you win... it's not going to be a good beer me thinks!

Any thoughts on the amount of rice hulls I should use if I ever attempt brewing with Rye again?

Cheers... Fingar

[stevej383]

So I decided to do something different yesterday and brew a Rye beer, sort of as per Greg Hughes recipe, but in this case, I used 2.5kg of Rye to 3kg of pale malt. I was aware that Rye, not having husks, can be a bit errr sticky, but with over 50% of the grain bill being pale malt, I thought I would be alright and that there would be no need for husks... wrong!

Enter the stuck mash! So with a lot of fiddling around with the grain filter I managed to fill my boiler. Not good practice to delve into the grain bed, which is when I experienced the gunky gloop that seems to be mashing Rye. As a result, the sweet wort looked pretty cloudy, but hey-ho, I managed to get 27L into my boiler, even though I had to sparge a lot more. Does Rye absorb a lot more water than Maris Otter?

Enter the burnt elements! During the boil, I got a faint burnt smell. That must be what Rye smells like I thought... wrong again! Upon draining into the FV, I could see that both elements had a nice, crusty black coating, which I can only assume came about from all the fiddling I did with the filter in the mash tun! In addition to this, my expected OG of 1056, turned out to be 1043! Probably because of the additional sparging.

So, at the moment, I have a very healthy fermentation going on, which will probably result in a beer with an interesting burnt flavour. Oh, well some you win... it's not going to be a good beer me thinks!

Any thoughts on the amount of rice hulls I should use if I ever attempt brewing with Rye again?

Cheers... Fingar

Ha! i was going to start the same thread today, i made a ale again yesterday using 1kg of Rye and also 1 kg of husks along with 4 kg of base malt Guess what happened? a big fat nothing it was as bad as the first brew i did using Rye, NEVER again

[Fuggled Mind]

Interesting post.

In my opinion, large quantities of rye spell trouble not only because of it's gloopiness but also because of its prominent flavour. Used sparingly, it is such a nice ingredient and I always think of it as clean, spicy and slightly sherbety. I have a house golden ale that uses 5.4% rye (the rest is pale) and it's lovely and It's one of the few recipes I continually brew. I also add flaked rye to brown ales and porters purely to contribute to mouth feel (no more than 2% of the grain bill) and again, it does it's job. One of the reasons I moved from extract brewing to all-grain was so that I could play around with ingredients such as rye. At this moment I have some torrified amaranth that I'm planning to put in a porter.

Coincidentally, I tried an American rye beer a while ago that purported to use mostly rye and I didn't like the flavour at all. I've heard others on this website say the same. Still, it's always interesting to hear about people who dare to push the boundaries.

Cheers

Jason

[sbond10]

I'm planning to brew the Greg Hughes rye beer but I brew in a bag so I should be ok I hope.....

[barry44]

Was that the roggenbier? Never again do I want a three hour sparge!!

[Fingar]

Was that the roggenbier? Never again do I want a three hour sparge!!

In my case it was the Rye Beer on page 189 of Greg Hughes' 'Home Brew Beer' book. I would like to give the Roggenbier a go, but having been 'stung' by the Rye, I think it may take a bit of courage... well, probably, just better technique!

[stevej383]

Never ever again not laughing :[

[oliver tate]

I'm planning to brew the Greg Hughes rye beer but I brew in a bag so I should be ok I hope.....

Word of caution, I've had exactly the same problem as the original poster when I used lots of rye, doing biab.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=62999

And yes, the beer was rank!

[barry44]

Was that the roggenbier? Never again do I want a three hour sparge!!

In my case it was the Rye Beer on page 189 of Greg Hughes' 'Home Brew Beer' book. I would like to give the Roggenbier a go, but having been 'stung' by the Rye, I think it may take a bit of courage... well, probably, just better technique!

Best of luck. I used a full kilo of rice hulls to no avail.

[sbond10]

I'm planning to brew the Greg Hughes rye beer but I brew in a bag so I should be ok I hope.....

Word of caution, I've had exactly the same problem as the original poster when I used lots of rye, doing biab.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=62999

And yes, the beer was rank!

Might give it a wide birth then

[zgoda]

Keep mash hot during sparge, do not return any vorlauf, sparge with almost boiling water.

Or use flaked rye, it has much less beta glucans.

[GarethHW]

I do full volume biab and my rye pale only had about 15% rye but i went for the hulls just to be sure. I used them mainly as I run the wort off and vorlauf rather than lift the bag out of the wort so stuck mashes are still a possibility. I had no issues though, and will do the same when I use rye again.

I'm going to up the quantity of rye next time too, but not sure I'd go more than 30%. Even at 15% it gave a distinctive (but delicious) flavour to the beer.

[Matt in Birdham]

I feel your pain Fingar - I did a rye-PA a few weeks back with similar results. Got away with it (I think) but never a pleasant experience. It always puts me off for a while but I usually end up doing another after a year or two