Mashing with Rice Hulls

[Mattblock]

I just wanted to post and see how other people are calculating strike water when adding rice hulls. Are you factoring in the weight of the rice hulls and increasing water volume or temp accordingly? Or are you ignoring them since they don't seem to have much substance or mass?

I have been using them more and more recently and am inclined to not worry about adding them to my calculations.

I would love to hear what everyone else thinks.

Cheers!

[nohandslance]

5% More H20

I just add 5% more mash water so the thickness is not too much. That is because we are stirring by hand.
That is my experience.

Lance
Rebel Malting Co.
Reno, Nevada USA

[wailingguitar]

I find that I really only need 1# rice hulls/bbl, which is pretty negligible, so I don't bother calculating them as part of the strike water. I do barley to wheat and barley to rye ratios of 50/50 with no run off issues whatsoever.

[gitchegumee]

Not much of a difference....

I haven't found that adding rice hulls to a standard recipe changes temperature at all. The mass required is so small and the specific heat of the hulls so small that there is barely any change at all. Wouldn't worry about it....

[spetrovits]

It is true that rice hulls are usually a small portion of the total grist weight, but depending on your grist and your brewhouse (i.e., you need more because your false bottom is less effective), they can change the thermodynamics significantly. It all depends on how careful or fastidious you tend to be. Personally, I wanted to account for them, so I added rice hulls as an ingredient in my software, with an extract of 0, so the strike temp calc would take their weight into account, but the gravity calc would ignore them. I nail my mash temps regularly, so I'm happy.