Buckwheat Braggot

[Anthony]

Hello all,

I'd like to make a buckwheat braggot, but I don't know enough about using grain to come up with a recipe myself, I hope one of you can help.

I'm not calling this Buckwheat Braggot because it's made with buckwheat honey (even though it is), but because I want to malt and mash buckwheat for the grain contribution.

While I understand the basics of mashing grain, I have yet to do it. Searching the brewing info site's I know of has turned up little on how hot and how long to mash buckwheat. Not being a brewer yet, I don't have a clue as to how much grain to mash.

The goal;

A sparkling brown braggot, 10% - 12% abv, with good body and head retention, little or no bitterness, 60% to 75% honey, more like Mead then Ale, no dark malt flavors.

Ingredient's:

Buckwheat honey, ? lb.
Malted Buckwheat, ? lb
Spring water for 6 gal.
EC or K1-V yeast?
Superfood +
?
?
?
honey for bottle priming

I have found enough info on malting grain that this will not be any trouble.

Thank You,

Anthony

[Anthony]

After reading most of this morning, I have a much better idea of where I'm going with this. Just need help in figuring out how much buckwheat to mash, at what temp and for how long to get what I want from it.

For a six gallon batch;

O.G. - 1.090
1.062 from 10 lb. buckwheat honey
1.028 from ? lb. malted buckwheat
Yeast?
Irish moss?
3 t. Superfood +

Anthony

[Ben Brewcat]

Interesting! I don't know the potential yield from buckwheat malt, but a simple experiment could address that. Mill it, dough-in at 1 quart water per pound buckwheat at 165F and hold a couple hours at 150 or so. Stir gently and taste occasionally; if it starts tasting sweet not starchy, and the standing liquid clears, it works! I don't know if buckwheat has enough enzymatic power to self-convert. That would be a good topic for the HBD if you do want to pursue it.

Alternately, for an easier work-around to malting and experimentally mashing the buckwheat, you could do a cereal mash of the (unmalted) buckwheat and convert its starches with amylase from an enzymatic workhorse like domestic 6-row malt or 2-row pale malt. That's what most brewers do to use adjuncts like corn, rice, spelt, quinoa, amaranth, etc. that are uncertain in yield or enzymatic power. One of the reasons that malted barley-based beer became the world standard out of all the grains available is its great enzymes.

If you do malt and mash, and if it is able to self-convert, note that buckwheat doesn't have hulls so you'll want to use some rice hulls or somesuch for lautering. I found one reference on buckwheat yielding 15 ppg, so you'd need 18.6 pounds if you got 60% efficiency on your mash (that's a conservative stab in the dark; beer mashes usually get @ 70-85% efficiency. Low enzymatic power would significantly degrade that yield; you could need many times that number).

[Anthony]

Thank's Ben,

From what I've read, the maximum fermentable yield from malted buckwheat is 56% per lb. at 100% efficiency. Not having done a mash yet, I'm hoping to hit 60% - 65%.

Malting the buckwheat myself and allowing it air dry afterwards will not fully modify the grain.

I'm thinking a mash with 30 minute rest at 122 - 140 - 158 will get better extraction then a single temp infusion by breaking down the starch thats not converted by the malting.

If I can get a gravity of 1.020 per gallon from the buckwheat (even if it takes 12 lb of buckwheat), that fits perfectly within framework of this batch.

What is HBD?

Thank You,

Anthony

[Anthony]

Ben,

Thanks for thip about rice hulls, I had no idea it was needed, would have been bummed by a Set Mash.

Two more questions,

Even ground course, buckwheat is going to be very fine, would it be a good idea to do a mashout for this mash to prevent stuck sparge?

And what ratio of rice hulls to grain is needed for a grainbed that will flow?

Three lb of sugar will yeild a gravity of 1.024.
if I can get 50% efficiency from the mash (25% per lb. malted buckwheat) a 12 lb mash should more then cover whats needed from the grain.

Anthony

[Aspera]

I would skip the rice hulls and just add a goodly amount of a 6-row barley malt to help breakdown all the buckwheat proteins and starch. With buckwheat I'm pretty sure that step mash mash with preboiled buckwheat is the way to go (buckwheat has crazy amounts of protein). As for buckwheat honey, a little goes a looonnnnng way. You might want to mix it with something less flavorful like clover honey. I made a braggot with straight buckwheat honey and you could smell the esters outside of the room. For a nice clean braggot you might consider a very clean profile beer yeast such as Sfale 56 (dry ale) or yweast 2206 (bavarian lager?). Good Luck and let us know how it turns out.

[Ben Brewcat]

First a technicality; malting does not convert the starches (well not many of them) that's the mash's job. Malting generates the enzymes which are activated in the mash to convert starches to sugars.

That three-step mash is a good idea if you're up for it (that schedule is really suited for malted barley); though again I don't know for sure that the proteolytic enzymes for the 120ish rest will be adequate from the buckwheat alone. Again, using some barley malt would address both the hull and enzymatic issues. A mashout performs two things: warmer sugars flow better so efficiency of lauter improves, and it also inactivates the amylase enzymes so they don't persist in the runoff ot the boil kettle.

The Homebrew Digest (http://www.hbd.org/) is a discussion newsgroup for beer geeks, beginner to seriously technical. Subscribe or just search the archives for a LOT of great information. Be aware that is has a lot of traffic, often including several-page-long treatises on say metabolic pathways that yeast use to produce a certain fermentation byproduct. A search on "cereal mash renner" will generate all you need to know about a cereal mash for using that buckwheat to best effect IMO. And my preference, again echoing Aspera's, is to use a neutral yeast for experimental batches so what you're tasting is the ingredients on their own.

[Ben Brewcat]

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[Anthony]

Thank's again.

Had to re-read the material I have on malting.

Gluten free Brewing

Buckwheat has a high protein level, the malt is not well modified, gluten free malts have low diastatic strength, and the starch generally has high gelatinisation temperatures. The other problem is that the amylase enzymes are very heat sensitive in these grains.

Hence in brewing gluten free beer we include rests at 104°F and 122°F to aid in grain liquefaction and protein breakdown. We also have the saccharification at 149°F, as higher temperatures will destroy the ß-amylase too quickly. Before the saccharification rest we need to do a modified single decoction called the "Schmitz Process" (see below) to gelatinise all the starches in the mash. Before we transfer the wort for sparging, we need to add rice hulls (15% of the weigh of the grains) so that a filter bed will be formed as buckwheat has no husk.

The Schmitz Process

In a normal barley beer, if we do a triple decoction mash, we will only boil about 70% for the grain. So a normal triple decoction procedure is not really desirable, as we are using grains with high gelatinisation temperatures, and we want to boil 100% of the gluten free grain to release all the starch. We also have to be mindful that we need to rescue as much of the the enzymes as we can before the boil, as the enzymic strength of these malts is low. The Schmitz process will do all this.

In the Schmitz process, after we step up the temperatures of the mash with gentle heat, through the 104°F rest to the final protein rest of 122°F, the mash is then allowed to settle. The grains will sink, and the fluid separate at the top. The upper layer of the fluid will containing sugars and enzymes. This needs to be preserved, so it is removed and put aside, and the remainder of the mash is then allowed to go through a decoction process, we add a bit of water and then this mixture is boiled. The boiling will cause all the starch from the grain to be gelatinised, and this thick mash is then cooled to near 145. We then add the liquid we decanted off containing the enzymes back to the mash and mixed thoroughly. The mash temperature is adjusted to 149°F for a saccharification rest to convert the gelatinised starches to fermentable sugars.

[Ben Brewcat]

Note that this is for mashes presumably with barley malt to provide the enzymes; the "low diastatic power" they mention does mean that you'll need some barley (or potentially some amylase enzyme from LHBS). That said, a cereal mash (as compared to a decoction) would also provide complete gelatinization, with none of the enzymatic denaturing of the decoction procedure. I've decocted before, it's just a lot of work!

Do let us know how the buckwheat goes and tastes! I've had a few 'spurmental amaranth brews planned, but haven't quite been able to stay ahead of consumption enough to make the time.

[nursebee]

I used 3# of roasted buckwheat with the last batch of wheat beer that I made. Flavor was nice. I'd consider a braggot with 3# of wheat and buckwheat groats, some light hopping similar to a wheat beer. I'd use Promash to figure on how much honey to add.

[Anthony]

Thank's again guys,

Got a pound of buckwheat soaking, going to malt & mash it to see what it will yield, I'll post the results. Good to know I can get amylase enzyme if needed.

These are some of the companies brewing beer without barley or any other cereal grass.

http://www.bardsbeer.com/

http://ramapovalleybrewery.com

http://www.lesbieresnouvellefrance.com/index.php?lg=en

http://www.glutenfreebeers.co.uk/

http://www.obrienbrewing.com.au/

http://www.biaglut.com/prodotti/Birra/default.aspx

http://www.hambletonales.co.uk/

http://www.ale4home.co.uk/fine_ale_club.htm

Basicly there are to online calculators I use.

for mead - http://www.gotmead.com/making-mead/mead-calculator.shtml

and beer - http://hbd.org/recipator/

Thanks again,

Anthony

[Aspera]

Sounds like you have some good information sources there Anthony. Just speaking from personal experience though, I can say that preboiling will geletinize (read "denature") ANY plant protein and a good six row lager malt has plenty of enzymes and hulls to spare. Six rows are what allow Coors to make beers with rice, corn, wheat and whatever else the cat dragged in. If you strike at about 154 F with the right pH you might even be able to do a one step mash. Boil this wort a bit longer than usual if you like clear brews.

[Anthony]

Thank's Aspera,

I'm grateful for the input and feed back, of those of who brew beer, I only make mead.

My goal here, other then brewing a truely unique Braggot, is for it to be gluten free.

Thank's,

Anthony

[Aspera]

I understand...I'm still something of a wine/melomel dunce. And the liver can only dispose of so many bad batches :D