I was looking for good belgian witbier recipe and found Bob Gs. It looks like a perfect recipe but don't know what "Brewer's Cut Natural Filter Media America" is? Can some one elighten me, the recipe asks for 2 pounds? Thanks! Here is the link: http://www.tomandteri.com/brewery/bob_recipes.htm#rec12

I'm guessing rice hulls.

Rice Hulls it is cohiba.

Can this recipe be batch sparged or does it need to be stepped mash due to the unmalted whaet? If it can be batch sparged, what would be the ideal temps? How bad would the efficiency suffer. I normally get about 70% batch sparging non wheat beers. I've never batch sparged with wheat. Actually I've really never brewed with such a high % of wheat before.

Thanks for the replies?

Thanks,

Richie

I've had no problems batch sparging with 50% wheat and I got upwards of 80%. That was with malted wheat.

I just made a wit this weekend. The grain bill was very similar

11lbs Pilsner
10lbs flaked wheat
1lb Flaked Oats

I mashed at 152Ffor 90 minutes (only because I had to deal with kids at 60 minutes). I added 6oz of water soaked rice hulls right before sparging and stirred. Batch sparged without a mashout and got 83% efficiency. Usual efficiency is more like 75%. So yes it can be batch sparged and yes you can do a single infusion mash.

Richie, step mashes and batch sparging are not mutually exclusive! You can certainly do a step mash with a batch sparge. I don't see why you think your efficiency would be substantially different with a wheat beer.

Hi Denny,

Well Bob's recipe calls for Unmalted Wheat. Since I have no experience working with Wheat I thought that maybe the reason for step mashing might have been due to the "Unmalted" character of the wheat. Since I do not know, I was wondering if Unmalted Wheat needed to be step mashed to extract max amount of needed fermentables. As I want to try this recipe out I wanted to make sure that the Batch Sparge way of brewing (and a single step infusion mash) will yeild good results.

Thanks!!

Richie

I've used flaked (unmalted wheat) many times without a protein rest. What I was getting at is mashing is one thing and sparging is another and you can combine any variations any way you like.

Cool Beans Denny!!

Understood.

I would think the step mash with unmalted wheat is for conversion. I have done plenty of single infusion mashes with wheat beers without a problem.

What about not having any rice hulls?
Is this going to be a big deal or is it just going to be a slow filtration?
I want to try my 1st all grain wit Friday.

The recipe calls for two pounds of rice hulls. I would put them in there to be sure.

Richie

From my experience brewing a wit I would definitely recommend using the rice hulls; flaked oats and wheat turn very sticky and gummy.

Crap!
I plan on using 3 lbs unmalted wheat.
4.5 lbs pils
1 lbs reg wheat
Wait and get some hulls or roll with it?

I would wait.

The rice hulls will help. I use them when I make wheat beers like that.

The use of rice hulls depends entirely in your system's lautering capabilities. Some people need 'em, some don't.

Denny makes a good point, I have even had varying results with the same system. I don't feel like worrying about it and always crush really fine so I always just keep some husks on hand and I will also make sure to mash out just to get the grain temp up. 2# of hulls is a waist, the husk material that makes up the filter bed in a non wheat mash is a fraction of the total weight of the grain, you only need a couple hand fulls per # of huskless grain in your mash.

When I was doing 10 gallon batches of Wit using the unmalted wheat along with 3 or 4 lbs of quick oats MY SYSTEM required 2 lbs of rice hulls to prevent a stuck mash. YMMV