Cereal Mash

[BarefootLion]

Just a quick question regarding cereal mash.

I have a Saison I am brewing this Sunday, I'm using about 1.8lbs of Wild Rice as part of the mash(about 10%) I'm pretty sure I should conduct a cereal mash to make sure the starches get fully utilized. Is there a water to grain ratio I should be going for, most of what I see online says 1 gallon.
Can I do this the night before, cool it down then add to the rest of my grain in the morning when I dough in? I usually shoot for about 104F when I dough in, then ramp up to my mash temps.
Most of what I have read says treat this like a decoction, get you main mash to about 122F and add the boiling cereal mash, but I think it will be easier to just cool the night before then add to the main mash.

[Hoser]

Usually you want the cereal mash to be either 2:1 or 3:1 adjunct:barley. You want it thin, around 2+qts/lb of grain to prevent scorcing. I treat it like a decoction, so I will do a low saccarification rest around 146-148F, do my cereal mash, then add this back in to raise my main grain bed up to 156-158F.

I don't think I would do it the night before because that will cool and make it more difficult to raise your grain bed temp. I don't think enzymes should be an issue because they get denatured when you boil the cereal mash. You may be at risk for a sour mash, but this may be slightly desirable in a saison? It is homebrewing, so it doesn't hurt to try I suppose...

[BarefootLion]

Yeah sour mash wont be an issue, going with some Brett anyway. And I doubt 12ish hours would be an issue.
What I meant about doing over night was blending with my full grain bill before bringing to my 1st rest at 104ish.

[Hoser]

Common misconception, Brett. is not sour. It is bacteria that makes the beer sour, i.e. Lacto and Pedio. Brett. does however do well in a sour environment (pH=4.5). Brett. is more barnyard and funk.

If you are doughing in at 104F, my guess is you are doing a step mash? My concern with doing a cereal mash and then adding it later would be that you are running it through all of those enzymatic steps a second time and would break down all of your sugars and starches in your wild rice further, possibly leaving your beer thin and insipid? I know saisons are supposed to be crisp, dry, and effervescent, but that may be a risk of "re-mashing" your rice after you have gelatinized all of the starches. But, it is all assumption, I have no practical or scientific info to back it up.

Here are a couple of good links on cereal mashing:
http://www.winning-homebrew.com/cereal-mash.html
http://www.ingermann.com/cerealmash.html
http://486286.cache1.evolutionhosting.c ... ilsner.pdf

[BarefootLion]

no, this I wasn't doing any more steps, the 104 thing is something I started and I don't want to change. This batch I wasn't stepping I was going right from 104 to...154ish? I haven't figured the last details yet.

I know that the Brett won't make it sour, I actually really want the fruityneress of the bugs I have growing. I was more implying that the tartness of the sour wouldn't be a big deal.

[Hoser]

Just curious of your reasoning for mashing in at 104F and then raising it to 154F? You will still hit all of those enzymatic steps of acid rest, protein rest, and alpha/beta saccarification even though you don't call it a step mash.

[BarefootLion]

I usually do step mashes, I guess you can say its a Beta Glucanase rest, and just one of the steps I picked up was doughing in low to get the grain wet it just makes it easier to spread the grain around and make sure there are no dough balls before I start actually stepping up. Its just something I got into my method, and something I do for piece of mind.

Its only in there for 10 or 15 minutes or so while I heat up with infusion to the next step, don't even know when I started doing it, I just did.

Again dunno, it works.

[Cody]

Common misconception, Brett. is not sour. It is bacteria that makes the beer sour, i.e. Lacto and Pedio. Brett. does however do well in a sour environment (pH=4.5). Brett. is more barnyard and funk.

Actually, Brett does make it sour. The by-products of fermentation contain a number of organic acids, including acetic.