thinking about brewing a panty dropper...

[brewinhard]

The protein rest will help degrade some of the excess protiens in the wheat malt and might even help with clarity a bit. I can't tell you what Bdawg will say as it is his recipe, but I would think you could just as easily perform a single infusion mash and make a great beer.

Another tip if you plan on using rice hulls is to be sure to include them in your grain calculations to hit your mash temps if you plan on adding them at dough in. They obviously will absorb some strike water and will drop your temps if you add them without adjusting for their mass being added to the mash tun. Just treat them as any other grain and add them to your overall grain amounts to calculate your strike water temps properly.

[BDawg]

I like the better head texture and retention that the protein rest produces, but yes, you can do this beer without it.
FWIW, with a cooler mash tun, you can dough in at 131F and either infuse to step it up to 150-ish or do a single decoction, which will add melanoidan character to the malt. Any one of the 3 ways will work.

HTH-

[jimlin]

I like the better head texture and retention that the protein rest produces, but yes, you can do this beer without it.
FWIW, with a cooler mash tun, you can dough in at 131F and either infuse to step it up to 150-ish or do a single decoction, which will add melanoidan character to the malt. Any one of the 3 ways will work.

HTH-

I haven't tried anything like that yet. So I would aim for my initial strike water to bring the mash to 131°, and then add more strike water after that rest to bring the whole mash up to 150-ish, and let it rest for the remainder? Do I just should for a really thick initial mash, knowing that the amount to bring it up to 150 will thin out the mash a lot?

[gwk453]

For the hulls, use ~5% of the weight of your wheat and you should be fine... Rinse it first, then just add it along with the rest of your grains in the mash and stir.

Spiderwangler.... I have seen it said before. Why is it recommended to rinse rice hulls? Astringency????

[spiderwrangler]

No, I don't think that astringency is typically an issue with rice hulls. Hmmmm... I've heard some folks say that their rice hulls have a 'dusty' smell to them, and rinse because of that (though there is probably plenty of dust, etc on barley). It would give them a chance to absorb water first, before you add your strike water, but if you are rinsing cold, it would add to the 'mash tun heat absorbtion'... but in either case, it will be a fairly small amount. Heh... might be one of those cases of 'someone told me to do it this way, so I do it that way' without any more explicit reason. Unless anyone else can chime in, if there were anything of greater concern, I can't recall it anyway...

Although, it may allow them to mix in with the grist better, as opposed to floating on top? I may have to try dry hulls and see what's different!

[scotchpine]

I have been using rice hulls when mashing with wheat or rye and have never rinsed them first with no problems. Always toss it in MT on the strike water, then dump the grains on top and stir in. No worries for me.