I brewed a batch of
beer on the first of October that I thought would be an amazing seasonal beer
and I hope to add a Wild Rice beer to my lineup every Fall during the harvest
season. I love using local ingredients in my recipe’s
whenever possible and after sampling a version of this beer and hearing that it
had Wild Rice in it, I thought I had to give it a try!!! This recipe is inspired by Tim Stuemke who is
a founding member of the Nordeast Brewers Alliance. Although typically Mild Ales are
much lighter in body, lower in alcohol, and slightly roasty Brown Ales
typically in the mid 1.030 range. This beer is called an Imperial Mild mainly to be
funny as historically Mild Ales have found their way up into the 1.050+ Gravity
range. The
key is that a Mild Ale be very sessionable!!!
Mild ales are typically a bit thin, yet bold in flavor, and I wanted an
even bolder version to go with Minnesota’s
bolder version of Winter! This beer
could easily be called a Brown Ale.
Wild Rice - Experience/History - Wild Rice is an interesting plant. My first experience with it was when I was a kid on a canoe trip in the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area). A group of us kids and a couple of dads took a week long trip up north paddling, portaging, cliff jumping, camping, foraging for blueberries, catching fish, and living with and off the land. On one of the last days we paddled along a lazy small river in between a couple large lakes and we were surrounded by wild rice much like this picture below.
If you want to learn more about Wild Rice, go to the Wiki page HERE. Kinda interesting...as it's not rice at all, it's actually closer related to grass. Foragging for Wild Rice is a laborious task that intails canoeing and knocking the grain into your canoe. Processing Wild Rice is even more interesting and time consuming then knocking the grain. Check out this Video on how Wild Rice is traditionally processed.
All in all the Wild Rice is going to give this beer a "nutty" character that otherwise couldn't be acheived.
If you want to learn more about Wild Rice, go to the Wiki page HERE. Kinda interesting...as it's not rice at all, it's actually closer related to grass. Foragging for Wild Rice is a laborious task that intails canoeing and knocking the grain into your canoe. Processing Wild Rice is even more interesting and time consuming then knocking the grain. Check out this Video on how Wild Rice is traditionally processed.
All in all the Wild Rice is going to give this beer a "nutty" character that otherwise couldn't be acheived.
Cereal Mash –
The usage of Wild
Rice brings up some questions. How do I
handle the Wild Rice? It’s extremely hard to break down, and how to extract the
sugars from it? Well what you need to do
is a Cereal Mash. For this beer I
ground up the wild rice with my coffee grinder extremely fine in order to make
the starches more accessible. Then I put
it in equal parts water…1 lb/1 gallon and slowly brought that to a boil. Once that was boiling I kept it rolling for
a good hour! I could have also added in a bit of grain (for
their enzymes) and done a quick Sacc rest at 150 degrees, but since I was going
to add it to the mash I know I’d get full conversion. By the end of the hour it essentially looks
like thick cooked rice and you really couldn’t boil it any longer without
adding more water. Keep in mind that
you need to be stirring throughout this time as to not scorch the rice. Especially during the last 15 minutes.
For mashing the other
grains I decide to mash in real thick and do a quick Protein rest at 120
degrees. It sat there for only about 5 minutes at most
and then I dumped in my boiling hot cereal mash of wild rice. This brought the temperature up to 148. I was shooting for 150-152 so I added about ½
gallon of boiling water and then let it rest for the 1 hour. Batch Sparged as normal at 168 degrees and
I was ready to boil. Once the boil had
finished I chilled it and pitch my yeast after pouring it back and forth to
oxygenate. I fermented it at 67-68
degrees in my basement and this should create a slightly fruity fermentation
and add additional character to the Toasty (Maris Otter), and Nutty (Wild Rice),
sweetness and caramel toffee (Cystal 60 /120),
Earthyness of the hops, as well
as complement the small amount of darker roastier grains. (Pale Chocolate/
Black Patent). The Melanoidin malt
should give the beer a substantial body that is a little bit off for the style,
but I personally enjoy.
Wild Rice Imperial Mild Ale
Mash Efficiency: 72 %
Specific Gravity:
1.052 OG
Final Gravity: 1.016 FG
Alcohol: 4.8% ABV
Calories:
173 per 12 oz.
Color: 17° SRM Light Brown to
Medium Brown
Bitterness: 19.7 IBU Tinseth
Malt & Fermentables
%
|
LB
|
OZ
|
||||
62%
|
6
|
~
|
|
Mash
|
||
21%
|
2
|
~
|
|
Cereal Mash/
|
Mash | |
5%
|
~
|
8
|
|
Mash
|
||
5%
|
~
|
8
|
|
Mash
|
||
4%
|
~
|
6
|
|
Mash
|
||
3%
|
~
|
4
|
|
Mash
|
||
1%
|
~
|
1
|
|
Mash
|
||
9
|
11
|
Hops
Usage
|
Time
|
OZ
|
AA » IBU
|
||
boil
|
60 min
|
1
|
East Kent Goldings ~ pellet
|
5.0 »
19.7
|
|
Yeast
London
ESB Ale (1968)
yeast in liquid form with very high
flocculation and 69% attenuation
|
