I have what I think should be a quick question. I recently had a stuck mash (my bad for not planning ahead) with my hefeweizen. I do a step mash in an old boil kettle and then transfer to my cooler mash-tun to lauter the grains. In the future, I will be adding rice hulls to prevent this from happening again. My mashing vessel is limited in volume, so I really don't want to add the hulls into the mash while I am conducting the step mash. Does anyone see any issues with the following: hydrating the hulls in hot water transferring the mash to my lautering vessel adding the hulls into the mash and mixing them in thoroughly before sparging Thanks for your thoughts!
You don't have to rehydrate the hulls, but keep in mind that not doing so will mean you will need more sparge water. Not much more, but if you're a stickler for the exact amount of brewing liquor you need to heat up, you'll have to calculate that in. Other than that, go for it! I use them in damn near every mash, it's cheap insurance.
I'm just a little concerned about the extra volume. For my step mash I run the mash a little looser (1.4 to 1.5 qts per gal) to make it easier to keep the mash in motion when heating the the next rest temp to prevent scorching, and am very near the capacity of my vessel. For a 5-gal batch, perhaps a half-pound of hulls may be enough, but don't know how much volume that would add to my mash. So I'm thinking of adding the hulls after transferring to my cooler set up for sparging (which has greater volume) and avoid the issue all together.
