Rye-se To See You

My first attempt at actual brewing produced a rye beer, so I decided to go back into this well to create my next session beer (I've decided it's probably a good policy to have a session beer on hand, something you can drink a few of without getting obliterated).  I've used rye in other beers since then (being a favorite grain of mine), but both Lycanthropic Lager and Sasquatch Stout (oh god, the alliteration) don't have hugely significant amounts of it.

You see, rye can be a difficult grain to brew with.  It is husk-less, like wheat, and is high in beta-glucans.  Both of these can create an especially sticky mash that is especially susceptible to getting stuck.  Both Lycanthropic Lager and Sasquatch Stout have low enough proportions that this isn't a huge issue, but this beer's grist was made up of about 40% rye, definitely enough to jam some stuff up.

To tackle this issue, I used a mash schedule I found in Brewing With Wheat that's designed for whit beers (malted wheat has a decent amount of beta-glucans, with flaked wheat and unmalted having even more) that called for a protein rest and two saccharification rests.  I also added a pound of rice hulls just to be sure (compensating for the lack of hulls in rye).  The downside to the mash is it can be complicated to pull off, changing temperatures by adding hot water at specific intervals.  The downside to the rice hulls is it can hold sugars back during the sparging process, bringing down efficiency.

The results were awesome.  The sparge ran cleanly (though I only had the valve open half-way, just to be sure) and my efficiency actually exceeded my past efficiencies in my newer, larger mash tun.

I hopped it with French Strisselspalt hops, which had a nice sweet smell to them, definitely unique among hops.  The alpha-acid on them is ridiculously low, so it should only be bitter enough so that the beer doesn't taste like sugar.  The beta-acids were surprisingly high, so it should retain a stronger aroma.  I'm using a kolsch yeast to ferment it, so it will be closer to the cleaner tasting American rye beers, as opposed to the German roggenbiers, which use the weizen yeasts and thus have the distinctive clove and banana flavors.