Wheat prices to jump

[The Baron]

A lift from the BBC site this morning
The price of wheat has jumped on international markets after India banned the export of the staple cereal.
The benchmark wheat index rose as much as 5.9% in Chicago, the highest it has been in two months.
The export ban comes after a heatwave hit India's wheat crops, taking domestic prices to a record high.
The cost of everything from bread and cakes to noodles and pasta have risen in recent months as wheat prices soared on world commodity markets.

 

[An Ankoù]

Its curtains for hefeweizen and wit, then. i wonder if barley acreage will be given over to wheat and we'll see a shortage there, too. I'm looking into brewing with spuds (seriously) and I'll post my findings later.

Just to pre-empt any Murpheys jokes.

 

[Dutto]

….. I'm looking into brewing with spuds (seriously) and I'll post my findings later.
……

According to almost every pundit, we are going into a situation where almost every food item (including wheat and barley) will become scarce and therefore very expensive.

It’s pretty ironic that I now live in Sleaford where the largest Bass Malting Factory in Europe sits derelict. Apparently, this occurred after the UK started buying in most of the malt used in brewing from Poland!

During my “experimental” phase (2015-2018) and mainly using LME or Wilco Cerveza for a “base”, I used a variety of common articles to enhance the brew!

Potatoes apparently have a high sugar content, but this is offset by a high fusel oil content which may negatively impact on a brew’s toxicity.

They brew Vodka from potatoes in Ukraine so it’s obviously manageable, so please keep us posted.
:hat:

 

[The Baron]

I have already dipped my toe in with rice, it just needs some specialist malts as it is very neutral. At the moment it is approx £1 a kilo

 

[MmmBeer]

I have already dipped my toe in with rice, it just needs some specialist malts as it is very neutral. At the moment it is approx £1 a kilo

Rice, like corn, needs to be heated to a higher temperature than barley, wheat etc to gelatinise and break down the starch. From memory it is about 85°C in a separate vessel and added back after the mash.

 

[The Baron]

Yeah I think I boil it for 15 mins to prep for the mash then in it goes

 

[An Ankoù]

Potatoes apparently have a high sugar content, but this is offset by a high fusel oil content which may

Thanks Dutto, I know you know what you're talking about in these matters, but I don't. Where do the fusil alcohols come from? I was thinking of adding 10 to 20 % of boiled (unsalted) spuds including the boiling water to a barley malt mash in the form of an adjunct.
I don't know if the boiling' s necessary to gelatinise the starches, but certainly to dénature any oxalic acid.

Edit: Maris piper, of course.

 

[moto748]

Thank God the supply of parsnips has not been affected!

More seriously, with Russia and Ukraine being two of the world's biggest wheat-producing countries, it'as hardly surprising.

 

[Dutto]

……. Where do the fusil alcohols come from? …..

One of those “Learned at Mummy’s knee!” kind of knowledge, that turned out to be correct!

Please check out the following for clarification:

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Fusel_Oil
BTW, as far as I know, Mum wasn’t a Bootlegger!
:hat:

 

[An Ankoù]

BTW, as far as I know, Mum wasn’t a Bootlegger!
:hat:

It's ok. You're no longer iable for her back taxes and unpaid duty.

The chief constituent of the fusel oil procured in the manufacture of alcohol from potatoes and grain, usually known as fusel oil and potato-spirit, ....

It's not clear to me whether they mean a mix of spuds and grain or both potatoes and grain. If the latter is the case then potatoes are no more dangerous than grain. I'll have to look into this a bit further.

Note to @Chippy_Tea . Most of the literature on the production and effects of fusel alcohols relates to their concentration through distillation. We're not concerned with that here, only with trying to avoid producing them in beer.

 

[marshbrewer]

I was listening to one of the Basic Brewing podcasts and apparently sweet potato works well in the mash and gives the resulting beer a lovely colour.

 

[johnny108]

Potatoes get their hangover potential from the same source as apples:
Pectin.
(Apple palsy from too much hard cider, anyone?)
When a pectic enzyme breaks down pectin, it can turn part of it into methanol. Not enough to blind, but enough to produce crippling hangovers. It's very likely that "instant" types of potato powder would still have the pectin in them (thickeners), so if you are looking for a non-wheat adjunct, corn or rice would be a better choice.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

More seriously, with Russia and Ukraine being two of the world's biggest wheat-producing countries, it'as hardly surprising.

Although relatively little wheat is traded internationally, and Ukraine's entire production is only about 4% of world supply. And it looks like they will still manage to produce about 2/3 of a normal harvest, so the direct war disruption will account for only 1% or so of world supply.

Still doesn't mean that there won't be severe impacts for those countries in eg Africa that have long-established trade with Ukraine, but there is a certain amount of hype in the reporting of this stuff, compared to eg the reality reported in WASDE Report

Bound to be an impact on barley though, as most barley goes to animal feed but a lot more animal feed is made from wheat, and easy way to "make" more wheat for human consumption is to relax the specs for wheat but then that will mean animal feed has to come from the barley harvest.

You'll also get farmers switching barley acreage to wheat and oilseeds. It's not just grain though, it's hops as well :

https://www.beerguild.co.uk/news/british-hop-inflation-2022/Between 2016-2021 the aggregate wage rate increase was 37%, although for most growers the figure was higher, as both labour availability and quality have declined as a consequence of the UK’s departure from the European Union. For 2022 growers are faced with:

• a minimum 15% increase in wage costs
• approaching 100% increase in fuel costs
• significant increases in the cost of fertilisers, spray chemicals, string and other inputs