70 deg mash temp more unfermentable sugars?

[Screwtop]

My understanding is that it is just not as simple as more sugar = more sweet. Fuller mouthfeel will add to a perception of sweetness (or conversely dry finish will be less likely to be perceived as sweet). Also various sugars have different sweetness levels. I don't think it's correct to say dextrins aren't sweet as dextrins covers a range of sugars with varying levels of sweetness - however a dextrinous wort will not necessarily be super sweet.

What Screwy is suggesting is that there is more than one factor at work - so high temp, low time, lower attenuating yeast will all come into play. As has been found - not accounting for all of these has led to a result different than expected.

Genau!!!

Just to add to the mash temperature discussion:

http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/measured-mash-temperature-effects.html

This bloke did a test on mash temperature and found that final attenuation decreased by approximately 1% for every degree Fahrenheit above 152ºF (66.7ºC), tested up to 160ºF (71.1ºC). According to those findings, for example, if you start with a yeast with 80% attenuation, mashing at 70ºC (158ºF) would result in ~74% attenuation not taking into account any other factors.

Of course mash temperature isn't the only factor in play, but it's something to keep in mind for future brews.

My findings also!

A higher mash temp won't result in a sweeter beer. It will increase body and alter mouthfeel. As said above higher weight dextrins are not particularly sweet, buy some pure maltodextrin powder and have a taste. If you want a sweet beer you have to leave some residual sweet sugars in it (by not fully fermenting out), or add an unfermentable sweet ingredient like lactose or artificial sweeteners.

Or Dextrinous Malts such as the Crystals CaraPils etc, thats their role!

Screwy

 

[boonchu]

Why not look at stopping your fermentation when you are at the desired taste, its as simple as filtering the wort straight from the fermenter in to the keg. The 1 micron filters will take out about 97% of the yeast. It will mean that if bottle conditioning that they will take about 2 - 3 months to carb up.
BTW I mashed a saison accidently at 75*c and it finished at 1.004.

 

[thermo_47]

Sounds like a recipe for bottle bombs to me! :/

You could halt ferment by cooling and keg the beer, and always keep that keg cold, but what about conditioning, diacetyl rest, etc? I'd rather let it ferment out and back sweeten in the keg..

 

[manticle]

Why not look at stopping your fermentation when you are at the desired taste, its as simple as filtering the wort straight from the fermenter in to the keg. The 1 micron filters will take out about 97% of the yeast. It will mean that if bottle conditioning that they will take about 2 - 3 months to carb up.
BTW I mashed a saison accidently at 75*c and it finished at 1.004.

Ok if you like kegged beer that tastes like buttered paint.

 

[MCHammo]

Why not look at stopping your fermentation when you are at the desired taste, its as simple as filtering the wort straight from the fermenter in to the keg. The 1 micron filters will take out about 97% of the yeast. It will mean that if bottle conditioning that they will take about 2 - 3 months to carb up.
BTW I mashed a saison accidently at 75*c and it finished at 1.004.

If I was kegging my GB, I could just use campden tablets/some other way of killing yeast, and force carb. That was not the point of this experiment. Not owning a keg makes it not so simple.

 

[phoenixdigital]

Will definitely keep you posted. I feel a collaboration coming on.

An update on this ginger beer. It tastes like a beer that someone put ginger in. Which does NOT taste like the ginger beers I have tasted before. I think I am going to have to buy one from a bottle shop to get a reference.

I'm thinking next one will be

• a smaller batch so I can experiment more
• Shorter and higher mash temps
• no hops
• maybe some lactose for sweetness
• I might even sinfully add some ginger powder as well as fresh ginger cause I put about 1/2 a kilo in the last 19 litre batch and it really doesn't stand out as much as I would like.

 

[technobabble66]

Is there any further update on this?
In particular whether the unfermentables produced by a high short mash might substitute for the need to back-sweeten Ginger Beer.

The reason for my query is i plan on doing this:

10L batch into fermenter
OG = 1.060
FG = 1.027
alc = 4.6
EBC = 40.5

1kg Ale Malt
600g Vienna
500g Crystal, med
200g Biscuit
200g Amber
100g Carahell

Mash at 72°C for 20min, preferably at ~pH 5.8
Mashout at 78°C

200g of Maltodextrin into the boil
Ginger of ? quantity, probably at 60min & 20min.

Yeast = Windsor

Hoping to avoid the need for stevia/lactose, back-sweetening or pasteurising. Basically maximising the FG with high mash temp, high mash pH, short mash time, truckloads of Crystal, & fermenting with a low attenuating yeast like Windsor.


Feedback on this would be greatly appreciated - on both the recipe itself (yes, i'm looking for a malty GB. Good idea?), and especially on the likelihood of it being discernibly sweet. (not proper sweet, just taking the edge off the ginger bite).

Thoughts???

 

[Bribie G]

As posted earlier, a higher mash and more dextrins will not give you a sweeter beer. Dextrins are not sweet... they add body.

The sweetest sugars are the simple ones, particularly Fructose and Sucrose so you wouldn't expect the more complex ones to be sweeter.

I think the sweetness thing is just an urban myth that's crept into home brew "beliefs" for some reason. It's possibly to do with the "super dry" beer trend where they zap all remaining carbs with enzymes, but I would guess the sweetness "reduction" is due to the zapping of maltotriose which is not a very complex carb.

 

[technobabble66]

Thanks,
Yeah - i've done a fair bit of reading on the different types of sugars & dextrins. The mono-/di-saccharides are definitely the prime sweet ones. But the smaller dextrins (including trioses) supposedly have a bit of sweetness (similar to your mention of maltotriose).

So my aim was to try to maximise the complex carbs/dextrins, hoping that there would be a reasonable amount of these small dextrins amongst the truckload of larger ones to add a bit of sweetness, even though most of it will be non-sweet long dextrins.

Anecdotally though, my theory may well be crap <_<


PS: Bribie, have you done GBs before? What do you think of the Malt selection? I thought a very malty GB might be a bit like a Ginger biscuit, which i used to love...

 

[manticle]

As posted earlier, a higher mash and more dextrins will not give you a sweeter beer. Dextrins are not sweet... they add body.

The sweetest sugars are the simple ones, particularly Fructose and Sucrose so you wouldn't expect the more complex ones to be sweeter.

I think the sweetness thing is just an urban myth that's crept into home brew "beliefs" for some reason. It's possibly to do with the "super dry" beer trend where they zap all remaining carbs with enzymes, but I would guess the sweetness "reduction" is due to the zapping of maltotriose which is not a very complex carb.

It may also be that beer that has not fully attenuated might be sweet. This is different from dextrinous beer because beer that has not fully attenuated likely has a lot of maltose that yeast hasn't eaten.

I'm hypothesising but that makes sense to me. Also perception - thicker, fuller being psychologically associated with syrupy etc maybe?

Also dextrins refers to a group of sugar types - they do have varying levels of sweetness so it as not that aren't sweet at all - just not super duper sweet and some are sweeter than others.

 

[Spiesy]

Interesting.

Okay, I get that higher mash temp doesn't necessarily result in a sweeter beer - but a really low mash temp results in a highly fermentable wort - which leads to a dry beer... right?

So, what's the opposite of a dry beer?

Is it just a bigger body, "not-dry" beer?

 

[bradsbrew]

So, what's the opposite of a dry beer?

A beer that has a more viscous mouthfeel. Some pallete may perceive this as a few different things such as sweeter, unfinished etc...

Cheers

 

[bradsbrew]

Kinda off topic but I was considering mashing a batch at say 70 and a high OG with the intent of thinning out the fermented beer with water. So I can make a 66L batch, which is 3 cubes, then I can ferment out 44L then use that to fill kegs which would be 57L. Of course I would have to do the calcs regarding bitterness etc but I would only do it for my Aussie pseudo lagerale mid strength that visitors seem to go for.

Anyone tried this?

Cheers