Ability Of Malts To Convert Adjuncts?

[Bribie G]

This evening I'm in the middle of brewing a 'Cerveza' style with 4k of BB Galaxy Pilsener with 1kg rice as an adjunct. I was browsing on the UK site for Bairds malt and they say for two of their products:

Pale Ale Malts: ...........Even with a diastase of only 45L there is still enough activity to convert for example 5% of Crystal malt and 5 -10% of cooked adjunct (e.g. flaked maize).........

Premium Pilsener Malt: .........Although mainly intended for all malt beers, there is sufficient diastatic power to convert a limited amount of adjunct. Care will have to be taken that too much adjunct is not used or flavour could be impaired. Also, excessive dilution of soluble nitrogen could result in yeast nutrition problems, causing poor fermentation or flavour defects due to diacetyl for example.


Now it seems to be common wisdom on the forum here that you can whack in heaps of adjunct with Aus malts and as you can see I'm using 20% adjunct tonight. However I have done a few adjunct brews with UK Thomas Fawcett MO and GP using 500g of maize to 4kg of malt .. that's around 11% so just out of range, if TF is similar to Bairds in this respect, and have been getting a bit of diacetyl, which personally I love in moderation. I'm currently drinking my way through a Modern Summer Ale with 500g maize and its nice and buttery :icon_cheers:

I'm wondering if there's any hard information on how much adjunct Aus malts can handle?

 

[RdeVjun]

This probably won't help much, but FWIW there's a fair- to middling chance that some Bairds and Fawcetts lines have actually been malted in the same maltings. Speculation on my behalf, based on Bairds undergoing some serious refitting during 08-09 and according to an industry player, Bairds have contracted out malting to TF before, nothing less. So, TF may be similar to Bairds, maybe not... they most likely have their own particular specifications anyway.
Now, also FWIW, I did a couple of lagers recently with Weyermann pilsener, 6% polenta and 5% wheat (+ carapils & melanoidin) with a mid-40s rest and and was reasonably surprised to see a slightly floury wort (unconverted starch?) after 90 minutes of mid- range mashing. Dunno if its significant in diastatic terms, that's way out of my league. My first AG lagers too though.

Sorry, zilch hard info, only anecdotes... :icon_cheers:

Edit: I always mis-spell "m e l a n o i d i n"!

 

[Millet Man]

I make my own malts from gluten free grains such as millet and sorghum that have a much lower diastatic power than barley malt (according to the brewing scientists) and I can convert up to 40% specialty malt / adjunct so bollocks to that.

Mash for longer (up to 90 min or even 120 min for 40% adjunct) and all will be good.

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[Kai]

I doubt there is any hard information, to an extent it's going to come down to how gently you treat the mash. You should be able to get information on diastatic power for any base malt, though.

And FWIW galaxy is supposed to be able to handle a fair bit...

 

[Millet Man]

And FWIW galaxy is supposed to be able to handle a fair bit...

Graham Sanders did a 50/50 Galaxy malt/raw millet and it worked fine from what I recall so don't stress 20% adjunct with barley malt.

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[hazard]

This evening I'm in the middle of brewing a 'Cerveza' style with 4k of BB Galaxy Pilsener with 1kg rice as an adjunct. I was browsing on the UK site for Bairds malt and they say for two of their products:

Pale Ale Malts: ...........Even with a diastase of only 45L there is still enough activity to convert for example 5% of Crystal malt and 5 -10% of cooked adjunct (e.g. flaked maize).........

Premium Pilsener Malt: .........Although mainly intended for all malt beers, there is sufficient diastatic power to convert a limited amount of adjunct. Care will have to be taken that too much adjunct is not used or flavour could be impaired. Also, excessive dilution of soluble nitrogen could result in yeast nutrition problems, causing poor fermentation or flavour defects due to diacetyl for example.


Now it seems to be common wisdom on the forum here that you can whack in heaps of adjunct with Aus malts and as you can see I'm using 20% adjunct tonight. However I have done a few adjunct brews with UK Thomas Fawcett MO and GP using 500g of maize to 4kg of malt .. that's around 11% so just out of range, if TF is similar to Bairds in this respect, and have been getting a bit of diacetyl, which personally I love in moderation. I'm currently drinking my way through a Modern Summer Ale with 500g maize and its nice and buttery :icon_cheers:

I'm wondering if there's any hard information on how much adjunct Aus malts can handle?

Not sure if it matters what nationality the malt is.... since we lost the ashes again we can't claim that we're any better than the poms.

Look at my hgalf wit recipe
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=687
I mashed 2 kg of torrified wheat and .5kg rolled oats with 0.5kg of pils malt - thats about 80% adjunct . Sure I left it in the oven to mash for about 6 hours, but it all worked, and got all the attenuation I wanted (FG 1013). THe beer is crystal clear, even though it should be cloudy, so am comfortable that there is not unconverted stach left behind.

So, as others suggest, just add more time if you got lots of adjuncts.

 

[Bribie G]

I always do a 90 min mash (except for milds when I do a short sharp 70 degree job but no adjuncts). I've heard that Galaxy can handle a lot of adjunct, that's why I use it for kilo lots of rice or maize. The point that the Bairds site makes is not so much starch conversion but nitrogen dilution leading to poor nutrition for the yeast, I might start putting in a dash of yeast nutrient for my UK adjunct brews. I don't use adjuncts for TTL type beers but find maize goes perfectly in my Camerons Strongarm wannabee :icon_cheers:

If I find that robs me of my diacetyl I'll go back to my original methods

 

[Nick JD]

Can you add more enzymes to the mash to compensate for the shortfall?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Can you add more enzymes to the mash to compensate for the shortfall?

Yes you can - but - as Bribie points out, its not Diastatic Power thats the problem. Its nitrogen levels.

The vast majority of Aussie base malts are going to be fine, just fine with converting up to 50% of their own weight in extra adjunct... the paler ones are most likely OK with 100% of their own weight, as long as you give them time.

But that doesn't mean that there will be enough nitrogen. For instance - the high DP Galaxy malt mentioned has nitrogen levels of (web researched so maybe wrong) 1.6-1.75% ... which isn't all that high. Whereas the malt you might use in an adjunct brewery (like CUB or Tooheys) would be up closer to 1.9% - too high to be ideal for all malt brewing, but needed if you are going to use higher proportions of sugar or other adjunct.

I'd be adding yeast nutrient to any brew where I used more than a few percent adjunct - and if I was looking at a higher adjunct level I would add the nutrient and also think about choosing a malt with nitrogen levels at the upper end of the scale.

TB

 

[beerbrewer76543]

Ive heard of adding some yeast cake to the boil to act as yeast nutrient... Is this a good idea?

 

[Bribie G]

Ive heard of adding some yeast cake to the boil to act as yeast nutrient... Is this a good idea?

I've heard of a few people on the forum adding packets of spare Coopers yeast etc to the boil, could be worth a shot. You can actually buy dead yeast - 'yeast hulls' for use by home distillers who are always looking for extra nutrients, considering the cheap base stuff they ferment which is mostly sugar I guess.

 

[Nick JD]

I've heard of a few people on the forum adding packets of spare Coopers yeast etc to the boil, could be worth a shot. You can actually buy dead yeast - 'yeast hulls' for use by home distillers who are always looking for extra nutrients, considering the cheap base stuff they ferment which is mostly sugar I guess.

Or vegemite. It's basically dead yeast.

 

[muckanic]

Plenty of distillers go as low as 25% malt, but that's with an overnight mash at least.