Biab & Protein Rest & Powells Malts

[zebba]

What are the advantages of using under-modified malts?

As far as I can tell - price.

Checking G&G:
- Joe White Traditional Ale - $.00295/g (under 2kg)
- Powells Ale - $.00195/g (under 2kg)

 

[hefevice]

What are the advantages of using under-modified malts?

So sick bastards like me can do decoctions (which need to be boiled for a while) without worrying too much about denaturing medium chain proteins (thus messing up body and head retention) at the lower temp rests.

Of course the other way to compensate is to use a heap of wheat - which is just fine by me

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Yeah you are right, you need more short chain proteins. Would a protein rest starting at 45 and continuing through a ramp period to sacch temps be out of line? Say 1deg/min?

That'd work, but I was having a foot in both camps so to speak... Some Powels malts are a bit undermodified, but its not like they are all that bad.. so rather than go "all the way" with a P rest, I just went with a fast and dirty rest at 50.

In the case of undermodified malts - you aren't looking so much at what proteins you end up with, as what proteins you get rid of. If you are doing a P rest to fiddle with your head retention, you care about the proteins that come out of it being good for foam - but if you are doing a P rest to rectify undermodified malt, your main goal is to break down the storage matrix protien and access the starch - so all you want to do is smash em up. If there is enough of it in there you'll end up with plenty for your head retention anyway, unless you go silly with 30 min rests at 45 or something.

Because with BIAB you have a larger volume to heat up, your ramps are fairly slow, even with direct fire 1C per minute is a fair call - so I consider ramps as part of the conversion period. Which I also do in my re-circulating system. BIAB also tends towards drier beers (IMHO) so I would take care with extended mash times especially as the OP stated he had issues with his beers being to dry already.

Thanks for all the feedback.

So I assume a quick way to do this would be to mash in with a standard 2.5L/KG of water to end up at protein rest temp. After the rest I could then add the final Vol of the water from my HLT adjusted to bring it up to mash temp and fine tune with the burner/cold water. Then just treat it as every other BIAB.

Any fishhooks???

Rgds mike

None that I can see. Stock standard step infusion method. Your volumes of water will be a bit higher because of the BIAB full volume thing... but thats just a matter of doing the maths.

Also see next answer

If its the first time you've used it, you may also take and efficiency hit - something you may need to take into account with your recipe.
BIAB may help you in some regards, but don't be surprised if you're down on your efficency by quite a substantial amount.

True - but thats part of what the P rest is for. If you do one, you access extra starch that you can miss out on in a normal mash, which is partly what effects your efficiency. The step mash gets you back (or should) a bit of what a single infusion masher would lose with this sort of malt. Doing the ramp by slowly heating it up and stirring constantly, will do an even better job - Make your step mash a decoction and you will completely compensate for it !!

Made one brew with Powells ale malt and mashed as normal. Got 75% eff.
So this one must be modified well

They seem to be different for different malts. I understand the Pilsner is low on the modification scale and in my experience the Munich is too - but that some of their malts are fine. Case of asking the HBS for guidance I suppose.

This is quite an interesting and timely discussion (with the onset of slightly cooler weather everyone naturally thinks of lagers, but I started lager season early! ).

I have been protein resting pilsner malts and taking them up to saccharification and mashout via decoction, it is a bit rough and ready, invariably needing adjustment with a kettle of hot water so I usually start with a thicker mash to permit some fine tuning additions. Decoction smells rather nice though, the lagers are lagering and tasting allright so far.

But it got me to thinking, where some adjunct like polenta has been gelatinised (i.e. boiled), is this the increase from protein rest achievable with it? I.e. the polenta porridge doesn't need the protein rest but that heat could be useful? My read is that it doesn't need the protein rest like the malt does so could be useful (if made up to the right volume) as an equivalent to 5L of boiling to rapidly step from protein to saccharification. Up until now I've used it at mash- in but I'm thinking I'll use it differently in future if anyone is willing to confirm this. (Or not, and I'll just try it anyway! )

Edit: Sorry, just so there's no ambiguity- I BIAB in a 19L stockpot. And loving it... :super:

RdeVjun - what you describe is a pretty much a classic cereal mash as practised by your big American brewers to deal with Maize and Rice adjuncts. Here's a snip from some IBD training material that give a quick look at a standardish process in a big adjunct brewery. There are of course lots of possible variations. Basically its just a decoction mash where the decoction is the cereal portion.

View attachment HIGH_TEMPERATURE_MASHING_OF_NON_GELATINISED_STARCH_______________________CEREAL.doc


TB

 

[RdeVjun]

Many thanks TB and others, as per usual that's all excellent info and very helpful.

I was initially doing the maize thing because that's just what the original recipe had and it worked out fairly well, but it sounds to me that the gelatinised cereal would be quite useful and convenient in a couple of ways for indirectly- heated (well partially at least, only indirect after the bag goes into the kettle), step- mashed BIAB with the benefit of almost- instantaneous step up to saccharification, so without the long ramp time. Seems that if the masses are tweaked correctly there would be no need for direct heating of the mash tun with the bag in place (which is a PITA for many and I dislike doing it as it is difficult to distribute the heat uniformly). I'd probably skip the mashout in favour of a combined dunk sparge/ mashout, or perhaps as a mashout decoction and then dunk sparge, again though, not having to heat the kettle while it has a bag in it.
Anyway, next time I do that Munich Helles recipe of mine (the lager fridge is nearly finished lagering a few of batches), I'll give this a whirl, perhaps lending a little precision and repeatability, so thanks again!

Oh, sorry OPer for the hijack, hope this all helps though... :icon_cheers:

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Made one brew with Powells ale malt and mashed as normal. Got 75% eff.
So this one must be modified well

spoellling

I'm feeling somewhat agreeable and it is with this that I choose to agree...

I bought a bag each of Powell's Pilsner and Munich a little while ago - still got some of the Munich left and I think the under-modified thing might be a myth, or perhaps once the case, but not now. I could find no difference between it and my normal base malt (BB) in terms of the amount of sugar I got out of it.

 

[Quintrex]

I'm feeling somewhat agreeable and it is with this that I choose to agree...

I bought a bag each of Powell's Pilsner and Munich a little while ago - still got some of the Munich left and I think the under-modified thing might be a myth, or perhaps once the case, but not now. I could find no difference between it and my normal base malt (BB) in terms of the amount of sugar I got out of it.

Powells pilsner afaik is the only malt they make that is under-modified, this is deliberate as they strive to emulate the "schedule" of traditional czech pilsner maltsters.

They've moved away from floor malting now, but apparently still do the occasional batch of floor malted pilsner for special orders

 

[seemax]

I've tried powell's pilsner, ale and vienna.

Efficiency has been almost the same for all three with a single infusion mash.

Perhaps I could improve efficiency with a rest... but i find it easier and not prohibitively expensive to just use more grain.

 

[mikelinz]

As far as I can tell - price.

Checking G&G:
- Joe White Traditional Ale - $.00295/g (under 2kg)
- Powells Ale - $.00195/g (under 2kg)

No specific advantage to under modified grain that I am aware of. A couple of potential disadvantages is lower efficiency or more work on brew day (eg Protein rest or decoction).

A couple of advantages of Powell's is $1.60 kg (PILS/Ale) $1.80 kg (Vienna/Munich) $2.00 (Caramalt/Wheat) and reports that it is a good tasting malt. (Based on their single bag price)

You also have to balance buying in bulk with the likelihood that you will use 25KG in a reasonable time, storage etc. They will sell smaller quantities of specialty malts.

However I decided that i would buy my base malts in bulk and support my LHBS by buying the smaller quantities of specialty malts from them. I know they are there to make money but brewing would be much harder without them and and they do support a lot of clubs, comps and of course aussiehomebrewer.

rgds mike