Dry Beer Enzyme

[albrews]

hi,
does anyone have experience using dry beer enzyme. (e.g. brewcraft brand) and what final gravity reduction might i expect by using it. note dryness in winemaking implies final gravity around 1.000 .
any help or comments would be appreciated.

cheers alan

 

[Guest Lurker]

The few times I used it the beer came down to around 0.995 and tasted pretty foul.

 

[albrews]

The few times I used it the beer came down to around 0.995 and tasted pretty foul.

hi , thanks for your experience , and i wonder if sorbate can be used as in winemaking to halt the yeast

action or heating to kill the yeast, so as to design a particular final gravity. say 1.003 for example.

cheers alan

 

[Kai]

It can use sorbate, but if you're bottling then you won't get any fizz. If you heat it then you could add more yeast after, but you'll get a fair bit of flavour loss and a lot of dicking around. Dry enzyme is not worth the packet it comes in, in the experience of most home brewers.

 

[Finite]

The few times I used it the beer came down to around 0.995.

 

[maltedhopalong]

The few times I used it the beer came down to around 0.995 and tasted pretty foul.

Is this the general consensus???

Cos I've just had a look back at the beers i've made that were done using a dry enzyme and they're the ones that just came out totally wrong.

Do you guys find the dry enzyme gives a filthy taste? kinda tastes like the hops are just foul.

 

[turto77]

Is this the general consensus???

Cos I've just had a look back at the beers i've made that were done using a dry enzyme and they're the ones that just came out totally wrong.

Do you guys find the dry enzyme gives a filthy taste? kinda tastes like the hops are just foul.

I did a k&k lager a while back with dry enzyme and it turned out like crap.

Never again. :angry:

 

[maltedhopalong]

Yeah, i guess i should do two batches one with dry enzyme and one without, but it's so hard to make a beer you are hoping will turn out bad...

 

[rustie]

hi,
does anyone have experience using dry beer enzyme. (e.g. brewcraft brand) and what final gravity reduction might i expect by using it. note dryness in winemaking implies final gravity around 1.000 .
any help or comments would be appreciated.

cheers alan

I used it once & didn't like the result. Was a Lager 7 it had a strang taste.
Cheers rustie

 

[Adamt]

Dry enzyme effectively breaks up products in the beer that would normally contribute to body, residual sweetness, etc. so that the yeast can eat it. So, any bad taste that shouldnt be in the beer will be amplified and this is why I think it is silly to use for K&K brews. A lot of the megaswill companies use it in beers like TED, Pure Blonde, etc, which are bland and tasteless. These beers are very hard to replicate without fresh ingredients (or AG), iso-hop extract and some would say, cat piss.

The "foul hops" taste could be the infamous "metallic twang" taste that old malt extract yields. If you haven't liked brews using it in the past, don't use it again. Sure you can do it as an experiment, but do 2 small batches (5L or so).

 

[maltedhopalong]

coopers mexican cerveza came out with no "twang" and i didn't use any dry enzyme. i think the taste i've been trying to get out of my beers is coming from the dry enzyme. like you say, probably amplifying the "home brew" taste of the kit.

 

[FazerPete]

Why do people want to get their beer to have an FG of 1 or lower? If you want that then tip a bottle of vodka in some water with hop pellets in it.

It's the unfermented stuff that gives beer a lot of it's flavour. Using a dry enzyme to completely ferment everything is going to remove all of that flavour so that all you are left with is yellow, hoppy water with no malt flavours to balance the flavour.

 

[maltedhopalong]

Pete, you are confused. nobody wants yellow hoppy water. some ppl want a full beer taste, but for it to finish crisply. So given the fact that you're not helping and just acting like a wannabe connoisseur, why don't you keep it to yourself? Alternatively, ADD something.

 

[SJW]

Pete, you are confused. nobody wants yellow hoppy water.

So why is Corona such a big seller? <_<

 

[maltedhopalong]

I always order Coronas when i'm on business meetings etc. the reason? I KNOW it's going to be inoffensive, and if I feel like a "Beer" it'll do the job. but unless you really are craving after a super-hoppy, chocolate brown syrup, style dark ale, it'll make you throw up (the super-hoppy beer, i'm talking about, not the corona).

That's why it's a big seller. Beer makers don't make yellow-hoppy water. Some of my homebrews have actually been yellow-hoppy water and it annoyed me.

Who gives a flying duck if people like a beer that's less powerful than the kind of beer you like? Your doing nothing but turn people away. I love this site cos you guys are great at answering all my questions and it's sucha reliable source of information. But I don't know how much more of the elitism i can take.

 

[Hutch]

Your doing nothing but turn people away. I love this site cos you guys are great at answering all my questions and it's sucha reliable source of information. But I don't know how much more of the elitism i can take.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a BREWING site, not a piss-weak commercial mega-swill appreciation society.

Feel free to drink all the Corona you like, but for f*** sake, don't shoot down someone like FazerPete for expressing a valid opion on the topic of discussion, that is shared by the majority here.

 

[Adamt]

Is this the general consensus???

Cos I've just had a look back at the beers i've made that were done using a dry enzyme and they're the ones that just came out totally wrong.

Do you guys find the dry enzyme gives a filthy taste? kinda tastes like the hops are just foul.

You've asked a bunch of hardcore brewers for their opinion. We've given it. It seems the general consensus is that it is not liked for homebrew purposes, and we find dry enzyme robs beer of most of the taste. This isn't a bloody flame war.

 

[FazerPete]

Pete, you are confused. nobody wants yellow hoppy water. some ppl want a full beer taste, but for it to finish crisply. So given the fact that you're not helping and just acting like a wannabe connoisseur, why don't you keep it to yourself? Alternatively, ADD something.

So why don't you answer my question? What is it that you are trying to achieve by getting the FG that low?

All I was saying is that by using a dry enzyme, you will remove most of the taste from your beer. I've tried it a couple of times and the beer comes out completely tasteless. If you want to make a TED or Corona copy then go for your life but IMO there's no point in doing this when you can easily make so much more.

BTW, who died and made you the forum police? :angry: If you read my post you will see that I tried to explain that it's the unfermented sugars in the malt that give a beer much of it's taste. By converting these to fermentable matter, the beer must have less malt flavour which only leaves the hop flavour behind. Simple flavour formula really: (Malt + Hops + Water + Yeast) - Malt = (Hops + Water + Yeast)

If you don't agree with this, then why don't you ADD something and explain how else it works.

 

[maltedhopalong]

I'm not disagreeing with what you said, also i'm not the person who spoke about getting FG below 1. I know how dry enzyme works, generally when I use it i prime (EDIT: not prime, i mean instead of dex/brew enhancher i use...) with corn syrup and/or a can of unhopped malt, the idea being that it actually tastes "dry". (EDIT: i.e. when my "dry" beer finishes it's still up around 1015 or something)

And i'm not trying to be some kind of forum policeman either, I apologise if I've come across that way. I honestly just feel like i've voicing the opinion of the minority. And that minority says "why aren't we allowed to drink beer that imitates commercial varieties?"

To put things in perspective i asked if you guys have found that the dry enzyme not only ferments more "stuff" but also imparts a very non-beery taste. And the second response i got was shooting down anyone who uses it, telling us we don't know sh!t about beer (reading between the lines). There are nicer ways of saying it than saying "why would you want to brew yellow, hoppy water? you might as well drink cat piss"

 

[FazerPete]

To put things in perspective i asked if you guys have found that the dry enzyme not only ferments more "stuff" but also imparts a very non-beery taste. And the second response i got was shooting down anyone who uses it, telling us we don't know sh!t about beer (reading between the lines). There are nicer ways of saying it than saying "why would you want to brew yellow, hoppy water? you might as well drink cat piss"

Don't take everything so personally (I'm not, even though you started the flame). All I said is that you are going to be left with relatively tasteless beer and I don't think you'll find any brewer who will disagree.

I'm not criticising your aim to recreate a commercial beer but as you are a frequent member of this site and apparently an avid brewer, it's very strange that you would want to do it. This forum is focused on helping people make a better beer than anything they can buy and I think if you could start to appreciate some extra flavour in your beers then you'll enjoy the hobby more.