technobabble66
Meat Popsicle
I've decided to try a little DIY science at home.
I'm trying to determine if it's possible to produce sweetness in a fermented wort using standard malts or adjuncts.
The reason for this was to see if i could produce a sufficiently sweet Ginger Beer without having to resort to back-sweetening, an artificial sweetener, or pasteurisation.
After much reading, it seemed that there was a large amount of opinion and not much clear evidence to back up the claims of certain options producing some sweetness or none, or if they just altered mouthfeel. And so, i thought i'd try my hand at a trial with some small samples to get a bit of hard evidence to satisfy my curiosity.
Now i'm obviously not going to achieve a significantly sweet beer, but i just wanted a subtle sweetness to balance the bite of the ginger.
The main options presented that may provide some sweetness in the final beer were:
Maltodextrin (corn syrup used).
High temperature & short duration Mash - around 70-72°C for ~20mins.
Crystal - light to medium
Reducing the wort by boiling to produce caramelisation.
Low attenuating yeast
I just wanted to look at ingredients, as i'd use a low attenuating yeast anyway. So i didn't bother with that option.
The caramelisation process i thought i'd leave for another time, partly because i'd be tempted to try this anyway with the GB to improve the flavor of the ginger by caramelising the ginger wort.
So that left me with:
Maltodextrin
Crystal
High Mash
Also used for controls:
LDME
Dextrose plus a little LDME (provide a little nutrient for yeasts)
Batch Amount Est OG Est FG Alc%
Maltodextrin 38g + 10g LDME 1.050 1.042 1.4
Crystal 101g 1.050 1.014 5.0
High Mash 100g 1.050 1.021 4.3
LDME 47g 1.050 1.014 5.0
Dextrose 49g +5g LDME 1.050 1.000 6.8
I decided to start all samples at OG = 1.050 as that seemed the best way to create a fair comparison, given the many variables (eg: FG, alc%).
I targeted 350ml sample size - to keep cost down i used 5 x 500ml water bottles to ferment in. Also, 350ml should provide a 150-200ml drinkable sample, at least. I'm hoping this will be enough to assess the sweetness in the flavour.
_________________________________________
I started it all off yesterday. After several hours of faffing around, i had 5 x 500ml PET bottles containing 250-400ml of the samples.
Sadly the Crystal sample seemed to achieve a very poor extraction, and i had to reduce it somewhat to achieve OG = 1.050.
The High Mash sample also went slight awry - the mash started at about 73°C, but dropped to 68-69°C within 10 mins of being left wrapped up in a sleeping bag. I chucked it straight on the heat & got it back up to 72°C within 1-2 mins. I'm hoping not too much damage was done, and the basic quality of the test/sample is still OK.
I used a basic brewing yeast from a Black Rock kit tin, i think. About 0.5g in each. Should be truckloads, so i'm hoping that'll be ok.
The fermentations are rolling along nicely, 12 hrs later.
Hopefully i'll have something interesting to report in a week or 2's time!
Thoughts?
PS: how do i upload a photo into this??
Edit - fixed table & added yeast info
I'm trying to determine if it's possible to produce sweetness in a fermented wort using standard malts or adjuncts.
The reason for this was to see if i could produce a sufficiently sweet Ginger Beer without having to resort to back-sweetening, an artificial sweetener, or pasteurisation.
After much reading, it seemed that there was a large amount of opinion and not much clear evidence to back up the claims of certain options producing some sweetness or none, or if they just altered mouthfeel. And so, i thought i'd try my hand at a trial with some small samples to get a bit of hard evidence to satisfy my curiosity.
Now i'm obviously not going to achieve a significantly sweet beer, but i just wanted a subtle sweetness to balance the bite of the ginger.
The main options presented that may provide some sweetness in the final beer were:
Maltodextrin (corn syrup used).
High temperature & short duration Mash - around 70-72°C for ~20mins.
Crystal - light to medium
Reducing the wort by boiling to produce caramelisation.
Low attenuating yeast
I just wanted to look at ingredients, as i'd use a low attenuating yeast anyway. So i didn't bother with that option.
The caramelisation process i thought i'd leave for another time, partly because i'd be tempted to try this anyway with the GB to improve the flavor of the ginger by caramelising the ginger wort.
So that left me with:
Maltodextrin
Crystal
High Mash
Also used for controls:
LDME
Dextrose plus a little LDME (provide a little nutrient for yeasts)
Batch Amount Est OG Est FG Alc%
Maltodextrin 38g + 10g LDME 1.050 1.042 1.4
Crystal 101g 1.050 1.014 5.0
High Mash 100g 1.050 1.021 4.3
LDME 47g 1.050 1.014 5.0
Dextrose 49g +5g LDME 1.050 1.000 6.8
I decided to start all samples at OG = 1.050 as that seemed the best way to create a fair comparison, given the many variables (eg: FG, alc%).
I targeted 350ml sample size - to keep cost down i used 5 x 500ml water bottles to ferment in. Also, 350ml should provide a 150-200ml drinkable sample, at least. I'm hoping this will be enough to assess the sweetness in the flavour.
_________________________________________
I started it all off yesterday. After several hours of faffing around, i had 5 x 500ml PET bottles containing 250-400ml of the samples.
Sadly the Crystal sample seemed to achieve a very poor extraction, and i had to reduce it somewhat to achieve OG = 1.050.
The High Mash sample also went slight awry - the mash started at about 73°C, but dropped to 68-69°C within 10 mins of being left wrapped up in a sleeping bag. I chucked it straight on the heat & got it back up to 72°C within 1-2 mins. I'm hoping not too much damage was done, and the basic quality of the test/sample is still OK.
I used a basic brewing yeast from a Black Rock kit tin, i think. About 0.5g in each. Should be truckloads, so i'm hoping that'll be ok.
The fermentations are rolling along nicely, 12 hrs later.
Hopefully i'll have something interesting to report in a week or 2's time!
Thoughts?
PS: how do i upload a photo into this??
Edit - fixed table & added yeast info