Gluten Free - No Malt Experiment #2

[Thirsty Boy]

This follows on a little from a discussion in a thread started by Katie - about a traditional African beer made using bananas.

A little research revealed that the beer she was talking about is called Mbege and it is a traditional product of the Tanzania / Kilamanjaro region of Africa. It is made from bananas and unmalted finger millet, and bittered with a tree bark. The traditional beer is acid fermented primarily around the bananas and then the millet is added shortly before consumption (the night before ish). As with most traditional beers it is drunk fresh (basically out of the fermenter) and is cloudy - the yeast and starch haze making up a significant part of it's nutritional value.

This got me to thinking about enzymes - this beer, like all other beers, obviously included an amount of grain starch being converted to sugars by enzymes..... but where were the enzymes coming from?? The grain being used was unmalted millet after all. The answer was of course -- from the bananas.

Bananas (and plantains) when they are unripe, are very rich in starch - as they ripen, the starches are converted to sugars. So in there - are enzymes that do the same sort of job as the amylase enzymes in malted grain. It turns out that bananas convert their starches primarily with phosphorylases that crack starches into glucose and fructose (so basically invert sugar) at an optimal temperature of about 30C - BUT - that later in the ripening phase, both Alpha and Beta amylase levels increase and reach a maximum as the banana attains complete ripeness. This means that not only are there starch converting enzymes in bananas ... they are the same enzymes that we manipulate when we make a beer from malted grains.

So --- All that meshes in with my mini quest to find a way to brew beers from gluten free grains, without having to malt the grains before using them (which is just a part of the larger quest to learn about enzymes and starches and how they work) I decided to make a modified version of an Mbege - a clearer more "modern" version that still used the unmalted gluten free grains as a starch source, and converted the starch to sugar entirely with the enzymes contained in the bananas. Can I make the starch convert? Can I make a palatable beer? Why don't I have a life and better things to do with my time?

Here's what I did.

Mbege Recipe: (ingredients etc are as planned - OG, efficiency etc are reverse engineered from the results)

Batch size - 2.2L
Expected OG - 1.043
IBU - 16
Mash Efficiency - 63%

Ingredients

Millet Flour - 200g
Sorghum flour - 100g
Miaze Flour - 100g

Banana Flesh - approximately 260g consisting of 4 x medium bananas. 1 very very ripe (black), 2 quit ripe (moderate brown spotting) and one quite unripe with about a 50/50 mix between green and yellow colour

Hallertau Hersbrucker Hop pellets - 3g for about 16IBU (90 min)


Method

I was absolutely unsure if this would work, so I decided to mash the hell out of it, with the focus being on preserving the enzymes as much as possible.

*Flours were mashed in with 1.5L of cold tap water - the very ripe and unripe bananas were blended into the mash (bamix)
*A glass aquarium heater was inserted in the mash set to 32C - mash raised to approx 30 and maintained. Mash rested at 30C for 5-6hours\
*Aquarium heater removed and mash cooled and diluted with 750ml more tap water. Mash rested at ambient for the balance of 24hrs.

The previous steps were to allow thorough hydration of the starches and to give the banana phosphorylases (optimum temp 30) time to act on any available starch in the mash.

The next steps are basically a version of the gluten free "reverse" decoction method - the gluten free grain needing to be raised to 80C plus to gelatinise its starch, but the enzymes being preserved in the decanted liquid.

*The mash has "settled" during its overnight rest - decanted off as much clear liquid from the top of the mash as I could (about 900ml)
*One of the mostly ripe bananas was blended into the remaining "thick" portion, the other blended into the enzyme liquid.
*The thick portion was brought slowly to the boil and boiled for nearly three hours - it formed a quite thick paste.
*The paste was allowed to cool down to 40C and the enzyme liquid was mixed back in with a little more cold water. This formed a thin batter at about 32-35C. This was covered and left to mash overnight.

Once again, the overnight rest was to give the phosphorylases a chance to work on the now gelatinised grain starches

*After the overnight rest, the whole mash pot was placed in a very slow oven with a temp probe inserted into the middle of mash.
*Over 5-6 hours with occasional stirring the mash temperature ramped up to 55 -- and then I got bored and impatient.
*Mash removed from oven and placed on stove top.
*Heat mash to 62 with constant stirring - allow to rest 35mins
*Temp dropped to 50 - increase heat to 67 and rest for 30mins
*Temp dropped to 58 - increase heat slowly to 75

*Transfer mash to mash filter bag (made of T'shirt material) and add 750ml boiling water. Hang overnight to drain.
*Next morning add a further 750ml "bach sparge" to the filter bag (stirring well etc etc) and hang to drain while I am at work
*After 13hrs at work (long day.. sigh) add final batch sparge amount (about 1.5L) and fall into bed.

This extended lautering process is nothing really to do with teh experiment and more to do with my stubborn refusal to chuck away the GF flours I bought and go out and buy some proper grain.... I will learn to brew reasonably with flour. Then I will never bother to do it again!!

*Next morning with a bit of a squeeze of the bag I had collected 4 or so litres of moderately cloudy wort
*Wort brought to the boil and tossed in 3g of hersbrucker hops
*Boiled for just short of 2 hours until target volume of 2.2L was reached
*Strained hot wort through rough filter funnel to get rid of hops and put back into rinsed boil pot. Brought back to boil for a second (sanitation) and then lid on and into sink full of cold water for a cool
*Wort (break and all) transfered into a 4L demijohn for fermentation and pitched with a 150ml starter of Wyeast 1308
*8-12hrs lag time and wort is currently approaching high krausen.


So - did it work?? Yes it did. I don't know if the beer will taste any damn good. But the banana enzymes (or something anyway) certainly converted some starches into sugar. Rather better than I thought they would actually.

According to the nutritional information I found on the internet (so it must be true) - 260g of banana would contain about 30g of pre-existing sugar. That much sugar is enough to give 2.2L of liquid a gravity of 1.005 ... and my 2.2L of liquid ended up at a gravity of 1.043. So the balance of the sugar must have come from starch conversion.

Conclusions -- Well, you can do it basically. You can, if you are bloody minded enough, make a beer with unmalted grains and convert their starches with enzymes from nothing else but ripe bananas. If the beer is actually drinkable .. I might even try to scale it up to a full batch and frighten some people with it at case swaps or something. God help the poor comp judges

cheers

Thirsty

 

[muckanic]

It turns out that bananas convert their starches primarily with phosphorylases that crack starches into glucose and fructose (so basically invert sugar) at an optimal temperature of about 30C - BUT - that later in the ripening phase, both Alpha and Beta amylase levels increase and reach a maximum as the banana attains complete ripeness. This means that not only are there starch converting enzymes in bananas ... they are the same enzymes that we manipulate when we make a beer from malted grains.

Are you sure they're exactly the same? Fungal alpha amylase, for example, has different temperature and pH preferences to cereal alpha amylase.

The next steps are basically a version of the gluten free "reverse" decoction method - the gluten free grain needing to be raised to 80C plus to gelatinise its starch, but the enzymes being preserved in the decanted liquid.

AFAIAA, the millet ought to gelatinise at mashing temperatures, but of course it doesn't hurt to heat it along with the rest.

 

[troopa]

Really bloody interesting stuff TB as before
I cant wait to hear about the final taste testing results
BTW did you try the Wort before pitching the yeast? or wernt you game ?

Tom

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Are you sure they're exactly the same? Fungal alpha amylase, for example, has different temperature and pH preferences to cereal alpha amylase.

AFAIAA, the millet ought to gelatinise at mashing temperatures, but of course it doesn't hurt to heat it along with the rest.

Of course they aren't exactly the same - they're from bloody bananas for a start. But in comparison to the phosphorylases and god knows what other enzymes you might expect in a fruit "the same" is a good enough description for me. When you are talking about both alpha and beta amylase being present - the sniffling differences between the different subtypes of those enzymes are insignificant for the purposes of my experiment.

You will notice that regardless of that; I was very careful to cover all the possible temperature ranges - even those that would apply if the alpha and beta amylases present had different optimum and denaturing temperatures.

As for the millet gelatinising at normal mash temperatures - that's not quite what my research leads me to believe and its not what I gathered from the advice of Milletman who runs a professional gluten free brewery. Some varietals certainly would gelatinise at the lower temperatures -- but some wouldn't until the alpha amylases were starting to head down the toilet and the betas were long gone.

This was going to be a dodgey proposition at best - I didn't want conversion to suffer because I got a variety of millet that didn't finish gelatinising till the potentially few and possibly weird enzymes I was working with had already turned up their toes. Better to perform an unnecessary decoction and make sure their starchy little socks were completely blown off.

But you are right in general - most millets have gelatinisation temperatures that would make them a hell of a lot more workable at more "normal" mash temperatures than the other gluten free grains. I "think" that the variety of millet you are most likely to be able to buy here is Pearl millet, and its starches should gelatinise at between 59 & 70 ... so you'd most likely be ok to mash it normally ... so that might be worth a try I think. Thanks for reminding me. I have tended to lump all the GF grains together.

Really bloody interesting stuff TB as before
I cant wait to hear about the final taste testing results
BTW did you try the Wort before pitching the yeast? or wernt you game ?

Tom

I did try a little - just what you would expect. Mostly normal wortiness with a strong banana flavour. Not at all unpleasant.

Oh - and I have been calling this an Mbege -- This might not be accurate. Mbege uses millet only (I used some sorghum and maize) and its possible that the millet in mbege is actually malted. ...I think that what I made is more accurately (although still a way from the original version) an Urwaga - A beverage from the Banana growing regions of Rwanda. It uses unmalted millet, sorghum, maize or a mix of the three. If I had used only unmalted sorghum it would have been Mwenge as consumed by the people of the Buganda province of Uganda. (I have found me a book...)

But I suppose that I am far enough away from any of them - that whichever name I choose will be as accurate as another.

Thanks for your input guys - I'm glad a couple of people found it interesting. Next on the list is trying to do it with Koji-Kin.

Thirsty

 

[BBBF]

TB,

I'm also planning on making some Mbege for my next GF batch. However, I'll be going a different route. I'll be making (excuse my inacurate conversions) 9.5 L, pale ale using Millet Man's instructions, adding sorghum syrup in the boil, then bring the volume up to 19L and finally rack onto some bannanas.


I have a few thoughts on your procedure. I'm pretty new to brewing, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you made it more complicated than it needed to be. If you weren't getting any enzymes from your GF flours, couldn't you have just cooked them in a cerial mash or perhaps your biscuits separate from the bananas? And then simply mash the bananas and gelatinized grains together?

 

[Millet Man]

AFAIAA, the millet ought to gelatinise at mashing temperatures, but of course it doesn't hurt to heat it along with the rest.

Depends very much on the variety, but even within a variety such as white french millet (aka proso millet) which I use there is a range of gelatinisation temperature depending on breeding etc. but we get what we get basically.

When I first started gluten free brewing I made some millet malt that I could infusion mash and I thought I'd hit the jackpot, the next bag of millet I bought brought me back down to earth as the gelatinisation temperature was around 75C. Since then (6 years ago) I've never been able to source millet with a low gelatinisation temperature so I put the first bag down to good luck.

I have malted and brewed with pearl millet and it is somewhere between millet and sorghum in appearance but tasted like crap and still had a high gelatinisation temperature.

TB - sounds like a fun experiment, well done.

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[muckanic]

You will notice that regardless of that; I was very careful to cover all the possible temperature ranges - even those that would apply if the alpha and beta amylases present had different optimum and denaturing temperatures.

Yeah, I didn't read you properly - you more or less had an each-way bet on fruit and cereal mashing temperatures. Obviously, the millet needs to be pre-gelatinised in that case. Taking some gravity readings during the mash might help establish what is essential procedure and what is not.

most millets have gelatinisation temperatures that would make them a hell of a lot more workable at more "normal" mash temperatures than the other gluten free grains. I "think" that the variety of millet you are most likely to be able to buy here is Pearl millet, and its starches should gelatinise at between 59 & 70 ... so you'd most likely be ok to mash it normally ... so that might be worth a try I think.

One hypothesis I am starting to entertain is that some strains of barley malt may not even gelatinise completely at 64C or whatever. I certainly think it is unlikely that the malt goes from being completely ungelatinised to completely gelatinised within the space of 1C; biological sytems tend not to work in that discrete fashion. Hence, when folks advocate mashing out to "make the sugars flow better", I wonder whether 10C makes all that much difference to the flow in practice, and whether the main thing they are actually achieving is some combination of improved gelatinisation and alpha amylase rest, albeit at a higher temperature than may actually be desirable.

Thanks for your input guys - I'm glad a couple of people found it interesting. Next on the list is trying to do it with Koji-Kin.

Continuing with the "improvised amylase" theme, here's a bit of reading you may find interesting: http://www.homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop...lit=aspergillus

http://www.homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop...lit=aspergillus

 

[Darren]

Thirsty,

I have probably missed this and apologise if I have but, Havent you just "malted" the millet in a mixture of tepid water/banana? Perhaps if you dare do this again you could also do the controlled experiment and do a batch without banana and see if there is a difference in extraction (taking into account the sugar potential of the banana of course)

cheers

Darren

 

[Thirsty Boy]

TB,

I'm also planning on making some Mbege for my next GF batch. However, I'll be going a different route. I'll be making (excuse my inacurate conversions) 9.5 L, pale ale using Millet Man's instructions, adding sorghum syrup in the boil, then bring the volume up to 19L and finally rack onto some bannanas.

I have a few thoughts on your procedure. I'm pretty new to brewing, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you made it more complicated than it needed to be. If you weren't getting any enzymes from your GF flours, couldn't you have just cooked them in a cerial mash or perhaps your biscuits separate from the bananas? And then simply mash the bananas and gelatinized grains together?

At the core, what I did was just a very cautious version of what you are saying. I just didn't know how many enzymes I was working with, so I wanted to make sure that the ones I had did as much work as possible. Therefore wanting the extended rests at 30 for some of the enzymes to do what they were able to - and also the extended reverse decoction thing. If I was working with a LOT of bananas like I would be if I was making an authentic Mbege (much more bananas than cereals) I probably would have gone closer to your suggestion ... but I was trying to make as few bananas as possible do the conversion work. Wanting this to be a grain based beverage (ie a true beer) with bananas as an adjunct, not visa versa.

The other reason, is that the Mbege, Urwaga, Mwenge etc -- all cook the bananas at some stage in order to develop colour and flavour. So I had to work out a way to do that and still keep the enzymes going.

Your beer sounds like it will work out well - let me know how it turns out.

One hypothesis I am starting to entertain is that some strains of barley malt may not even gelatinise completely at 64C or whatever. I certainly think it is unlikely that the malt goes from being completely ungelatinised to completely gelatinised within the space of 1C; biological sytems tend not to work in that discrete fashion. Hence, when folks advocate mashing out to "make the sugars flow better", I wonder whether 10C makes all that much difference to the flow in practice, and whether the main thing they are actually achieving is some combination of improved gelatinisation and alpha amylase rest, albeit at a higher temperature than may actually be desirable.

There is no doubt at all that your hypothesis is true - barley starches certainly don't all gelatinise immediately at 64 - and conditions in your average unstirred mash tun are far from ideal for accessing and gelatinising all the starch present anyway. The increase most people see in efficiency when they do a mashout is exactly because of the effect you describe .. especially so if they use direct heat to get to MO temps and have to stir the mash as it heats. Extra starch gelatinises and it is converted by the Alpha Amylase - which hangs around for a considerable time even as temps hit the mid seventies.

Sure the liquids all become less viscous at higher temps too - and this makes lautering easier and more effective, but its a hell of a lot to do with extra gelatinisatio happening at higher temperatures as well.

Thanks for those links, I'll check em out today.

Thirsty,

I have probably missed this and apologise if I have but, Havent you just "malted" the millet in a mixture of tepid water/banana? Perhaps if you dare do this again you could also do the controlled experiment and do a batch without banana and see if there is a difference in extraction (taking into account the sugar potential of the banana of course)

I think I see what you are saying Darren -

I basically performed the "steep" phase of a Malting routine during the first phase of my extra intensive mash. The first 24hrs plus of soaking at 30 odd degrees, being enough time to hydrate the grains and kick off the modification process .. enough enzymes being released so that the intensive and enzyme friendly mash routine that followed... was enough to do sacharification the trick.

Yes??

Not the case for my experiment - I was using flours rather than grains. BUT... a great idea nonetheless.

This whole trip was kicked off by wanting to be able to brew the occasional batch of (Millet based) GF beer - but not particularly wanting to have to go through the pain of setting up for home malting. Ergo, the search for ways to convert starch to sugar without using malted grain.

But half the gear/time/pain/effort involved in making malt, isn't in getting the enzymes active, its about getting even modification, drying teh stuff out so it stores well, kilning it to colour etc etc. If you are willing to forgo all that - and I am willing to use unmalted grain, so most of it is optional for me - then the process becomes a lot less hard.

Just do the steep phase - which will get the enzymes pretty much fully developed - then mash with malt immediately you have noticed that it has chitted.

You dont need the malt to be fully modified - we are going to do a thorough decoction anyway
You dont need to remove culmns - we are mashing as soon as we see a chit
You dont need to kiln or roast - we have already developed other ways of introducing kilned flavours

It might be a bit of a bitch to crush ... but you could manage that... even just blending the grains (which would be very soft and fully hydrated) might do the trick. But running them through a porket or a roller mill would still get the starch out and accessible.

So - you throw your grains into a bucket of tepid water - follow a nice steep routine as per one of Andrews guides. Which is going to be pretty easy.
At the point where you would normally transfer to a germination vessel - you crush/blend/juice the chitted proto-malt into your mash tun along with whatever starch adjuncts you plan to use - mash as for a stock GF batch.

That - would be not even a little bit harder than the extended process I used to make the banana beer. And lot more likely to work predictably (plus not tasting like bananas)

Good thinking Darren.

OK - now I have the Koji version (which I think might be the winner along with the industrial enzymes) & the Proto malt version to add to my GF - No malt trials. Lotsa fun.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[Darren]

Thirsty,

Yes, tyhanks. I missed the "flour" v "grain" bit 8)

cheers

Darren

 

[muckanic]

You dont need the malt to be fully modified - we are going to do a thorough decoction anyway
You dont need to remove culmns - we are mashing as soon as we see a chit
You dont need to kiln or roast - we have already developed other ways of introducing kilned flavours

It might be a bit of a bitch to crush ... but you could manage that...

Without having tried it, my understanding is that the roots have to be separated and the malt has to be dried and stored for a while - not just to make crushing easier, but to avoid herbaceous flavours. So in general (and there may be exceptions), that means taking it to what the Belgians would call the "wind malt" stage. With the easier sorts of grains, that may mean not much more than running the germinated grain in a bag in a clothes dryer at sub 100C temperatures, possibly even with dry cold air.

50% wind barley malt used to be traditionally employed in witbiers, with the rest being the usual unmalted wheat and oats. Obviously, that would have made for a very low melanoiden content, although this may have been increased slightly by the practice of turbid mashing (a kind of decoction that involves boiling liquid more than grains). It is interesting that many gluten-free brews are supposed to taste similar to wits, despite being possibly 100% malted and 100% kilned. Presumably, many of the non-barley grains are perceived to have something in common.

This all causes me to wonder why the Belgians didn't go to some slightly extra bother and use wind wheat malt and wind oats malt as well. They didn't need to for the sake of enzymes, but it presumably would make lautering a bit easier. Similar comments could be applied to the use of raw barley and oats in stout, but the really killer application that I can see is with wind corn malt in American pilseners, presumably removing the need for all that mini mash before gelatinising protocol. A further attraction is that corn has considerable flavour with or without kilning.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Without having tried it, my understanding is that the roots have to be separated and the malt has to be dried and stored for a while - not just to make crushing easier, but to avoid herbaceous flavours. So in general (and there may be exceptions), that means taking it to what the Belgians would call the "wind malt" stage. With the easier sorts of grains, that may mean not much more than running the germinated grain in a bag in a clothes dryer at sub 100C temperatures, possibly even with dry cold air.

Would be true if you allowed germination to proceed. Its pretty much what is happening when you look at traditional African beers made with malted grain. Generally you are talking germinated and sundried grains - mashed with rootlets and all.

What I am proposing above is a step before that - prior to the development of rootlets to any real extent. Malt in the steep is transferred (roughly) when it first "chits" ie a small white bump protrudes from the proximal end of the grain.

This is a stage before the development of the rootlets; and while the acrospire is also essentially undeveloped - and it is both those things that are primarily responsible for the vegetal grassy flavours you would get if you allowed the grain to germinate to the normal pre-kilning stage.

This page - from Crisp has a picture. The image from the "steeping" step is the point where I am proposing to go straight to the mash tun. You can just see the white tips of the chits emerging from the grains. But no rootlets etc yet.

What I am talking about here is trying to find a window of opportunity at roughly that "just chitted" point, where the grain has begun to release its enzymes, but before it has started to germinate and modify in any significant way. Essentially an ezymatically active "un"-malted grain. I don't imagine that the enzymes would be up to full strength at that point - but then again they also wouldn't have been kilned - so you would still have active beta-glucanase, Limit dextrinase, proteases etc etc that are normally denatured in the kiln. So maybe what you lose by not allowing full germination, you get back by not performing the kilning step. Or some of it anyway.

I have already proved to my own satisfaction that I can brew beer with truly unmalted grain and added enzymes .. so the fact that the grain is unmodified to a very large degree - is not an issue - This is just a tweak on using effectively unmalted grains, but using the natural enzymes rather than industrial ones.

No idea whether it would work - I might wander over to the Barret Burston lab tomorrow and see if I can find a malting scientist who would be willing to have a think about it for me - apart from that, I will probably just have a crack at doing it anyway.

I'd appreciate any more thoughts you or anyone else might have about this.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[muckanic]

What I am talking about here is trying to find a window of opportunity at roughly that "just chitted" point, where the grain has begun to release its enzymes, but before it has started to germinate and modify in any significant way. Essentially an ezymatically active "un"-malted grain. I don't imagine that the enzymes would be up to full strength at that point - but then again they also wouldn't have been kilned - so you would still have active beta-glucanase, Limit dextrinase, proteases etc etc that are normally denatured in the kiln. So maybe what you lose by not allowing full germination, you get back by not performing the kilning step. Or some of it anyway.

Raw barley reputedly contains beta amylase, so it is really the starch conversion that is the main issue in that case. Raw rye (and the related triticale IIRC) reputedly contains alpha, and there are urban rumours that it can convert itself but probably not other adjuncts. I wonder what the situation is with the gluten-free stuff? The B&B people will probably be able to tell you all about barley, but possibly not about other grains. A second issue is whether flouring accelerates enzyme degradation, either because of milling heat, oxidisation, moisture exposure, etc.

Whilst we're talking left-field mashing, both sweet potatoes and ginger reputedly contain amylase of some description. I haven't had any luck with ginger, and the flavour can be a bit much as well. Lastly, the starch in normal potatoes is unusual in that it can be thermally hydrolysed (ie, broken down into smaller units), typically under acidic conditions. This takes me back to a point that was raised right at the start of this African indigenous brewing discussion: the possibility of the microbes contributing to starch conversion. A prolonged, room temperature combination of mashing and fermenting could just work for some cereals/fruits/vegetables, possibly aided by the presence of lactic acid. I stress this is all pure speculation/no research on my part.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Raw Barley does contain Beta Amylase - but it is in the endosperm as a zymogen and is not activated until germination has commenced. The other starch degrading enzymes are not present in barley until produced de-novo in the aleurone layer during germination. So unfortunately - barley would just sit there and go soggy if you crushed it and mashed it.

Don't know about rye or other grains. Fruits and tubers etc all have some amylases - thats how they ripen. Probably a well sprouted potato would have amylases out the wahoo... who knows. I picked on bananas because I had a live example of them working in the Mbege/Urwaga beers.

Have no fear - the BB people know about other grains apart from Barley ... not as much as they know about barley, but still shitloads.

Microbes - you bet. Thats where the whole Koji thing comes in. The Sake guys have been doing exactly what you say for a millenium .. nice amylase producing mold. And there are amylotic yeasts as well. AND - In the traditional Mbege/Urwaga, the beers are sometimes/mostly acid fermented (lactic) and things get extended boils after acidification - so there is maybe a bit of acid hydrolysis going on as well. So perhaps - in the traditional Mbege/Urwaga beers they are hitting all the bases. Bananas adding enzymes to convert starch, Acid Hydrolysis, potentially amylotic non yeast (or yeast) microbes ... the works. They are certainly making seriously alcoholic hooch without the use of malt ... so something is happening.

The trick isn't to make it work -- the Africans, Japanese, South Americans (spit beer.. eew) etc etc have demonstrated perfectly well that it works. The trick is to tweak it into a process that can make acceptable Wester style beers. Oh .. and hopefully learn a shedload on the trip.

Thanks for your nicely pointed insights - every time you type a paragraph, I have to go do some research and I learn a few things. I appreciate it. This is all a lot of fun, and maybe just maybe has the seed in it for a research project in my (long distant, but planned) Masters.

Cheers

TB