Have I Buggered Up My First All Grain?

[mje1980]

Well, my point was that 1/3 of the fermentables are not grain. I call maltose/dextrose/lactose/maltodextrin/sucrose/fructose etc. sugar. Perhaps it is not accepted in this community, but I think that's the terminology used by organic chemists.

Anyway, we should start a "semantics" thread if we want to continue this discussion, as we are really hijacking Nath's thread here.

Maltose is one of the major sugars extracted from malted barley, so by your semantics, there is no such thing as all grain, just all sugar beers. I dont really care what organic chemist' call it.

And i think it might help nath with his beers, as i dont know anyone here who would think that DME is the same as sugar, when it comes to brewing.

 

[ballzac]

Maltose is one of the major sugars extracted from malted barley, so by your semantics, there is no such thing as all grain, just all sugar beers. I dont really care what organic chemist' call it.

And i think it might help nath with his beers, as i dont know anyone here who would think that DME is the same as sugar, when it comes to brewing.

Well, clearly we are talking about refined sugars. By your reckoning, a beer that is entirely made from malt extract can still be called AG :wacko: If a third of the fermentables can be refined, er...um...carbohydrates, and still call it AG, then at what point do you call it a partial?

I have a few recipe books, and none of them include DME, LME, or dextrose, in the AG recipes.

 

[under]

:icon_vomit:

 

[mje1980]

Originally, you had DME and dextrose lumped together as "sugar", but now were splitting them up in "refined" sugars?? hmmm


I dont have any rules for what is and isn't a partial, i suppose more grain than extract = AG, and the other way around. Don't care either way, call it what you want

My point is, brewing wise DME and dextrose come under different categories, and should be thought of as different. I definately wouldn't consider DME in a beer a sugar addition.

 

[Bribie G]

That's a hell of a lot of sugar to still be calling it AG. I mean, I call it AG when I add a dash of treacle or something for flavour, but that's a significant proportion of your fermentables there. Not having a go, just curious about whether this is commonly accepted nomenclature? I would call it a partial if it has anything in it that can easily be gotten from grain. A bit of extra pilsener malt and a bit of rice would replace those ingredients. However, adding honey or something can't be done with grain.

<hijack of thread>

I'm not an all grain brewer, I'm a full mash brewer (the nomenclature used on most UK websites) and I regularly add sugaz to various brews depending on style. For example I would never contemplate adding sugaz to a German Pils but quite happily chuck 300 of the white and deadly into a UK bitter, because that's the style. "All grain" I suspect came from the US fraternity who, understandably, have a horror of sugars and adjuncts after suffering Bud and Miller for decades. However horses for courses and it's interesting to see that the Yanks are actually starting to explore their pre-Prohibition heritage and now experimenting with century old American techniques such as using their 6 row malt with cooker mash (maize or rice) etc etc etc. In British Commercial brewing, unmalted adjunct grains are classed as sugars (following the repeal of the Malt Act) - I prefer the use of the term "adjuncts" to avoid getting into tangles about what constitutes an all grain brew. For example a NZ style lager brewed with pale malt, maize and hops is all grain but an almost identical brew made with malt, sugar and hops (similar flavour, identical ABV) is not all grain. However both are definitely 'adjunct' brews as opposed to all malt brews. If you are going to reclassify All Grain as "All Malt" in the sense of the Reinheitsgebot then you aren't allowed to use the likes of roast barley or flaked barley in stouts, or flaked Wheat in Australian Sparkling Ales etc etc.

Water muddy enough yet? :lol:

<end of hijack>

Nath, you are definitely on track for your next brew - keep on truckin'

:beerbang:

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

+1 for bog standard rice. Just did an AG mexican style beer and used 4kg of Barrett Burston Pilsner Malt and 1kg of rice. Boiled the hell out of it, until it was fairly slushy and then put it in with the grain in the mash. It pretty well all breaks down.

as for gloves - my missus spotted at Bunnings (I love bunnings) a pair of black garden/general use rubber gloves, which are perfect for AG (and cheap too) - my brother (ex-mechanic) burns his hands with washing up gloves, which my hands, although tougher (office hands) can't fit into those gloves and I started burning myself (still have burn marks after 2 weeks.

As a 12 year brewer (2 years kit/K&K, 10 years partial extract/partial grain), I personally think AG is no powered/liquid malt. But that is more borne from my self esteem that I've finally switched to doing grain only, rather than any AG snobbery - after all, I spend 10 years using grain and goo, without having the guts to switch, and my pride at finally switching is the big factor in this.

Having said that, I do use adjuncts (despite a great deal of respect for the Reinheitsgebot), to either flavour, up the alcohol, thin out the body, keep to style. with the mexican, I added white-death sugar into the fermenter some days in, to thin and dry it out and activate the yeast to chew up uneaten grain-sugars. That is to keep to style/what I wanted for a summer quaffer.