How To Know If You Denatured Enzymes In The Mash

[kyleg]

So brewing today a hop hog attemp, I hit my mash temp (BIAB) but it started dropping pretty quickly so I turned my burner on and must have left it on too long, was measuring temp with a short probe digital thermometer. I think the mash ended up at between 70 and 75 for maybe 10-15 mins.

My target og is 1.060, how will I be able to tell if I've denatured enzymes? And will this result in a highly unfermentable wort?

Thanks.

 

[black_labb]

I may well have made a quite unfermentable wort as well. I gave mashing in an esky with a BIAB bag and I guess being shallower than my urn it has less of a temperature difference within the mash. Usually I stir it and it drops a fair few degrees, this time it barely dropped at all. It was also going to be a wee heavy so I was already mashing high. Ended up mashing at 66ish for 10 minutes then at 73 for another 80 minutes (longer mash may make it a bit more fermantable). If it turns out mostly unfermentable I'll dillute it and turn it into a low alcohol beer that I've been thinking about making for ages. The brew session had many more mistakes as well. Will probably turn into an excellent beer!!

To check the fermentability I'd do a mini fermentation at around 30 degrees to get it happening quickly and see where it ends at.

 

[dr K]

check your final gravity, if you have denatured your enzymes they stop working cause they are, if an enzyme can be dead, dead, in which case, given that malted barley has little if any sugar to start with you will have low sugar levels.....does not matter what malt sugar, it is extremely hard hard to make enough unfermentable sugars from mashing to have much more than a few points final gravity difference given identical fermentation regimes.
K

 

[kyleg]

I hit my target OG, but from what I understand it's more unfermentables that will be produced, so I guess I'll need to wait and see how fermentation goes and go from there. Hopefully it's not a super high FG, What could I do to balance out the sweetness if it does end up being a low attenuating ferment? Add some sugar in primary to boost the alc?

 

[black_labb]

You can use a dry enzime that is used to make low carb beers. I'm not sure exactly what effect they have though. Wether the enzyme is able to make nearly all of the unfermentable sugars usable by the yeast or wether it just breaks down some of the somplex sugar chains.

 

[QldKev]

I would not be too worrried, unless you are brewing for a comp.

Document the times and temps on your brew sheet. Then ensure you check your FG and even if it is higher than expected being a 'hop hog' I assume it will be quite bitter, so it may just end up a balanced beer rather than an APA. You never know, it may turn out to be a cracker that you will try and brew again.

QldKev