Two Flavour Questions

[cpsmusic]

Hi Folks,

I've recently brewed an AG American Amber Ale. While I'm pleased with the results it hasn't come out as "malty" as I would have liked. As a result, I have a couple of questions related to malty flavour.

1. In BCS (p.149) it says that a lower mash temp produces a lighter-bodied more attenuable beer, while a higher mash temp produces a more dextrinous beer. While I understand this, I'm curious whether this has any effect on the flavour? For the AG brews I've done so far, I've used a single-step mash (67 degrees). Can mash temperature be used to influence the "maltiness" of the beer?

2. BCS explains quite a bit about how sugars are produced during mashing and how these are then converted into alcohol by yeast. What's not really explained is where the malty flavour in beer comes from. I understand the use of specialty malts and how they produce toffee/biscuit/roasted flavours. However, the "maltiness" is coming from compounds that are not converted into alcohol (or that eventually disappear). So, what is it that produces the "malty" flavour?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[kelbygreen]

ok I am far from a expert and only done a few brews myself so take this with a grain of salt.

1. I would think that mashing lower or higher will affect the malt "flavor" as if you mash lower it will ferment out which thins out the beer so the malt is not as much as mashing higher and getting a thicker beer. I am not to sure if its just a mouth feel thing or not but am very interested on more scientific answers that come out of this.

2. The malt flavour comes from the "malting" process each and ever malt will be malted differently so thats why no two malts taste the same. Think of malting like roasting of coffee beans, Malting is a process of putting malt into a kiln and heating it the longer and hotter the darker the malt. Again this is just from brief reading so other will explain better

 

[felten]

iirc BCS also says, you can have a dry malty beer, or a sweet malty beer. The malt flavour has more to do with the grist than the temperature.

 

[ashley_leask]

iirc BCS also says, you can have a dry malty beer, or a sweet malty beer. The malt flavour has more to do with the grist than the temperature.

Felton is right, the malty flavor (or lack of) comes from your grainbill rather than your mash profile. If you want to post your recipe you'll get some feedback. You might need to use extra specialty malts, or a different base malt to get the flavor you're after.

 

[Barry]

A simplistic response is to add 200+ gms of amber malt to give that extra malt profile. You can also add 500+ gms of Munich malt or use Maris Otter as a significant part of your base malt. Need to see your malt bill for your APA.

 

[manticle]

iirc BCS also says, you can have a dry malty beer, or a sweet malty beer. The malt flavour has more to do with the grist than the temperature.

Bit to do with both from my experience. Chuck some vienna or munich in for maltiness (or use something like Marris), step mash the sacch rest for full bodied, dry results. Do a 10-20 minute rest at 62 then bump it up to 68 for the rest of the mash.

First is to do with flavour, second is more about attenuation while retaining body and mouthfeel but they combine well.

Also certain yeasts seem to accentuate malt more than others even while attenuating as well as any of them and maillard reactions from wort reduction, long hard boils or decoctions will influence that final malty character.

Not science, my experience only.

 

[QldKev]

As manticle said, you could add heaps of Munich, this is one of my best malts. I do my APA's with up to 50% Munich. Vienna is a full and very smooth malt. If you want just a simple tweak I would try Aromatic at around 5% and build it from there.


QldKev