Beano -- who needs it?
 

I know that some people add Beno or amalase enzyme to the beer to help dry it out. My first all grain finished pretty dry. OG 1.044 FG 1.004
This was with 2 lbs of Crystol 40L.

It wasn't exactly what I was going for, but I learned some things. First, I need to cover the cooler with a blanket or towel to help hold the heat in. Second, I need a higher sparge temperature. I did a batch sparge at about 155F. So the enzymes just kept doing their thing. The sparge water was sitting in the cooler for probably 45 mins or so.

In any case, if your looking to have a very dry / low carb beer, why mess with beno and not play with your mash? I'm bet if I wanted I could get my FG even lower. I bet if I did a two hour mash at 145-150, the FG would be lower still.

What kind of yeast did you use? I suspect measurement error.

I have never targetted a dry beer, but I plan to make a Kolsch style beer soon, so I will remember this post when I do. I think I will probably not do a 2 hour mash though, probably only 1 hour and a half. What yeast were you using btw?

Changing you mash schedule would be preferable to using beano without a doubt. Some people have used Beano because it helps dry out a beer, but there is just not a lot of control when you use it. You can easily take a beer below FG of 1 using Beano.

'Beno -- who needs it?'

My wife and all the girls in her family-that's who.:D

I used Safebrew WB-006. A measurement error in what? Hydrometer? FG or OG?

One more thing, I didn't adjust my gravity for temperature. I'm guessing it was around 70F when I took a gravity. It wasn't any hotter then 80F in the house. So the FG was probably 1.005 and could have been as high as 1.006. Either way it's still fermented pretty dry and I believe more could be accomplished with mash temps.

I read a thread about using beano, and one of the problems people had was a fermentation the went on indefinitely. They were adding beano to the primary or secondary. It's like the beano works slow, but just keeps on going. It seems to me that you want to be able to stop enzyme activity before fermenting. Otherwise, there's a risk of bottle bombs or you have to wait forever before bottling.

I think a person could accomplish the same thing with the mash by making the right adjustments.

I'm brewing a saison today and am a little concerned about not getting a low enough FG using WLP 565. I thought about adding beano to the mash but instead I think I will just mash low (146*) with a thin mash, mash for 2 hours, and have a big starter of WLP 550 ready to pitch five days into fermentation. I am pitching a half gallon starter of 565 Saison yeast. Hopefully that will get me where I need to be without adding amylase enzymes.

Report back your results, I'd like to know what can be accomplished with mash temps. personally, I wasn't shooting for a low FG, I've been overcompensating for a mistake with my first mash (partial). My first mash was done at 185F. I don't think I got much enzyme activity. Very high FG. So the last couple of mashes I made sure enzyme activity is happening. Although, I overdid it a bit. I still learned some things.