Zidrel here,
I saw this had a lot of replies, so i thought id update.
Adding things to the mash works pretty well!
So far I have tried:
2x cheese pumpkins, roasted in the oven with honey (I could not taste any of the honey & im not sure if the roasting did anything). Created a dry, light beer with out any real flavor of pumpkin at all. Added whole ginger slices to secondary & then added a MLF culture. This one sat for around a year prior to bottling. It is still changing, but everyone likes it.
3.5 - 4# Stale bread from the discount section. I used mostly rye and pumpernickel. I am pretty sure there were some jalapeño bagels in there to. Added about two hand fulls of spicy rye malt. Makes a subtle flavor, turned the beer an amber color. Everybody loved it & we drank 2 pony keg's at a buddy's wedding.
5# of rye flour, straight out of the flour bag... holy stuck sparge; this was a night mare to brew... I ended up applying direct heat to the mash tun to liquify the bottom & get some flow. This beer came out slightly 'smoky' and the smoke has intensified with aging. The beer started out very 'viscous' at low temp - but it has dried & thinned with age.
*Started dual pitched with Saflager W-34/70 German Lager Yeast & A different Hefeweizen yeast - Dry yeast is the bomb! & it's cheep! Makes great beer.
Mash hopping - Just dump a bunch of hops in the mash. I am not to technical, but it basically makes the beer taste 'hoppy' but it is not bitter and you do not really smell it. I use leftovers for this & the hop's my buddy grows and does not use. My wife likes dark german dunkelweizen & hates hops - but she likes this.
All of my recipes use about 10# of red wheat. Wheat has the highest diastolic power of 1.9 - so I am trying to add about .9# of unmodified / little enzymatic activity 'adjunct' per pound of wheat.
For dark beers 1# of Midnight Wheat, for head retention I either add 1-2# of quick oats or a bag of flaked wheat.
I decoct nearly everything (either on purpose or accident) and stir the heck out of my mashes. I start with 1.9 qt / pound of water and then add water until the mash looks like a soup.
Tannins:
To much water in the mash & to high a temp makes the tannins come out- but with a thick(er) mash you can boil the 'f out of it - it's not bitter.
I usually use a thin (watery) mash because of all the wheat - and I have not had tannin issues (perhaps becasue the wheat does not have as much of a shell as barley?)
Laziness has taken over & I frequently just cover up the boil kettle with a trash bag taped on w/ duct tape & let it sit over night (or the whole next day at work. -Have not noticed any difference in recipe cooled this way vs. wort chiller.
-Beer, all appears normal. I am becoming convinced that if you starch convert right and/or have a good sanitary post boil process you can make just about anything into beer.
In a name:
It's also about marketing - I never tell people what kind of beer it is. I let them taste & decide. It's crazy what some people 'love' and others 'hate' & how powerful a name is in beer. If someone 'expects' something - then a lot fall's short. But if they decide what classification it is; then they usually like it better.
As long as you don't burn the mash, or let it get infected & it's carbonated appropriate to whatever style it is.. It seems to work.
