GF Chestnut IPA Success!!!

Just poured the first of this GF Chestnut IPA today, and it came out great. Color is spot on; very hoppy; closest to a barley flavor that I've tasted in GF.

Recipe:
-5 lbs of med roast chestnuts, boiled in 5 gallons of H2O for 5 mins in grain bag. Shut off heat and steeped the chestnuts until temp came down to 150.
-Added 2.5 tsp. of amylase and 2.5 tsp. of pectic enzyme.
-Mashed for 24 hours at 140-150 degrees. Kept it on the stove for this. I found that my old electric stove was weak enough that keeping it on the lowest setting kept the temp almost constant. Overnight, I left the burner on the lowest setting and it only got down to 133.
- Added 5#'s of corn sugar
- Removed bag and rinsed with an additional 1 gallon of water, bringing total volume to 5.7 gallons.
- Boiled with the following additions:
- 60 mins - 3 oz Columbus
- 30 mins - 1 oz Columbus
- 15 mins - Whilfloc tablet; 2 lbs Sorghum syrup; 1 oz Columbus; 8 oz of Maltodextrin (mixed with 2 cups H20); added immersion chiller to kettle at this time
- 5 mins - 1 oz Columbus
- 1 min - 1 oz Columbus
OG - 1.072
After 2 weeks in primary, dry hopped with 1 oz Cascade
Kegged after about 6 weeks.
FG - 1.010

I was going to add heading powder, but forgot. Starts with a decent head, but quickly dissipates.

I would make this again, although with the chestnuts, it's fairly pricey.

So do the chestnuts actually contribute to the OG or are we seeing just the 5lbs of corn sugar and 2lbs of sorghum? Are the chestnuts basically a steep for color and flavor?

In Beer Calculus, I only get an OG of 1.060 with 5# corn sugar and 2# sorghum, so the chestnuts must be contributing something. After the steep, I tasted it and it was very sweet.

As I understand it, that's the whole purpose of adding the amylase in the chestnut recipes I've seen. I certainly hope they're contributing something, considering how much of a PITA it is to mash them for 24 hours.

I wonder if anyone's bothered to check if the 24 hour mash is really necessary? Like take a gravity reading every couple hours, to see how much activity there really is after the first few hours.

I thought gravity was reading the density of the solution, so it wouldn't matter whether that solution was sugar or starch? If I take a reading every hour, wouldn't the density remain constant, irregardless of whether it's starch or sugar? Or, does the conversion from starch to sugar change the density of the solution?

Wouldn't it be better to do an iodine test every few hours?

What is heading powder? Is it GF?

frothdaddy said:

I thought gravity was reading the density of the solution, so it wouldn't matter whether that solution was sugar or starch? If I take a reading every hour, wouldn't the density remain constant, irregardless of whether it's starch or sugar? Or, does the conversion from starch to sugar change the density of the solution?

Wouldn't it be better to do an iodine test every few hours?

Click to expand...

Doing both would be the most comprehensive, but you're missing the fact that the starch does not all extract into the solution instantaneously when you add water. Enzymes don't take a long time to do their work; usually enzymes will convert starch to sugar in a matter of minutes! As I understand it, the reason barley mashes take as long as they do is that the starches take that long to gelatinize and become soluble, and the enzymes are continuously converting starch as it becomes soluble. My guess is that chestnut starch is harder to get into solution than most grain starch; but I can't imagine why, presuming you get a comparably-fine grind, that a 15-20 minute boil wouldn't fully gelatinize them, after which point you could cool them to optimal saccharification temp, add the enzymes, and get full conversion inside 2 hours. But I'm also not a food scientist, so there could be a piece I'm missing.

igliashon said:

Doing both would be the most comprehensive, but you're missing the fact that the starch does not all extract into the solution instantaneously when you add water. Enzymes don't take a long time to do their work; usually enzymes will convert starch to sugar in a matter of minutes! As I understand it, the reason barley mashes take as long as they do is that the starches take that long to gelatinize and become soluble, and the enzymes are continuously converting starch as it becomes soluble. My guess is that chestnut starch is harder to get into solution than most grain starch; but I can't imagine why, presuming you get a comparably-fine grind, that a 15-20 minute boil wouldn't fully gelatinize them, after which point you could cool them to optimal saccharification temp, add the enzymes, and get full conversion inside 2 hours. But I'm also not a food scientist, so there could be a piece I'm missing.

Click to expand...

Ah, that makes sense. That would be a worthwhile experiment, since the 24 hour mash really is a PITA. I may try that when I re-make this.

@ChasidicCalvinist, this is heading powder: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/heading-powder-1-oz.html

Dextrose is GF, right?

It doesn't make any sense to have a mash that long because the amylase enzymes will certainly have denatured after a few hours at mash temps. If you're using added enzymes (lacking good pale malt, we have no choice) you could continue to add more throughout the mash for more conversion. The long mash may be for the pectic enzyme?

I just did a quick google search, and it I didn't find much by way of an authoritative source, but everything seems to suggest that pectic enzyme denatures above about 113F, which is way below my mashing temp.

Maybe the pectin didn't do anything at all. It certainly looked like muddy water at the time it went into the fermentor. Perhaps the clarifying that I saw post-fermentation was only because of the lapse of time and the cold crash before bottling. Wine makers add it pre-fermentation, not prior to boil: http://www.ldcarlson.com/images/Chemicals/6382A.JPG

I guess this all calls into question whether this 24 hour mash is at all necessary.

Yeah I usually add pectic enzyme in primary, come to think of it. Not sure why it would go into the boil...

BTW--congrats on the good beer! Always a worthy cause of celebration in the world of gluten free homebrew.

I live in a region where wine and cider making is prominent. Where I come from, pectic enzyme is used to maximize must extraction - what is it supposed to achieve in beer making?

Chestnuts are fruit, so it's a cloudy muddy mess when you rack to the primary. Pectic enzyme is supposed to help all of that drop out and clarify the brew ... whether it actually did that by adding it to the mash is another question.

igliashon said:

My guess is that chestnut starch is harder to get into solution than most grain starch; but I can't imagine why, presuming you get a comparably-fine grind, that a 15-20 minute boil wouldn't fully gelatinize them, after which point you could cool them to optimal saccharification temp, add the enzymes, and get full conversion inside 2 hours. But I'm also not a food scientist, so there could be a piece I'm missing.

Click to expand...

Update: Over the holidays I saw fresh chestnuts on sale, so chopped, dried in a food dehydrator, and then ground them in my corona mill. I tried exactly this: boiling for 15 minutes, then cooling to saccarification temp and adding enzymes.

The answer to this question is a resounding no, it can't (shouldn't) be done that way. The boiling of the chestnut chips left a lot of starch particles in the solution that wouldn't convert. I finished the brew session anyways, and had a good primary fermentation, but I can see a good 6-12 inches of starch that has settled in my carboy. My yield off of this 5 gallon batch will be lucky to be 2.5 gallons.

I'm going to do another experiment though, testing brix and starch conversion on a long mash to see if that long mash is truly necessary (especially when adding 5# of sugar). I suspect that I can get a lot of flavor/color out of a much shorter mash, by only sacrificing a few gravity points.

Also, for those out there that think they can chop, dry, and grind their own chestnut chips for a fraction of the price of Chestnut Trails .... this is a huge PITA, and I now think the Chestnut Trails chips are an incredible bargain, compared to the hours of work it took me to get only a few pounds.

frothdaddy said:

Also, for those out there that think they can chop, dry, and grind their own chestnut chips for a fraction of the price of Chestnut Trails .... this is a huge PITA, and I now think the Chestnut Trails chips are an incredible bargain, compared to the hours of work it took me to get only a few pounds.

Click to expand...

Hah, I recently had fire roasted chestnuts for the first time in my life this winter and holy moley was it a pain in the arse to get them out of their shells to eat. Couldn't imagine doing a few pounds of them!

Just brewed my 1st beer using Chestnuts a few weeks ago. I followed the Mashing instructions from Trails End as follows:

Heat 5 gallons of water to about 160-170 degrees and add bag with chips to pot. Add pectinase and amylase per manufacture’s directions. Chestnuts are really a fruit and the pectinase will create a much clearer end product by dissolving suspended pectins. Add water needed to fill brewing pot. Allow to soak 12-24 hours [24 is better] to obtain maximum enzyme action. During soak, raise and lower grain bag a couple times an hour when possible to get maximum sugar extraction. At the end of the soak you should have a brix of 4-5%.

I did mash for 24 hours at 166 degrees (that was were my stove could be adjusted to hold the temp) and ended up with a 5% Brix reading. I had an OG of 1.052. Primary fermentation was 2 weeks at 66 degrees. I took a gravity reading and it was 1.022! It fermented hard for about 1-2 days then the krausen fell. I repitched another pack of yeast, raised temp to 68 and tested again after 3 days, no change. I have since racked to a 2ndary and plan to dry hop before kegging. Makes no sense why the fermentation stoped as it wasn't tempeture or yeast related. My only thought is there are more unfermentables then planned.

I was researching mashing chestnuts to see what others may have found and discovered this thread. It was interesting that you are mashing at a lower temp.

I just went back to Trails End and noticed the Chestnut beer recipe has changed! Here are the latest instructions:

Heat 5 gallons of water to about 160-170 degrees and add bag with chips to pot. Remove from heat after about an hour and add pectinase and amylase per manufacture’s directions. [155 to 160 is temp that enzymes work the best] Chestnuts are really a fruit and the pectinase will create a much clearer end product by dissolving suspended pectins. Allow to soak 1-2 hours [2 is better] to obtain maximum enzyme action. Allow to soak for a few more hours. During soak, raise and lower grain bag a couple times an hour when possible, to get maximum sugar extraction. At the end of the soak you should have a brix of 4-5%.

Of note, no longer recommend 12-24 hour mash, mash temp is also lower (155-160) than before, and the pectinase and amylase are added after allowing it to cool below 160.

In looking at my results I see several possiblities for my, amalyse didn't achieve the correct conversion, mash was too warm and for too long.

Any other thoughts?