Efficient use of time and brewing process

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ColoHox

Compulsive Hand Washer
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I'm interested in everyone's thoughts/experience about my current process. I usually use a 90min mash in the normal single infusion temp range. Although my brewing process could use some help in terms of time efficiency (which may affect mash efficiency).

I have a single tier rims system but normally only recirculate for clarity, not temperature steps. With sparging, stirring, and recirculating, the mash/sparge can last 2+ hours. Sure, I can cut my mash to 60min, and I might. But here's the question:

Should I remove my mash insulation and apply gentle heat while recirculating in the last half of my mash, in order to do two things at once? Is the risk of losing heat by removing my insulation and pumping greater than the risk of applying too much heat during recirculation?
 
My big question is if you enjoy doing your mash your way so that the 2 hours is mental therapy or do you hate the time it takes so it becomes mental torture? There are ways of cutting down the time from dough in to beer in the fermenter but it will take a big leap from where you are now to the real time cutting. Is that worth it to you?
 
It would be worth it for me. I am not using my time effectively, maybe because I am approaching it too sequentially. I think I could overlap some processes to speed up the day. I am open to suggestions when and how to do this so I can adjust.
 
Most of the reason for a 90 minute mash is a poor crush. Conversion takes less than 3 minutes for the majority of the sugars if the grain is milled very fine. Your system cannot deal with that fine of a crush or you will not be able to drain the tun but you certainly can crush fine enough to reduce that 90 minute mash to 60 minutes or less.

Get a bottle of iodine (about $10 at the pharmacy) and put 3 drops on a white plate, one drop in each location. When you mash in, take a drop of the wort and mix it with a drop of the iodine. It should turn purple to indicate the presence of starch. Take a second sample at 10 minutes and mix it with a different drop of iodine. Purple? It needs more time. (you would expect that). Try the third sample at 30 minutes. Now what color do you get?

Now drop another drop of iodine on the plate and get a sample with mostly crushed grains and put it next to but not touching the iodine. Carefully bring a little iodine to the grain. If it turns purple, the grain still has unconverted starch. Let this batch finish and get it in the fermenter. Now think about what you saw.

It takes time for water to wet through a piece of grain, the bigger the piece, the longer it takes. Crush finer and it wets through faster so you get conversion and then it takes time to leach the sugar out. The finer the crush, the less time it takes to convert and extract the sugars but when you get it too fine the (false bottom, manifold, bazooka tube, braid, whatever you use) clogs up. Part of the answer to that is to add a neutral agent that will help for a filter without clogging. Rice hulls are mentioned a lot for that. All of what I have mentioned up to this point is specific to your system.

I learned to mash in a bag. I use a paint strainer bag and with that as the filter, my grains can be milled until they are mostly flour. I have a Corona style mill and I set it so tight that the plates rub pretty hard when there is no grain in there to cushion them. With the grains milled that way, conversion takes only about 3 minutes and the sugars are pretty much on the surface of the grain particles so they rinse off very easily. I now usually mash for 10 minutes and get full conversion. As a plus to this, my efficiency is up to about 80% if I use the full volume of water for mashing and don't sparge. Add a couple quarts sparge and the efficiency goes up to about 85%. Whooeeee, I just saved 80 minutes of mash time and got better efficiency too. I usually have the wort heating while I do the sparge step so I save time there too. It will be a pretty big change if you decide to go this route so think about it a bunch before you change. Many people who have changed won't go back to a conventional tun.

Need your brew day shortened more yet? Read a bit about no-chill brewing. My last brew session had my wort in the fermenter and the tools put away about 2 1/2 hours from the time I got the tools out. I then waited 4 hours for the wort to cool before I pitched the yeast but I didn't have to watch anything for that period, in fact I just walked away and checked a couple times for temperature.
 
RM MN - Thank you for the great post. My efficiency is about 72%, which isn't terrible, but isn't all that good either. This is with a crush from my LHBS. I iodine test the wort without getting any grain to test for conversion. But, your discussion of testing the grain itself to see what is going on is very insightful. I'll be testing next time to see whether or not there is still unconverted starch in the grain, as opposed to unconverted starch in the wort.
 
Thanks for your insight, RM-MN. My mash efficiency is fine, I routinely get 80%. I am not concerned about my crush or tun filtration, just the time that the steps are taking. I also added a plate chiller and cut 30min off chilling time compared to my IC. Maybe I just want to have my cake and eat it too. I might just have to come to terms with the length of my brew day with the rig I brew on.

I suspect my issues are tied to the specifics of my system, in which case I will have to optimize that on my own. Are there any downsides to recirculating the entire mash besides the risk of unwanted temperature fluctuations?
 
I dont' see any reason for a 90 minute mash, unless you are using a ton of adjuncts and/or mashing in the mid 140s so you need the extra time.

I generally do a mash out- mashing for 60 minutes, then raising up to mash out temps in 10 minutes or so- because it's super easy with my HERMS to do that. I recirculate during the mash but it's not necessary really. It just helps me hold temperatures. Then I sparge over about 40 minutes. Sometimes I batch sparge, if I'm in a hurry, and that takes about 5 minutes or so.

If you think your process is too time-consuming for you, then you could definitely cut down on the mashing time, and possibly the sparging time depending on how fast you currently sparge.
 
I dont' see any reason for a 90 minute mash, unless you are using a ton of adjuncts and/or mashing in the mid 140s so you need the extra time.

I generally do a mash out- mashing for 60 minutes, then raising up to mash out temps in 10 minutes or so- because it's super easy with my HERMS to do that. I recirculate during the mash but it's not necessary really. It just helps me hold temperatures. Then I sparge over about 40 minutes. Sometimes I batch sparge, if I'm in a hurry, and that takes about 5 minutes or so.

If you think your process is too time-consuming for you, then you could definitely cut down on the mashing time, and possibly the sparging time depending on how fast you currently sparge.

Your sparge is 40min because you are fly sparging right? My batch sparge takes far longer than 5 minutes with stirring and resetting the grain bed. I am getting the picture that a 90min mash is just unnecessary.
 
Your sparge is 40min because you are fly sparging right? My batch sparge takes far longer than 5 minutes with stirring and resetting the grain bed. I am getting the picture that a 90min mash is just unnecessary.

Resetting the grain bed isn't necessary with a batch sparge. Stir the sparge water in, stir some more, and give it another stir- a quick vorlauf and pump to the boil kettle. Really, about 5 minutes.

I go back and forth, sometimes batch sparging and sometimes continuous sparging. My system favors continuous sparging (sometimes I get a stuck sparge when I batch sparge, due to the gap around my false bottom), but I still prefer batch sparging for the time savings.
 
"...have a Corona style mill and I set it so tight that the plates rub pretty hard when there is no grain in there to cushion..."

Pardon the newbie ignorance, but I thought too fine a grind was bad for tannin extraction, or is it only a matter of proper pH?
 
Pardon the newbie ignorance, but I thought too fine a grind was bad for tannin extraction, or is it only a matter of proper pH?

pH and temperature determine if you extract tannins. Keep the pH where it should be and the temperature doesn't matter. You can boil the grains without tannin extraction if your pH is right. If your pH gets a little high but you control the temps you won't extract tannins either. Get the pH and temperature too high and I'd guess the fine milling would expose more husk material to extract from.
 
I learned to mash in a bag. I use a paint strainer bag and with that as the filter, my grains can be milled until they are mostly flour. I have a Corona style mill and I set it so tight that the plates rub pretty hard when there is no grain in there to cushion them.

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but...Do you use rice hulls in the bag? If not, what prevents the bag from clogging with the fine grind? What is the mesh on the bag - do flour sized particles of husk make it through to the wort? Have you (or has anyone) done a side by side comparison of the same recipe made fine & fast in a bag vs slow and more traditional in a tun? I'd be interested in how the flavors compare.
 
The bag will hold 5 gallons. That makes a lot of filter area so no I do not use rice hulls, there is sufficient filtering area that clogging is not a problem, plus we BIAB people don't rely on just gravity to get the wort out, we squeeze the bag. Yes, small particles will fit through the mesh of the bag but they have to be very small to do so. Wilserbrewer makes custom bags that are even finer mesh than a paint strainer bag if that worries you. As far as I know, I'm the only one experimenting with the extremely short mash period. I've tried to encourage others to try it just to get more samples but so far nobody will own up to doing so. There have been comparisons with brews done in a conventional tun with BIAB and nobody claims any different results by the time the beer is ready to drink.
 
Resetting the grain bed isn't necessary with a batch sparge. Stir the sparge water in, stir some more, and give it another stir- a quick vorlauf and pump to the boil kettle. Really, about 5 minutes.

Perhaps I am spending too much time in vorlauf. I have to pump pretty slow, but it can take 15-20 minutes until the wort is clear. Maybe it doesn't have to be as clear as I let it get or my false bottom does not filter as well?

As far as I know, I'm the only one experimenting with the extremely short mash period. I've tried to encourage others to try it just to get more samples but so far nobody will own up to doing so. There have been comparisons with brews done in a conventional tun with BIAB and nobody claims any different results by the time the beer is ready to drink.

I "upgraded" from BIAB a few years ago when I built my current rig. BIAB was certainly faster. Do you prefer this method mostly because of the time savings? I wouldn't expect many differences in beer quality between the two processes, would you?
 
Perhaps I am spending too much time in vorlauf. I have to pump pretty slow, but it can take 15-20 minutes until the wort is clear. Maybe it doesn't have to be as clear as I let it get or my false bottom does not filter as well?



I "upgraded" from BIAB a few years ago when I built my current rig. BIAB was certainly faster. Do you prefer this method mostly because of the time savings? I wouldn't expect many differences in beer quality between the two processes, would you?

Perhaps you are confusing the goal of clear wort with the goal of clear beer. My wort is terribly cloudy when I start heating it toward boil but I still get clear beer. Isn't that really the goal? You vorlauf until you quit getting grain husks and particles, then drain. You don't have to have really clear wort.

I started my all grain with BIAB and haven't seen any reason to "upgrade" to a system that costs more, takes more time, and gets the same or worse results. I typically get about 85% efficiency. My back has been giving me lots of trouble so instead of doing a 5 gallon batch I do a 2 1/2 to cut the weight down. If I can make a 2 1/2 gallon batch in 2 1/2 hours, why would I want to change to your system?
 
Perhaps you are confusing the goal of clear wort with the goal of clear beer. My wort is terribly cloudy when I start heating it toward boil but I still get clear beer. Isn't that really the goal? You vorlauf until you quit getting grain husks and particles, then drain. You don't have to have really clear wort.

I started my all grain with BIAB and haven't seen any reason to "upgrade" to a system that costs more, takes more time, and gets the same or worse results. I typically get about 85% efficiency. My back has been giving me lots of trouble so instead of doing a 5 gallon batch I do a 2 1/2 to cut the weight down. If I can make a 2 1/2 gallon batch in 2 1/2 hours, why would I want to change to your system?

What are your thoughts on doing a 6 gallon batch in 2 1/2 hours?

I have a bag of crushed grain I haven't gotten to brew with yet, and now I'm contemplating running 1/2 of it through my corona to compare the fine/fast method with my normal procedure (SS braid MT with batch sparge). I'll have to ponder the process to do this side-by-side...
 
As far as I know, I'm the only one experimenting with the extremely short mash period. I've tried to encourage others to try it just to get more samples but so far nobody will own up to doing so.

You're not the only one using short mash times - Stone Brewing does too.

Examples from their book:
In a 10-gallon insulated cooler, combine the crushed malts with 3 gallons plus 12 cups of 172°F water. The water should cool slightly when mixed with the grain. Hold the mash at 156°F for 20 minutes.
In a 10-gallon insulated cooler, combine the crushed malts with 3 gallons plus 13 cups of 173°F water. The water should cool slightly when mixed with the grain. Hold the mash at 157°F for 10 minutes.
 
Perhaps you are confusing the goal of clear wort with the goal of clear beer. My wort is terribly cloudy when I start heating it toward boil but I still get clear beer. Isn't that really the goal? You vorlauf until you quit getting grain husks and particles, then drain. You don't have to have really clear wort.

I started my all grain with BIAB and haven't seen any reason to "upgrade" to a system that costs more, takes more time, and gets the same or worse results. I typically get about 85% efficiency. My back has been giving me lots of trouble so instead of doing a 5 gallon batch I do a 2 1/2 to cut the weight down. If I can make a 2 1/2 gallon batch in 2 1/2 hours, why would I want to change to your system?

I'm not confusing the two, I understand that clear beer is the goal. When I vorlauf, the runnings go from heavy grain debris, to cloudy, to clear over about 20 minutes (x2 with 2 runnings). I usually let it run until it is clear (seemed like a good idea). What I am gathering is that this is unnecessary and I can transfer or stop the vorlauf when it is free of grain debris. That will save some time.

If I do transfer to the boil when the wort is still cloudy, should I expect more break material? My current practice of using long reciruclation and transferring clear wort seems to result in very low amounts of break accumulation. I use techniques to avoid the trub/break, so more won't be an issue.

I make 10 gallons in 5-6 hours, setup to cleanup. And, I think there are probably ways I could speed that up, not counting milling and weighing stuff out. I'm not trying to convince anyone to do it my way, just asking for input.
 
What are your thoughts on doing a 6 gallon batch in 2 1/2 hours?

I have a bag of crushed grain I haven't gotten to brew with yet, and now I'm contemplating running 1/2 of it through my corona to compare the fine/fast method with my normal procedure (SS braid MT with batch sparge). I'll have to ponder the process to do this side-by-side...

I can't do it. I do my brewing on the kitchen range and it takes a little longer to heat 6 gallons than it does to heat 3. It would also take more time to stir in the grains. I'd be looking at about 2 3/4 hours instead of 2 1/2.;)
 
You're not the only one using short mash times - Stone Brewing does too.

Examples from their book:

Thanks for finding that. Most people seem to think I'm crazy for doing such a short mash. (some think I'm crazy for other reasons too, but that's a different thread). :D
 
How does the short mash affect the attenuation of the yeast you are using?

The mash would not affect the yeast's attenuation at all. If RM-MN can get 80-85% of the sugars out of the mash in a short period, 60-85% of those will still be fermentable by a particular yeast.

Maybe you are asking about the fermentability of the wort instead? I think that would still be a function of temperature, among other things. I can't see why it would be any more or less fermentable.
 
The mash would not affect the yeast's attenuation at all. If RM-MN can get 80-85% of the sugars out of the mash in a short period, 60-85% of those will still be fermentable by a particular yeast.

Maybe you are asking about the fermentability of the wort instead? I think that would still be a function of temperature, among other things. I can't see why it would be any more or less fermentable.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I thought that duration was an important factor in fermentability and fermentability was a factor in attenuation. My understanding is that time and temperature play together. That's why people mashing at the lower end 150-148 will mash for 75 minutes or longer if they are trying to achieve a highly fermentable wort. If I am wrong could you explain to me how fermentability doesn't affect attenuation.
 
Perhaps I am wrong, but I thought that duration was an important factor in fermentability and fermentability was a factor in attenuation. My understanding is that time and temperature play together. That's why people mashing at the lower end 150-148 will mash for 75 minutes or longer if they are trying to achieve a highly fermentable wort. If I am wrong could you explain to me how fermentability doesn't affect attenuation.

Well, that's kind of the conversation we are having. RM-MN, and others, have pointed out that an incredibly short mash can produce a very fermentable wort. Temperature is the more important distinction, I think. Unless there is a very large proportion of adjuncts or a very low mash temperature, mash duration is less critical, as yooper mentioned early in the thread.
 
I got that. The things I saw was RM MN's duration, and the temp from the stone recipes. In my experience, high mash temps killed attenuation/fermentability (which was good in my sessionable IPA (3.9% abv). I'm wondering what results he is getting on regular beers with the short mash time (I guess I was also assuming he was mashing high temp as well, but after relooking over everything didn't see an actual temp given).
 
RM MN, I encourage you to start a topic about this. Your method is fascinating, defies everything I've read (and that's a very large amount), and I love it.

I'll crank my corona mill so tight that I'm worried about the fermentability of iron if it means saving an hour of brew day...

Thanks.
 
What I have read is that the beta amylase works slower than the alpha amylase and the beta amylase is what gives you the short chain sugars that are the more fermentable. What I haven't been able to find is just how much slower the beta amylase works at what temperature. I've been mashing mostly in the 152 to 156 to get the fermentability I want.
 
What I have read is that the beta amylase works slower than the alpha amylase and the beta amylase is what gives you the short chain sugars that are the more fermentable. What I haven't been able to find is just how much slower the beta amylase works at what temperature. I've been mashing mostly in the 152 to 156 to get the fermentability I want.

Kaiser did some experiments that get close:
Beta_amylase_activity.gif

Alpha_amylase_activity.gif


And a paper published a decade ago adds some insight.

I still haven't come across anything reliably describing enzyme activity at mash temp for the first 30 min.

enzyme activity.gif
 
So, doesn't the top chart indicate that all beta amylase has been denatured or otherwise inactivated within 30 minutes at 66C/151F?

That's certainly what it looks like. Although I cant be sure if there is enough activity occuring within 30min to sufficiently get the job done.
 
That's certainly what it looks like. Although I cant be sure if there is enough activity occuring within 30min to sufficiently get the job done.

Considering many of us have negative starch tests at the 20-30 minute mark, I would conclude that there is enough activity occurring in 30 minutes to get the job done. I only go 60-90 minutes on a mash if it works better with my schedule that day, or if I'm interested in a highly fermentable wort.

Keep in mind that the rate of enzymatic reactions (such as with B-amylase chopping starch into short sugar chains) increases with temperatures. So even if beta activity looks to decrease with time, the rate that those enzymes are doing their thing is faster at the higher temps, even if they poop-out quicker.

Lastly, I see Kai's measurements as being expressed as a relative, not absolute value (although his axis title indicates that it is absolute). In other words, they are all expressed as a percentage of the starting amount at time = 0. So Beta activity may appear to be zero, but it but just be really low compared to the activity at the start.

I hope this makes sense and I'm interpreting the data correctly.
 
I sometimes question how accurate the iodine test is. I understand the premise, but I wonder how fast the color change drops off as the starch content approaches zero.

I.e., if the starch content is reduced to 95% of its original value, will the iodine test show zero starch when 5% is remaining? Wouldn't that remaining 5% (assuming the chemical process is logarithmic like nearly all other natural processes) take just as long to convert as the first 95%?

I mash for 90 minutes if I'm under 148, and 60 otherwise. I also brew indoors with HERMS / constant recirc, and get a lot of good videogame / tv time during the process. Shortening the brew day would be convenient, but also more stressful. I LIKE the down time personally. And with no kids, taking all day to brew works well for me. I understand others don't have that much time on their hands though
 
I sometimes question how accurate the iodine test is. I understand the premise, but I wonder how fast the color change drops off as the starch content approaches zero.

I.e., if the starch content is reduced to 95% of its original value, will the iodine test show zero starch when 5% is remaining? Wouldn't that remaining 5% (assuming the chemical process is logarithmic like nearly all other natural processes) take just as long to convert as the first 95%?

I mash for 90 minutes if I'm under 148, and 60 otherwise. I also brew indoors with HERMS / constant recirc, and get a lot of good videogame / tv time during the process. Shortening the brew day would be convenient, but also more stressful. I LIKE the down time personally. And with no kids, taking all day to brew works well for me. I understand others don't have that much time on their hands though

I'd like to know the answer to that too. Since I get a negative starch reaction by the iodine at 2 minutes, does that mean I should go twice that long or 4 times that long to be sure that all conversion is complete. The shortest I've mashed is 10 minutes and I'm getting good results from that so maybe it doesn't really matter if I could cut my mash time in half.:D
 
Until recently, I never had iodine to do the starch test. Several batches ago I decided to try it out just to have the personal experience. I doughed in, pulled a couple drops for test, and it very quickly went completely dark/black/purple. I mashed at 152F for 30 minutes and pulled another couple drops for test. They took much longer - maybe 30 seconds of mixing - but eventually enough color change occurred to turn the solution light grayish. Waited another 30 minutes and pulled a couple more drops. This time, aside from the particles in the drops, the solution did not change the dark/gray/purple color (the particles did though).

To the unexperienced (me :D), I would conclude that my 30 test reading still contained starch in solution, whereas my 60 minute test did not contain starch in solution. Have I interpreted these results correctly from your standpoint?

A little while back I tested gravity readings with starch in solution (cornstarch in water) using a refractometer and hydrometer, for comparison. What I found was eye opening to me; although thinking about what the instruments are measuring puts it in perspective. The refractometer reads a starch solution as 0 brix (to be expected), whereas a hydrometer reads gravity points from a starch solution (i.e. a value greater than 1.000 - again, after thinking it through, is also to be expected). While the hydrometer is a useful and necessary instrument; using a refractometer preboil is probably preferential since it will not read starch in solution as sugar brix. Using the two, in combination, would be the best approach since you can use their agreement to indicate that complete conversion has been fulfilled. Anyway, this test of starch in solution came as a surprise to me even though it should not have, and confirmed that my approach of using a refractometer preboil is arguably the better approach.
 
Until recently, I never had iodine to do the starch test. Several batches ago I decided to try it out just to have the personal experience. I doughed in, pulled a couple drops for test, and it very quickly went completely dark/black/purple. I mashed at 152F for 30 minutes and pulled another couple drops for test. They took much longer - maybe 30 seconds of mixing - but eventually enough color change occurred to turn the solution light grayish. Waited another 30 minutes and pulled a couple more drops. This time, aside from the particles in the drops, the solution did not change the dark/gray/purple color (the particles did though).

To the unexperienced (me :D), I would conclude that my 30 test reading still contained starch in solution, whereas my 60 minute test did not contain starch in solution. Have I interpreted these results correctly from your standpoint?

I have had similar experience with the iodine test. I never get complete conversion by 30 min. and almost always by 60. That is why I decided on 90min just to be sure, even though it is probably overkill. I am really curious why some of us have incomplete conversion in 30 while RM-MN is getting complete conversion in <10 min.

Maybe it is an issue with reagents used or color perception. But, BadWolfBrewing brings up a good point in the interpretation of the sensitivity of the iodine test.
 
Doesn't alpha amalayse quickly convert all starch to sugar while beta slowly chops thise sugars into shorter chains? Beta doesn't act directly on starch does it? That would explain the iodine test showing lack of starch so quickly.

I have done a lot of experimenting myself with short mash times. I found that 20 mins is more than enough time to get a quality fermentable wort. With today's highly modified malts, these short mash times are perhaps something that wasn't possible in years past, and therefore flies in the face of previously established best practices.

With these newer super malts, it's been found that mash temperature has a much smaller effect on fermentability as well. Someone published some data that showed US 2-row was almost exatly as fermentable when mashed at the high end of the temp range as it was mashed at the low end. In my experience, a short mash results in a slighly lower fermentability, so I have started lowering my mash temps a few degrees to compensate with very good results, so I'm not sure what to make of all the data. Maybe that test was just one brand of malt, or maybe specialty grains have something to do with it? I'll keep experimenting, but I've been happy to shorten my brewday without compromising my beer. It gives me more time to experiment with hop stands.
 
I have had similar experience with the iodine test. I never get complete conversion by 30 min. and almost always by 60. That is why I decided on 90min just to be sure, even though it is probably overkill. I am really curious why some of us have incomplete conversion in 30 while RM-MN is getting complete conversion in <10 min.

Maybe it is an issue with reagents used or color perception. But, BadWolfBrewing brings up a good point in the interpretation of the sensitivity of the iodine test.

Most of the differences in the time to get conversion is in the size of grain particles. It takes time to wet the grain particles, more time with larger particles. Whole grains may take days. Until the grain gets wet all the way through, the enzymes are not activated and starches are not converted. I've mentioned a number of times that I mill my grains very fine, too fine to be able to work in a conventional mash tun but that lets the grain particles wet through nearly immediately.

Doesn't alpha amalayse quickly convert all starch to sugar while beta slowly chops thise sugars into shorter chains? Beta doesn't act directly on starch does it? That would explain the iodine test showing lack of starch so quickly.

Beta amylase chops the long chain sugars into shorter chain sugars when the alpha amylase gets the starches broken down into the long chain sugars but the beta starts as soon as the alpha has some broken down so the two enzymes are working at the same time. I don't have data showing how much slower beta amylase works than alpha though.
 
A-amylase, basically, liquifies starch turning it into carbohydrate soup. The enzyme breaks down the starch chain somewhat randomly, but at 1-4 links. Everytime it cuts the chain, a reducing end and a non-reducing end are formed. B-amylase will chop off two molecules from only the non-reducing end of the chain and combine the two molecules with one molecule of water, producing maltose. B-amylase, also, can chop off three molecules from the chain and combine with one molecule of water, producing maltriose. The more non reducing ends, the more b-amylase as to work on and the faster it works. Usually, to have conversion happen in ten minutes, the malt needs to have de-branching enzymes in it. The enzymes work with a and b amylase by producing a lot of non reducing ends. The problem is, the enzymes are kilned out of modern malt. It is not unusual for tri-decoction, using under modified malt, to convert in ten minutes. A small portion of the de-branching enzymes remain intact in low temp kilned malt. The decoction brewer, using under modified malt, will employ a rest at the temp favoring dextrinase and maltase. The iodine test is about the only thing a homebrewer can use as a conversion gauge. A way to do the test is to pour a table spoon or so of mash liquid into a plate and drop by drop add iodine to the puddle. Until a layer of iodine is formed. Check the color at the interface. If the color is deep red/brown at the interface, the sample contains gelatinized starch (amylose and large a-limit dextrins (not too good). If the color is light red, the sample contains simple a-limit dextrines. If the color is brown/violet it contains small a-limit dextrins. Absolutely, no color change indicates a good mix of a-limit dextrines (maltose and maltriose). After using iodine a bunch of times, gaining experience, you will be able to gauge what is in the sample by the colors. That is the method Siebel teaches. A drop of liquid into a drop of iodine, don't cut the mustard. Nor, does the chock method. If knowledge of what enzymes do and how they work is desired, Noonan's book on lager brewing is a good primer. The ASBC and ABJ have articles on the subject. Sometimes, there is more to brewing, than dumping hot water on grain. Single infusion allows a brewer to work with an extremely narrow pallette, when enzymatic action is considered. Check out recipes for programmed mashing and notice the various temps employed, that take advantage of enzymatic action. If desiring to move beyond infusion or program mashing, attempt tri-decoction, using low modified malt. You might be amazed at what can be produced. If a brewer is focused on two to three hour brew time, the processes aren't for that brewer.
 
Hello, Sorry for my ignorance, I haven't seen mention of this.

But isn't their flavor that is also being leached out of the grains ? along with the starch and sugar?

Or is the flavor of the grain being held inside of the starch? or sugar? or both?

Cheers :mug:
 
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