Really long conversion time?

I made my first wheat this weekend which roughly had about half malted wheat and the rest being fully modified 6 row Vienna and 6 row Munich. (dunkel). I did a 20 minute protein rest at 124 F and then mashed at around 150-151 F. It took almost 1.5 hrs to fully convert? I checked the runnings after 1 hr with Iodine and it was pretty black, so I just kept letting it sit and then kept testing. I would recirculate a few qts. and then check. It ended up taking a full hour and a half before the test showed no black. It was kind of neat actually, with each test over time you could see the little 'dots' in the Iodine getting smaller and smaller, kind of like pebbles to sand to dust analogy. Anyway, why so long?

I'm guessing the Vienna and Munich don't have the same enzyme concentration as fully modified 2-row, but that's only a guess.

Two things come to mind.

1)What were the percentages of malt?

North American munich malts tend to be a darker and have less degrees linter than their European counterparts. Briess munich 10 only has 30 degrees lintner, so it won't self convert. So if the percentage of munch was high enough it could have caused the slow conversion.


2) What was the ph of the mash?




Dave

Interesting topic as I had 2 mashes that didn't convert recently. I blamed it on my microwave mashing technique.

#1) where does one get some iodine ?

#2) what should the mash pH be and what would cause it to be wrong ?

Is anyone acidifying their mash water as per Dave Miller's recommendation ? If so, what are you using ? (Gypsum, acid blend, other ?)

brewman ! said:

Interesting topic as I had 2 mashes that didn't convert recently. I blamed it on my microwave mashing technique.

#1) where does one get some iodine ?

#2) what should the mash pH be and what would cause it to be wrong ?

Is anyone acidifying their mash water as per Dave Miller's recommendation ? If so, what are you using ? (Gypsum, acid blend, other ?)

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I got my Iodine at CVS pharmacy. A little bottle labled 'tincture of Iodine', cost about $3 and should last a very long time. The mash pH should be 5.2 to 5.6 optimally, although you can probably stretch it a little. I haven't played with it yet. If I shoot to brew a lighter style I just go to the spring and get some water from there as it is fairly soft naturally.

jager said:

Two things come to mind.

1)What were the percentages of malt?

North American munich malts tend to be a darker and have less degrees linter than their European counterparts. Briess munich 10 only has 30 degrees lintner, so it won't self convert. So if the percentage of munch was high enough it could have caused the slow conversion.

Dave

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I looked into the spec sheets as well. I did have the Briess and noticed the 30 degrees lintner, yet the Vienna is still pretty high @ 120 if I recall and my percentage of Vienna was pretty high, about 30%. The unknown factor is the Muntons wheat malt. I have not been able to find specs for it. Munton's seems to be a black box in this regard with all of their products, unless I am missing something, their website seems to have little information at all. I did use about %17 of the Briess Munich, you guys think this is the culprit? Thing is I have used it in other recipes with base malts of around 120 Lintner, in close to that percentage and haven't had a problem until now. I am really wondering about the Munton's Wheat Malt.

One other thing, does anyone have a webpage that explains the Lintner more clearly? I understand that the higher the number, the more capable of converting not only itself but additional malts yet I have no reference that explains what the numbers mean. Any formulas or help would be greatly appreciated.

zoebisch01 said:

I am really wondering about the Munton's Wheat Malt.

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I would think so too.

Did you try to raise the tremp to about 160 *F after a while. This would have sped up the alpha amylase.

Good thing you doughed in below the saccrification rest temp. This helps with low enzyme malts since it hydrates the starched before the enzymes are activated and stressed.

Kai

Kaiser said:

I would think so too.

Did you try to raise the tremp to about 160 *F after a while. This would have sped up the alpha amylase.

Good thing you doughed in below the saccrification rest temp. This helps with low enzyme malts since it hydrates the starched before the enzymes are activated and stressed.

Kai

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I would have, but my tun was just big enough (5.5 gal) to make the step.

Yeah, tell me about it ! Funny thing was, it was kind of on a whim that I decided to do it.

Kaiser said:

I would think so too.

Did you try to raise the tremp to about 160 *F after a while. This would have sped up the alpha amylase.

Good thing you doughed in below the saccrification rest temp. This helps with low enzyme malts since it hydrates the starched before the enzymes are activated and stressed.

Kai

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Kai, since I am locked in to some of these ingredients for the moment...should I start out with a very thick dough in 1:1 (this should give me more room), raise it to 151 and then try to get it as high as I can before running out of room? I am going to have a nice cake to use when I rack, and would like to take advantage of this but am kind of locked in to making a wheat. Or at least I really don't know of other styles that would use WLP380 other than wheats?

I did a hefe this last weekend and had a similar problem. I do batch sparge and don't have the equipment to do a protein rest. It came out to 50% efficiency and I'm consistently hitting 75%. I blamed it on the wheat, since it was my first experience with it. I thought maybe it took different temperatures or more time.