Bitter Sweet?

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hopdawg

hopdawg

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I'm an IPA fan. I love the bitter but I also love the rich sweet. Many IPAs I've tasted have a balance of sweet with their strong bitter. How do they achieve this? More sugar in the fermentation means more alcohol conversion does it not?
 
Oh boy, I've got a lot to learn.
I've been all grain and I've noticed that the IPA's I've built have all been very dry. Of the two I've done both have been 11 LBS of grains with 8-12oz of specialty malts.
So are you saying more grains less attenuation?
I've let ALL the beers I've made drop below to 1.006-1.008. Should I rack to secondary sooner? At what SG?
 
faststage1 said:
...So are you saying more grains less attenuation?
Click to expand...

No...the higher your attenuation, the dryer the beer becomes because it ferments out so thoroughly.

Two things that will absolutely leave you with a maltier flavor profile:

1) Mash your grains at the higher end of the range. 155-158 is a good range for bringing that malt flavor up.

B) Mash shorter. Instead of a 60+ minute mash, try shortening that down to 40-45 minutes.

Here's a quick discussion on Controlling Attenuation Through Mash Times
 
+1 on the mash time/temp., but also look at your recipe. The amount of unfermentable sugars also makes a difference. For example, pale or 2-row malt is very fermentable, while crystal malts (just one example) leave more residual sweetness/maltiness because they are somewhat less fermentable. It might help if you posted your recipe too.
 
You can try...Higher mash temps (156-158), more crystal malts, add some aromatic malt, use lower attenuating yeast...

Maybe keep your malts the same, but use more lower AA hops? More aroma but less overall bitternes...
 
If this means giving up my mashing nap then I'll live with dry ales.

That is great insight thanks for the tip. I also checked out your rolling keggerator, its appears as though I'm not trying hard enough.;)
 
Another question. To achieve good efficiency as well as wort with a high portion of unfermentables, would you recommend as you say a shorter duration higher temp plus a rapid batch sparge at a higher temp?
 
I would use a thicker mash... somewhere between 1-1.25qt/lbs, mash out up to 168°, them sparge as necessary to achieve your pre-boil volume. The temp and the mash thickness both play a part in how fermentable your wort is. Sparging is just rinsing our your sugars and saving your cash on grain.
 
I see. So if I want my cake and eat it too (rich flavour and high efficiency) I have to increase my grains, reduce the amount of mashing water, increase the heat and reduce the mashing time. Yes?

For example my last Pale ale looked like this
10# Gambrinus 2 row pale
0.5# Crystal Malt

Next time around should I try
14# 2 row pale
1# Crystal
mash at 158F for 40-45min
How's that sound?
 
If you plan on adding 4 extra pounds of grain, be prepared to add more hops too. Lol... Now we're talkin my language! MORE MALT, MORE HOPS, MORE FUN!
 

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