late extract addition & SRM

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JLem

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Ok, there is a lot of posts out there arguing that in non-AG brewing, late extract additions will keep the beer color lighter. SOme people talk about less caramelization , but others argue that caramelization doesn't occur at all, but it is Maillard reactions. Anyways, regardless of the mechanism, no where that I have found gives any sort of empirical data on this.

SRM is a measurable quantity, so are there numbers out there that show if and just how much late extract additions affect beer color? I mean, are we talking about 1-2 SRM points or 5-10?
 
Beersmith doesn't make any changes to SRM when you add for full boil or LEA for what its worth
 
Beersmith doesn't make any changes to SRM when you add for full boil or LEA for what its worth

This was actually precisely the reason I went looking for something empirical. I have a brew on the dark end of the style guidelines. I don't particularly care if I brew to style, but I was wondering if didn't do a LEA if I would end up outside the style. It's not a lot of effort to do LEAs, but I'd rather not take the wort off the boil to deal with it.
 
The point of a LEA is to affect hop utilization, not coloring. Extracts are screwed because they have already been cooked for an indeterminate amount of time, undergone an indeterminate amount of maillard reactions and because shelf life is also often indeterminable (and maillard reactions continue to oocur on the shelf), you have no control over or mechanism for estimating color.

Color is one of the most obtuse characteristics of beer...

Forget about it and brew good tasting beer.
 
The point of a LEA is to affect hop utilization, not coloring. Extracts are screwed because they have already been cooked for an indeterminate amount of time, undergone an indeterminate amount of maillard reactions and because shelf life is also often indeterminable (and maillard reactions continue to oocur on the shelf), you have no control over or mechanism for estimating color.

Color is one of the most obtuse characteristics of beer...

Forget about it and brew good tasting beer.

Agreed. But from what you are saying, as long as Maillard reactions are occurring, color is going to change as well. So, if the extract undergoes Maillard reactions in the kettle, it will affect the beer color (the ability or inability to predict color notwithstanding). So, are Maillard reactions occurring in the kettle?

EDIT: just found this indicating that Maillard reactions do NOT occur in the kettle.
 
Agreed. But from what you are saying, as long as Maillard reactions are occurring, color is going to change as well. So, if the extract undergoes Maillard reactions in the kettle, it will affect the beer color (the ability or inability to predict color notwithstanding). So, are Maillard reactions occurring in the kettle?

EDIT: just found this indicating that Maillard reactions do NOT occur in the kettle.

Sorry. I gotcha on active temps and moisture levels for maillard reactions.

I mispoke, I think I meant to say caramerlization in the kettle, at least for LME. This goes for the original creation and at the point you add the "finished" product to your kettle.
 
EDIT: just found this indicating that Maillard reactions do NOT occur in the kettle.


Maillard reactions do occur in the kettle. If you have amino acids and reducing sugars you will get Maillard reactions. But the rate at which they happen depends on factors like pH, water activity (i.e. water concentration) and temperature. It can even happen at room temperature.

Carmelization requires more temperature and low water concentrations to happen. But it does not require the presence of amino acids since it is not a reaction between a sugar and an amino acid but a change of the sugar itself.

Just have a look at this picture off wort samples of very different pH boiled for only 15 min

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/images/b/b9/Experiment_normal_vs_high_pH.jpg
Experiment_normal_vs_high_pH.jpg


(http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing#Maillard_reactions)

Kai
 
With respect to the initial question, adding extract late is likely to reduce the color of the wort because a substantial part of the amino acids and sugars are added later. To what extend it will do that is difficult to say because it depends on many factors that are not controlled or considered. That is the reason why you won’t find numbers or any calculator that accounts for this. No calculator I have seen attempts even accounting for the darkening of the wort during regular boils.

Kai
 
With respect to the initial question, adding extract late is likely to reduce the color of the wort because a substantial part of the amino acids and sugars are added later. To what extend it will do that is difficult to say because it depends on many factors that are not controlled or considered. That is the reason why you won’t find numbers or any calculator that accounts for this. No calculator I have seen attempts even accounting for the darkening of the wort during regular boils.

Kai

Seems like a pretty easy controlled experiment though. I wonder if the pH has more of an effect than the late addition - your example above is quite significant.

One could even generate a family of curves for pH-LEA-SRM
 
Seems like a pretty easy controlled experiment though. I wonder if the pH has more of an effect than the late addition - your example above is quite significant.

One could even generate a family of curves for pH-LEA-SRM

Another factor that needs to be considered is thermal loading. I.e. how intensely is the wort heated. A good enough proxy for that could be evaporation rate. That makes a lot of parameters for that experiment. But except for light beers, the beer color is generally set by the grist. A side-by-side for a concentrated boil and a LEA for a light beer would be interesting. I wonder how noticable the difference is.

Kai
 
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