Beta Amylase: FOUND!

http://www.eckraus.com/2-oz-diatase-enzyme.html

Alright, it's on, guys. Gonna give this stuff a try on some buckwheat and see what happens! (In a week or two, anyway)

Good to hear for sure.

Those less knowledgeable and adventurous (like me, although I'm learning! ) await your results with baited breath!

Interesting. I wonder if we weren't able to find it because it wasn't really able to be found at the brew stores anywhere and that E.C Kraus recently underwent a website redesign that allows people to purchase directly from them, rather than only being able to buy what stores bought from E.C. Kraus.

You'll also want to do a grain conversion test with grain enzymes vs the outside enzyme to see if you get any taste difference. Especially since buckwheat can be self-converting.

Newbie question: Is that gluten-free? Can't Beta Amylase be derived from grain?

Good question. I would think it should be perfectly safe, as 1/2 tsp is all you need in a 5-gallon batch and I'm willing to bet that even if it were extracted from barley (rather than, say, koji or some other fungal/bacterial source that's probably more cost-effective), the final ppm of gluten in the enzyme solution should already be very low. If the solution were 100% gluten, one half-teaspoon is 0.0833333333 oz, so divide that by 640 oz in 5 gallons and you get 0.0001 oz gluten per oz of beer, which would be 100 ppm--very low! However, that's if it was *pure* gluten, which wouldn't be a liquid. If we assume that the solution itself has, let's say, 100 ppm gluten (still on the high side of estimation), then we get 0.00000833333333 oz gluten per 1/2 tsp of solution, divided by 640 oz gives 0.00000001 oz gluten per oz of beer, which would be .01 ppm, which is a few orders of magnitude below the 20 ppm "known to be safe" level.

However, I wouldn't suspect there's even that much gluten in the solution, since in the lab it's entirely possible to isolate the enzymes quite efficiently. So don't worry about it!

Of course, we still don't know yet if it even works; I'll try it out and post my results.

frothdaddy said:

Newbie question: Is that gluten-free? Can't Beta Amylase be derived from grain?

Click to expand...

Just looking at Sigma Aldrich, a major laboratory supplier, it looks like beta amylase can indeed be derived from barley...

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog...220003048+219853082+219853286&mode=partialmax

Their other beta amylase comes from sweet potato, however (sound familiar?), and in fact they seem to have more sweet-potato derived products than barley.

So, if it's the sweet potato beta-amylase, it would be gluten free by default. If it's the barley beta-amylase, it would depend on the level of purity.

Ah wait -- here's a question answered on the Kraus site:

Q Chuck (Clinton, MO)
Is your Diatase Enzyme from cereal origin, or from bacterial/fungal origin?
A [email protected]
It is of fungal origin.

Click to expand...

I'm still slightly skeptical -- alpha amylase certainly seems to be more commonly derived from koji (fungus used to make sake), but beta more commonly seems to be taken from plants. But if it's true, and it's all-fungal, then it should be completely gluten free.

Of course, you can also get alpha amylase from Sigma Aldrich isolated from human saliva (or pancreas!) That might make for an interesting beer...

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog...220003048+219853082+219853286&mode=partialmax

Alright, today I did two 1-gallon batches, one of which had two lbs of toasted buckwheat, the other two lbs of toasted GF quick oats. Both mashed with these enzymes. I mashed between 150 and 140°F for about two hours, then sparged and boiled. After boiling I had about 3/4 of a gallon of each. OG on the Buckwheat was a paltry 1.020; oats were 1.038, slightly better. I hopped each with 0.1 oz Millenium (17.4% AA) and 0.1 oz Nugget (11.3% AA), and split a pack of S-04 between the two batches. A lot of work and not a very promising result, but we'll see how they ferment out.

In the future, I think mashing a lot longer, as well as getting a finer grind on the grains, might help get better conversion. I need a grain mill if I want to continue this all-grain stuff, and probably a proper mash/lauter tun (BIABing it doesn't seem like such a great idea for a 24-hour mash).

In the meantime, I'm going to carry on with the extract-only and extract+steeping grain recipes.

Those are some disappointing numbers. Although, would you happen to be able to list out your water and enzyme liquid amounts as well? I'd expect you'd have them in order to compare to the next tests.

I think that's about the numbers we've been seeing with our plain gluten free malt and sweet potato tests, so I guess it's something. I don't know if this means that we should test a combination of both, or simply up the amount of enzymes from the liquid on its own. It could be something else in our processes too.

I'm actually thinking both could be a good combination, though it'd be worth testing a pale gluten free sorghum malt vs sweet potato enzymes vs liquid enzymes to see if there's any significant taste variation. And then combine 2 & 2 or all three together.

I used about 1.75 gallons of water per batch, including liquid to rehydrate and cook (gelatinize) the grains. I used 1 tsp of enzyme per batch, as per instructions on the bottle (1/2-tsp per pound of grain).

My guess is that I needed a finer and more consistent grind (I just used a food processor, so some grains were dust and some were whole, basically), a longer cook time, and a longer mash. I think if I'd properly ground the buckwheat in a mill, cooked it in more liquid for a longer time (gelatinized it more thoroughly), and mashed it longer, I could have at least doubled my extract yield.

It's really labor-intensive so far, though, and if I wasn't doing BIAB, I can imagine the sparges would be nightmarish.

igliashon said:

Alright, today I did two 1-gallon batches, one of which had two lbs of toasted buckwheat, the other two lbs of toasted GF quick oats. Both mashed with these enzymes. I mashed between 150 and 140°F for about two hours, then sparged and boiled. After boiling I had about 3/4 of a gallon of each. OG on the Buckwheat was a paltry 1.020; oats were 1.038, slightly better. I hopped each with 0.1 oz Millenium (17.4% AA) and 0.1 oz Nugget (11.3% AA), and split a pack of S-04 between the two batches. A lot of work and not a very promising result, but we'll see how they ferment out.

In the future, I think mashing a lot longer, as well as getting a finer grind on the grains, might help get better conversion. I need a grain mill if I want to continue this all-grain stuff, and probably a proper mash/lauter tun (BIABing it doesn't seem like such a great idea for a 24-hour mash).

In the meantime, I'm going to carry on with the extract-only and extract+steeping grain recipes.

Click to expand...

Grinding your grains will give you better extraction, but it will also rule out a "proper MLT" because of stuck mashes. You'll be better off with BIAB. You should also gelatinize your grains so that the enzymes can get to the starches easier.


* Just read your later post and you came to this conclusion already.