Alpha Amylase - Yea or Nay?

[tacks]

Hi all, I have been brewing all grain for about a year and a half now with both great and mediocre results. The one thing I have noticed across all of my beers, though is that I have low efficiency. I have ordered some alpha amylase from amazon, and whether I choose to use it or not will depend on opinions and experience using it. First off: my setup - I am using a ~50 quart cooler from Coleman that has approximately a half gallon of deadspace. I am using a sink supply hose line (stainless) that is connected to a bazooka tube (didn't know it wouldn't work by itself when I ordered it). I batch sparge. I usually have been hitting around 60-70% efficiency, closer to 60 when doing high gravity beers. I have no problem hitting my mash temps within 1-1.5 degrees. I am wondering whether this alpha amylase will help my starch conversion to a range of 80% or so without drastically changing the wort sugar balance of dextrins:mono/di/trisaccharides. I do not have the money to sink into a system to fly sparge right now, otherwise I would try that before sinking to adding outside enzymes. Please guide me on whether adding extra alpha amylase has worked for you or if it is a bad idea that will shift the sugar makeup of my wort too far towards simple sugars and take away from the dextrins that will help to make up the body and mouthfeel. Thanks in advance, you guys and gals are the best!

 

[mrboz]

Are you giving your mash a couple stirs during the Sach rest? Make sure you're breaking up any malt clumps and stirring those sugars into solution. Also, with batch sparge, you can sometimes get tunneling along the sides of your tun, which will affect efficiency.

With my cooler MT, I went from 72% to 80% efficiency when I started doing this ... I was afraid to stir, thinking I would get tannins from the husks ... I mitigate this by lifting mash from the bottom rather than actually stirring. After the rest, do your vorleuf then sparge/lauter. I then add more water, stir, vorleuf and lauter again.

 

[Qhrumphf]

How are you crushing your grains? Store crushes are rarely consistent and more coarse than my liking. If you're not crushing your own grains, buy yourself a mill before you start messing with enzymes. I doubt you're having problems with conversion, but rather extraction, and enzymes may not help you there.

 

[tacks]

Are you giving your mash a couple stirs during the Sach rest? Make sure you're breaking up any malt clumps and stirring those sugars into solution. Also, with batch sparge, you can sometimes get tunneling along the sides of your tun, which will affect efficiency.

With my cooler MT, I went from 72% to 80% efficiency when I started doing this ... I was afraid to stir, thinking I would get tannins from the husks ... I mitigate this by lifting mash from the bottom rather than actually stirring. After the rest, do your vorleuf then sparge/lauter. I then add more water, stir, vorleuf and lauter again.

Unless I'm mistaken, you shouldn't get tannins unless your mash is too hot (why you never sparge over 170*F) or in certain situations where your pH is off the charts low. Stirring shouldn't contribute any tannins regardless of how vigorous you stir. That being said, I usually stir once or twice during the mash, usually around the 10 minute, then the 30 minute mark. There have been many a thread of people arguing about this, and I don't want to turn this into another one, I appreciate your input and maybe I'll try stirring even more often, it can't hurt other than losing maybe a couple tenths of degree off the mash temp from having the cooler open for a couple minutes to stir.

How are you crushing your grains? Store crushes are rarely consistent and more coarse than my liking. If you're not crushing your own grains, buy yourself a mill before you start messing with enzymes. I doubt you're having problems with conversion, but rather extraction, and enzymes may not help you there.

Right now I don't have money to spend on a mill (poor college student), or at least not a good one. I have trusted my LHBS with their crush. It has seemed to me a rather coarse mill as compared to the other LHBS I used to go to that is further away, but I don't know how to gauge that since I've always assumed they knew better than me when it came to the crush. Thanks for your input as well, maybe it's time for me to start looking at some of the cheaper DIY mill threads I've run into in the past.

 

[mrboz]

Unless I'm mistaken, you shouldn't get tannins unless your mash is too hot (why you never sparge over 170*F) or in certain situations where your pH is off the charts low. Stirring shouldn't contribute any tannins regardless of how vigorous you stir. That being said, I usually stir once or twice during the mash, usually around the 10 minute, then the 30 minute mark. There have been many a thread of people arguing about this, and I don't want to turn this into another one, I appreciate your input and maybe I'll try stirring even more often, it can't hurt other than losing maybe a couple tenths of degree off the mash temp from having the cooler open for a couple minutes to stir.



Right now I don't have money to spend on a mill (poor college student), or at least not a good one. I have trusted my LHBS with their crush. It has seemed to me a rather coarse mill as compared to the other LHBS I used to go to that is further away, but I don't know how to gauge that since I've always assumed they knew better than me when it came to the crush. Thanks for your input as well, maybe it's time for me to start looking at some of the cheaper DIY mill threads I've run into in the past.

You are correct that sparge temp is a bigger contributor to tannins than stirring (also correct on the Ph factor). I have received conflicting feedback from brewers about stirring/tannins, so have just accepted the "both/and" of it and try to be gentle with the stir. You are also correct on the losing temperature issue ... it is a trade off that you'll have to decide upon ... you can add a bit of hot water from time to time to maintain temp (assuming you have room in the MT).

 

[jeff13]

I frequently use alpha amylase in the beers I want to insure being dry as a fail safe since I have it in my supplies. There has never been an indication of increased efficiency.

 

[Talgrath]

Efficiency is not a function of alpha or beta amylase, those are just factors in things like fermentability (ie, how much of your extracted sugars can be turned into alcohol) and mouthfeel. If you're getting low efficiency, there's a variety of things you can do to try to fix that.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/maximizing-efficiency-when-batch-sparging-77125/

This thread has a lot of good information, give those suggestions a try.

 

[ndinh]

Sorry to hijack but when I was reading up on sparging temps, some people on this site said that they'd heat the sparge water to nearly boiling then sparge. Others say 180F is good. So (to avoid tannins), is the final answer...to heat my sparge to 170F then add it in or to heat my sparge water to a certain temperature that will make my grain bed 170F after sparge water addition? Thx.

 

[Bill_in_VA]

The commercial guys stir the entire mash duration with their mash rakes so I don't think you can get tannin extraction from stirring...

I agree the mill/crush is the probable source and make sure you stir like crazy at least initially.

 

[jbaysurfer]

I figure if decoction mashing doesn't cause tannin extraction, neither does sparge temperature. It takes both heat AND Ph problems to extract tannins.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

I toss Amylase in every batch. Not that I've seen a difference, but I bought a bag and it lasts forever so I figure I'll keep using it until it's gone. It hasn't increased efficiency much that I've noticed but I figure like the saying goes "smoke 'em if you've got 'em"

 

[Arrheinous]

I figure if decoction mashing doesn't cause tannin extraction, neither does sparge temperature. It takes both heat AND Ph problems to extract tannins.

People worry about tannins around here but I've never read anything on HBF where tannins ruined or were 'detectable' (outside of style or expectations, I guess) in a beer.

It's always seemed like some kind of bogeyman.

 

[helibrewer]

I agree that your conversion is probably fine. Next time take an SG reading from your mash tun once it is complete and compare it to this table:

If your SG is within a point or two of these table values your conversion is good and it is your lautering that is the problem.