Brewing with kinako (roasted soybean powder)

[deadwolfbones]

EDIT: Added recipe downthread. Would love to get some opinions/advice on how to best use the yams.

Hi all, long-time reader first-time poster.

My girlfriend lived in Japan for a long time and is pretty obsessed with Japanese flavors. One of those is kinako. If you're unfamilar, it's a chocolate-y, peanut buttery flour made from roasted soybeans. It's commonly used in Japanese desserts.

I was thinking it'd make a nice addition to a brown ale or porter, and I was thinking about doing a 1gal batch to try it out.

Anyone have any thoughts on how soybean flour might react with malt and brewing yeast? I want to use it primarily for the flavor, but it appears that soy peptides are fermentable, and some breweries in Japan are even using them to produce so-called "third beers"—beers made from non-malt sources.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Bump! Anybody?

 

[Weezy]

Just shooting from the hip here...

I'd follow the very nice recommendations for cocoa powder in the front page article on how to brew with chocolate..

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/brewing-with-chocolate.html


It sound like it might be roasted to the point that mashing it might be a waste of time. Maybe just treat it like a flavoring adjunct like cocoa.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Yeah, I was thinking about that, but then I read that it might be fermentable. I guess that doesn't really matter much, though—would just raise the OG a bit, right?

 

[Weezy]

Yep.

 

[deadwolfbones]

So here's my stab at a distinctly Japanese nut brown ale: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/tanuki-suit-brown-ale

Recipe Type: Partial Mash
Yeast: Wyeast 1056
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity (not accounting for kinako): 1.048
Final Gravity (Target): 1.012
IBU: 25
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 15

4 lbs Pale LME (late addition 15 min)
4 lbs roasted Japanese yams, mashed
2.5 lbs 2-row
1 lbs kinako
10 oz victory malt
4 oz biscuit malt
4 oz chocolate malt
2 oz crystal 120L
1 oz cluster (60 min)
0.5 oz fuggle (10 min)
0.5 oz fuggle (1min)
Wyeast 1056 American Ale

1. Mash @ 154F for 60min w/ 4lb roasted Japanese yams.
2. Sparge @ 170F.
3. Boil, adding LME, kinako, and Irish moss w/ 15 minutes to go.

Anyone have experience using roasted yams/sweet potatoes in a mash? Do you need to add something else (rice hulls?) to prevent it from turning to concrete?

 

[Weezy]

It looks OK. Having never brewed with it and trying to explore Its flavors, I'd personally do something maybe a bit simpler. I'd personally ditch all of the specialty malts. Maybe use some simple crystal 10-40 for sweetness. Let the kinako and yams shine through. After tasting that beer, see what other specialty malts to later flavor on top. Just my $0.02 though. Good luck with it.

Are you doing the yams a biab bag?

 

[deadwolfbones]

It looks OK. Having never brewed with it and trying to explore Its flavors, I'd personally do something maybe a bit simpler. I'd personally ditch all of the specialty malts. Maybe use some simple crystal 10-40 for sweetness. Let the kinako and yams shine through. After tasting that beer, see what other specialty malts to later flavor on top. Just my $0.02 though. Good luck with it.

Are you doing the yams a biab bag?

I was planning to do the whole mash in a large paint bag with room for stuff to move around a bit...