Making up for OG points with DME

[Chris7687]

Hey guys,
Lately I have been milling with my newly gifted Millar's B3 Barley Mill and have had problems with dialing in the crush. The result of this has meant deficiencies in hitting my OG. To substitute this I want to start using some DME to make up points. Question though, what (if anything) will I be missing out on the beer? Will there be an unbalanced taste from specialty malts? Any changes in viscosity of the wort/beer? Color? Anything I might not be thinking of?

Or will all the flavors/SRM be there from the specialty grains and I am just lacking the sugar extraction from them and the base malt?

Regards,
Chris

 

[HaDaL]

I do not know instead of "start to using DME" why You do not start to improve your crush/efficiency?Anyway, to answer your question, I think It depends on how much/what kind of DME you want to add and also depends on when/how you are going to add it.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Assuming you're not way off your OG, a pound of DME will buy you 7 or 8 points (for an average OG for a 5 gal batch) and won't be noticeable in the final flavor profile.

 

[Chris7687]

I do not know instead of "start to using DME" why You do not start to improve your crush/efficiency?Anyway, to answer your question, I think It depends on how much/what kind of DME you want to add and also depends on when/how you are going to add it.

My main objective is to fix my crush and get it to where it needs to be. I believe I dial it in correct and get the crush as desired, but every time I come up short. The DME additions are simply temporary fixes. I would only be using light DME and would add it at the beginning of boil.

As for 7 or 8 points, is that a 1.050 goes to 1.058?

 

[Hello]

I use DME from time to time. I add it about 15-20 minutes before my boil is complete. It is not until then that I want to decide whether I want to dump DME in the boil. I take a reading to see where I am at. Depending upon pre-boil volume, you can boil down to your OG but if it is too far off, you'll have way less post-boil volume. You probably don't want to do that. I compensate and never believed there was any flavor change due to the DME addition.

 

[janisco]

If it’s an efficiency issue, using DME could contribute to an unbalanced malt profile (at least from what you were trying to achieve when building the recipe). If your efficiency is low, it’s low across all the malts you added to your mash, so it’s low evenly resulting in the same malt profile you were after, just with less of the gravity. When you add DME to boost the gravity, you are essentially adding more 2-row to your recipe, which is lowering the effects of any specialty malts included in your beer. Taste wise, I think your fine either way.

 

[W0rthog]

I would be inclined to boil longer to hit OG target. That way I'm not adding to the recipe.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Yooper]

Adding DME to make up "lost" gravity points shouldn't make a difference in the final beer.

You'd get about 8 points per pound in a 5 gallon batch. So using a pound or two, or even three, wouldn't impact the flavor of the beer in a noticeable way.

 

[Roadie]

If you think the crush is where you need it to be then perhaps your efficiency is set too high in whatever software you use to calculate your grains.

 

[Chris7687]

I have efficiency set to 65% in BeerSmith. I believe it is mainly the crush and possibly the pH of water. The pH of the water can have an effect on efficiency and conversions, correct?

 

[Yooper]

I have efficiency set to 65% in BeerSmith. I believe it is mainly the crush and possibly the pH of water. The pH of the water can have an effect on efficiency and conversions, correct?

No. It's the pH of the mash itself that has an effect on efficiency and conversion, as well as flavor. It's the alkalinity of the water (and not the pH) that affects this.

 

[Chris7687]

Yooper - Excuse me as I am still green to the water chemistry, but wouldn't the water's pH play into the mash's pH?

I am using RO water from my local supermarket vending machine. I used a test strip this past weekend, which I have been told are fairly inaccurate, but it read the mash pH at 5.0. I would have assumed this was a good mash pH, but I got a very low efficiency and had a super fine crush.