Post Mash/Pre Boil DMS removal

[zeccahj]

Disclaimer: First post here but lots of lurking and a biochemistry background, couldn't find anything online about this

Because SMM (the DMS precursor) is in a charged state only as a precursor, is there no way to use a fining agent after mashing but before the boil that could precipitate/filter it out before the boil? I only ask because I must be extremely sensitive to DMS- a 90 minute boil and a 60% pils grain bill gave me an undrinkable beer, I had to give them away to people who said they couldn't taste it at all. Obviously this would add extra steps and be a pain but I wanted to pose it more for a scientific/theoretical "what if?"

 

[brewfun]

Nope. Even the big boys do it with the boil, though they use a colandrea to superheat the wort and strip the DMS.

At your altitude, you boil a little cooler than sea level, right? Perhaps more boil vigor and maybe a little longer would help? Just water back at the end to get your volume.

Another cure might be to blend even more pale and pilsner malt for lagers. I blend 50/50 on my system because it doesn't strip enough DMS for my preferences, either.

 

[zeccahj]

I should have explained that better: There are clearly better ways of doing it because nobody bothers with anything other than boiling away the DMS, but this being in brew science and all I was really just looking to see if anyone wanted to play along with a brewing thought experiment and prove to me that my argument is invalid, because on a purely theoretical standpoint I think it would work

 

[biertourist]

Zeccahj,

Can you explain your chilling process?

I'm not convinced what you're tasting is DMS at all especially with a 90 minute boil and only 60% pilsner malt, just doesn't make any sense unless you were covering the boil or not rapidly chilling below 150F.

Which pilsner malt were you using? (I'd like to pull the malt report and look up the DMS-P / SMM quantity.)


Adam

 

[zeccahj]

I'd have to go to my LHBS to figure out which pilsner malt it is, but I use an IC with recirculated ice water (should be totally sufficient). Exactly the "cooked corn" smell described.

 

[biertourist]

And your boil kettle is completely uncovered?


You could just have an insanely low taste threshold for DMS; DMS isn't something I notice/ am bothered by until it gets to pretty significant levels, BUT I've slowly learned that I'm super sensitive to phenolics. I end up giving phenoly beers away because none of my friends notice or mind.

If you were out here, I'd just suggest we start doing a beer swap, but that won't work to CO Springs.


Good luck on this one. I'd recommend you just go nuclear with your process and ingredient selections so that you minimize DMS.

On ingredient selection: Stay away from 6 row especially, but Pilsner and Lagermalts, too. Even 2 row will be higher than Pale Ale malt. If you go with a US Pale Ale malt it might be a good place to start. Or start pulling malt reports and look at the DMS-P levels and see if you can find a low DMS precursor Pilsner / Lager malt and then figure out at what % of the malt bill that it bothers you and just blend your basemalts between Pilsner / Lager and Pale to keep it below that level.

Beyond that you're doing everything right if you're doing a 90 minute vigorous boil and you're rapidly chilling...


Or you could go insanely crazy about it and build a homebrewery version of a Merlin boil system or mega brewery "wort stripper"; look in the latter pages of this PDF at the Merlin system: http://www.krones.com/downloads/stromboli_en.pdf

It can strip so much DMS that breweries have to start tweaking their process to make sure that they keep the DMS levels UP otherwise the resulting beer doesn't taste like lager any more...

-I've thought about this as a random crazy experiment but honestly I don't want to fund it; lol!

-You could just get a huge copper cone mounted in a keggle and brazed in place and then cut the bottom out of the kettle and essentially direct fire the copper cone and slowly run wort over the top of it trying to get a good spiral flow going, then pump back to your main boil kettle. Estimate flow and once the entire volume has been run across the whole thing you've probably had a huge amount of evaporation and evolution of DMS.

-You'd need to dramatically decrease your boil time and probably start relying on hop shots / isomerized extract for your bittering additions, but if you REALLY want low DMS beer made from Pilsner malt, there you go. ;-) -Yes, a ridiculously over-engineered solution.


Adam