all grain help

[sunblock]

I have several AG brew under my belt and can make hoppy beers great, but I am having a bit of trouble with light crisp beers. Specifically I am trying to get BM's highly rated centennial blonde to come out. On my last attempt my gravities and all came out spot on, but it has a malty character after 1 week fermenting, and almost two weeks in the keg. I did encounter some variances while brewing and I am not sure if these would cause such a noticeable malty flavor.

I have had trouble getting my mash temps exact. My mash temp was at 153 instead of 150. but this was at the top of my gallon igloo cooler/mash tun. I would think the hottest water would be at the top and hopefully it was cooler in the grain bed. after fermenting though my FG was 1.010 so I thought I was spot on. I know that the difference will contribute more complex sugars, but would it be so much to make a major difference in the beers maltiness?

I have been fly sparging all my brews with 160-170 degree water, the process is slow as I do not drain off the wort very fast. maybe 15-20 min or more. should I use lower temp water when attempting to make crisper beers? is this hot sparge water extracting all the unfermentable sugars I am trying to avoid ?

my fermentations are always at room temp, around 70 72 degrees.

any advice / tips ?

 

[scinerd3000]

it sounds like you did fine. Everyone on this forum could brew that same beer in the same way and end up with differing results. For example, the lag time of sparging to boil will allow additional starch conversions to take place changing the beer. Your mash temps need to be consistent throughout the tun or somewhat so...Considering you hit 1.010 as your FG i think you did fine. I batch sparge with 190ish water and have turned out excellent beers, sweet and dry alike so i doubt its the temp of the water. If anything drop the fermentation temperature and remeber that the beer temp during fermentation is usual 5-7 degrees above ambient temperature. I try and ferment around 63-65 depending on the beer. If your looking for less maltiness, drop the temperature. You can also do a longer mash time- say 90 minutes at 147 to get the same result or similar with less dextrins and unfermentable sugars extracted....Hope this helps

 

[hammer1]

your water profile is important in lighter beers

 

[sunblock]

your water profile is important in lighter beers

guess i should read up on that. I have always just used spring water, but never taken any measurements of it. what is the most critical, pH?

 

[sunblock]

well been reading up on water, and I use walmarts brand of spring water which is apparently very soft.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/magnetic-springs-walmart-water-analysis-130266/

so the water should not be my problem....

there is a malty bite to this stuff like colt 45 .. I have to be missing something.

are there any type of infections that start out like this ?

 

[bbrim]

"there is a malty bite to this stuff like colt 45"
That sounds like hot fermentation to me, though I am by no means an expert. If you want to get the beer to dry out more you can mash lower, allow the mash to sit longer (30-45 min after conversion is complete), and you choose not to mash out and just sparge with the mash sitting at 150 still. If you do not mash out make sure your sparge water is at or just above 170, this will gradually bring the temp up and allow the sugars to be washed from the grain. With a light beer like this pH can be an issue. If your pH rises during the sparge it significantly increases the risk of tannin extraction, which may also be a source of the off flavor you are noticing. Since your efficiency wasn't off you know the mash pH was good so I dont think you need to adjust this but you may want to add lactic acid to your sparge water until you get it to 5.2-5.4, or you can just use mash 5.2 in your sparge (I'm not sure how well this works). Good luck!

 

[Bobby_M]

That spring water is really close to distilled. I don't think it would make a very good pale ale. Certainly gypsum is the most important addition, but you could use more chloride and magnesium too.

 

[ForRealBeer]

If malt, hops and yeast are the soul of a beer, the water is its bones. Soft water probably doesn't fit the profile you are after, so that's a good spot to look at.

Your mashing temp of 153 is interesting in that it's starting to edge out of the optimal temperature range for Beta Amalyse enzyme activity. Referring back to Palmer's How To Brew, John points out that:

Beta Amylase 131-150°F Produces maltose.
Alpha Amylase 154-162° Produces a variety of sugars, including maltose

Okay, interesting enough. The key words here in the abbreviated version of Palmer's table is "Produces a variety of sugars." Some of those sugars are less fermentable and are in the final product contributing malt body. Yes, I know 153 dF is slightly below the stated range of Alpha Amalyse, but I believe (from experience) that at 153 dF it is starting to wake up and become slightly active. And if your thermometer is accurate to within +/- 1 dF, you may have mashed at 154, which is definitely in the range and also in the range where Beta Amalyse starts to denature which also contributes more body to the final product.

Anyhow, you are right at the edge of Alpha Amylase's optimal activity, and perhaps you are producing a few more unfermentable sugars than you desire for the brew you're making. Not that it's bad beer, and if you are dissatisfied, please PM me for my shipping address (I kid.)

Bottom line - if you want to reduce this, try a mashing temperature of 149 dF next time and see if it makes a lighter (ie thinner) brew with less malt body.

Another interesting paper for you to read is one from the Irish Craft Brewer where they talk not only about enzyme activity, but also comment that

[blockquote]
Fermentability

A consideration that must be taken when choosing mash rest temperature is the degree of fermentability of the resulting wort. In our example of the porter earlier we must take into account that yeast are unable to ferment dextrins and make certain that there is sufficient β amylase activity to provide enough maltose for fermentation but not so much as to remove all dextrins from the wort. We can do this by ensuring the mash temperature does not exceed the upper range of the deactivation temperature for β amylase i.e. 70ºC
Conclusion

The best way to get a feel for the effect of mash temperature on beer character is to vary it within a set recipe and note the changes that occur in the beer. Hopefully I've shown that both the pH and temperature ranges that malt enzymes will work at are wider than we first might think and that good beer can be produced even if we have trouble reaching optimal conditions.
[/blockquote]

Hope that gives you some food for thought.

 

[sunblock]

hey thx, I was somewhat worried about having more sugars since i was at 153, but I think 153 was the extreme high. my thermometer does not go deep enough into my mash tun to get a temp reading in the center. interestingly the beer has mellow greatly in the past couple of days. its gone from malty to sourish to bitter. I am not used to brewing such light beers so I am starting to think that it was just too green. time should tell i guess.