amylase enzyme boosters???

[devilsbeltbrewing]

i recently purchased some amylase enzyme boosters with hopes to help with mash efficiency. i am a commercial wine maker and we use alot of peptic enzyme to help break down fruit tannin's and am curious if anyone has use these before for brewing. i was planning on adding 1 tbsp during first steep of grains at 122 degrees. any feedback?

 

[dmtaylor]

Oh my gosh...... no no no no NO! That's how strongly I feel about this. Do not use, it will create a very thin, watery, lifeless beer. Furthermore, do not perform a protein rest at 122 F as it will give you a very thin, watery, lifeless beer!

These things will affect your final gravity, but are not magical fixes to efficiency problems. For efficiency problems, the first things to tackle are quality of crush of the grains (should be very fine), and mash pH (should be 5.2 to 5.5). Also ensure a good quality sparge. Tackle those before messing around with amylase and protein rests (if ever!)!

Good luck!

 

[Gavin C]

i recently purchased some amylase enzyme boosters with hopes to help with mash efficiency. i am a commercial wine maker and we use alot of peptic enzyme to help break down fruit tannin's and am curious if anyone has use these before for brewing. i was planning on adding 1 tbsp during first steep of grains at 122 degrees. any feedback?

Not needed as there is ample enzymes (and resulting diastatic power) in the base malts alone. Adding aditional amylase to the mash will do nothing. With modern fully malted grains a protein rest at 122 is going to be of little to no benefit with some authors reporting undesirable consequences as a result I believe of limit dextrinase activity.

There is no doom and gloom scenario to adding amylase at 122F as the rate of action at these temperatures will be very slow.

Pectic enzyme is not needed in beer making as there is no pectin to break down.

In short. Pointless idea.

If you wanted to add amylase to dry out a beer that can be done with ease in the fermentor. Adding to the mash will be innefective.