Brut ups without enzymes

[Steveruch]

Can a Brut ipa be made without emzymes? With a real low mash temperature, a modest percentage of sugar, and a highly attenuative yeast for example?

 

[dmtaylor]

YES.

 

[thehaze]

It's at least worth an experiment.

And I agree with the things you said. A simple grist of really pale malt, maybe 10-15% simple sugar. Really low mash temp. and fairly long, like 90-120 minutes. Low OG - max. 1.050.

Yeast: I think Nottingham would do the job. For me Nottingham usually goes below 1.010 with ease, with no sugars added and simply mashing at 149F/65C with a fairly simple grist, but Nottingham sometimes doesn't care you have 10-15% specialty malts.

Maybe US-05 could work or any of the highly attenuating liquid strains, like A30 Corporate, etc.

Diastaticus strains are also a choice, but I'm unsure if you can make an IPA out of them.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Can a Brut ipa be made without emzymes?

No, because the malt contains enzymes, which are needed to make fermentable sugar, hops contain enzymes, and the yeast use enzymes to make alcohol

 

[Lefou]

I've made fairly dry ales using WLP001 and extended mash times with highly diastatic barley/wheat malt combinations, but NONE of my beers have been IPA. I am assuming a portion of the mash needs some crystal or caramunich for IPA and it might leave some caramel and dextrins behind.
Fairly dry for me was a carbed beer with a finishing gravity measuring 1.004.
Does that count as dry?

 

[Miraculix]

In Germany, there have been Diät Bier, before it got forbidden. It was a highly attenuated beer, almost without remaining sugars.

They did it with saving a portion of the wort pre boile and then mixing it with the boiled rest after cooling it. The uncooked part still contained the enzymes which, after mixing with the rest, worked their way slowly through the remaining sugars during the time of fermentation.

The result was brut.

 

[Smellyglove]

In Germany, there have been Diät Bier, before it got forbidden. It was a highly attenuated beer, almost without remaining sugars.

They did it with saving a portion of the wort pre boile and then mixing it with the boiled rest after cooling it. The uncooked part still contained the enzymes which, after mixing with the rest, worked their way slowly through the remaining sugars during the time of fermentation.

The result was brut.

Why was it forbidden? There's no "external" stuff going into it. I've been waiting for my own slow ass for about two years now to do the same. I just "can't" find time to do it in my RIS.

 

[Miraculix]

Why was it forbidden? There's no "external" stuff going into it. I've been waiting for my own slow ass for about two years now to do the same. I just "can't" find time to do it in my RIS.

Because the name implies that it is healthy and safer to drink than regular beer.

The Reinheitsgebot is long gone in Germany. Most of the breweries are still brewing according to it but it is not legally binding anymore.

 

[Steveruch]

No, because the malt contains enzymes, which are needed to make fermentable sugar, hops contain enzymes, and the yeast use enzymes to make alcohol

I was asking about the extra enzymes added to Brut ipas to get the f g really low.

 

[Lefou]

Amyloglucosidase is an extra addition to Brut IPA in order to further dry out a highly fermentable beer. It's pretty reasonable to assume if you used a mix of base malts with a high amylase content and an extended low temp mash between 145F-150F you could get a seriously dry beer without the extra drying enzyme.
I'd use pale 2-row, wheat, Munich 10L, and chocolate for color.
6lb pale 2-row, 3lb white wheat, 1lb Munich10L, and 2oz of chocolate 350L would be a simple base recipe as an example. Plugged into Brewers Friend the diastatic content hits around 134 ... way more than enough amylase A & B to convert things.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I was asking about the extra enzymes added to Brut ipas to get the f g really low.

I was just pointing out that enzymes are a huge part of the brewing process even without adding additional enzyme, just in case anyone thinks that enzymes are somehow bad.

The answers have already been provided. A 2hr mash at 148-150°F (or better yet, a step mash with beta and then alpha rest) with base malt at mash pH ~ 5.5-5.6 fermented with an attenuative yeast will produce a dry beer, around 1.001-1.002. Added enzyme in the fermenter could still knock off another few points.

Cheers

 

[Vale71]

The problem with getting really high attenuation ist that starch contains branching chains that need to be broken down by a specific enzyme, limit-dextrinase. Problem is, by the time starch gelatinisation has happened the naturally occurring limit-dextrinase has long been denatured and is totally ineffective. Without re-introducing the enzyme you will always be left with some dextrins that cannot be broken down by either alpha or beta-amylase, and this will limit the attenuation you can hope to achieve.
The only way to get around this issue is (barring use of over-attenuating yeast strains such as var. diastaticus) is to re-introduce the enzyme at some later point in time.
In the US you can just pour additional enzymes from a bottle, in Germany this is really verboten and the only trick left is to make a cold infusion with base malt and introduce it in the fermenter. That way the intact enzymes will break down the remaining dextrins and make them available to yeast. Of course you will be introducing lots of germs (mostly lactos) so you want to do that near the end of fermentation and then quickly kill them off with filtration and pasteurization (the soone the better, unless you want to make sour beer).
BTW, "Diät Bier" is not forbidden in Germany, they just have to call it "calory-reduced" which is an objective quality of highly attenuated beer and does not suggest it is in any way healthy, it just has fewer caloris per serving as regular beers.