Chill your wort as quickly as possible because of dms...

[Finlandbrews]

I learnt that s methyl methionine (SMM) is found in malt and is the precursor of dms and that dms starts to be created from SMM at 60 celsius/ 140 F and above but will volatilize during the boil. Ok but now comes an idea that seems to be agreed upon and is present in books such as beer tasting or the homebrewer companion :"chill your wort as quickly as possible to avoid dms build up". Not only that of course but that is said.

Here is my problem: if there is a limited quantity of SMM and SMM can not regenerate what is the importance of chilling quick if we boil long enough because all the SMM will be transformed and therefore all Dms will volatilize, no?

Does anyone know from the moment the wort boils, how much time it takes for dms to volatilize?

Why many no-chill homebrewers seem to have no problem with dms?

If it is not totally possible to get rid of dms, why so if it volatilize under boiling?

Also, can a mash continue if the grains are not in the kettle anymore? For example if you mash 75 mins but at 45 mins you pull the grains out can there be conversion into the last 30 mins? Can SMM appear or increase after the grains have been pulled out?

I'm asking too much questions but I'm just confused about that idea "more dms will be created if not chilled quick enough".

Why? Is it true?

 

[soulsuit]

I'm very interested in this as well, as I've been experimenting with no-chill more frequently in order to shorten my cleanup and brew day.

 

[hanuswalrus]

My understanding of the reason to chill your wort quickly is to stop hop isomerization, and also to ensure a good cold break (a quick chill tends to produce a clearer beer). However, I have read many people on this forum who have good success with "no-chill" brewing. Everything I've read suggests that DMS is boiled off and as long as you don't cover your kettle during the boil, it is evaporated. A lot of people suggest a longer boil (90 mins) when brewing w/ Pilsner malt to ensure DMS is driven off. Though some people claim to have good results w/ just a 60 min boil when using Pilsner malt. (most topics in homebrewing are arguable, so I'm just trying to cover my bases here)

I'm wondering if when people choose to go "no-chill", they cover the kettle right at flameout to make sure no contaminants get it. This might cause any still-evaporating DMS to drip from the bottom of the lid, back into the wort... Just a thought.

 

[normonster]

My understanding of the reason to chill your wort quickly is to stop hop isomerization....

Interesting notion. I recently did my first no-chill and its a house recipe. The result was a much more pronounced hop character and added bitterness. I thought it was maybe due to hop freshness but you are probably onto something here. Thanks!

 

[m00ps]

I routinely wait upwards of an hour to chill my IPAs and ive never gotten any DMS. . Just sayin

 

[WrQth]

I was under the impression that chilling quickly helps avoid infection since the optimal growth temperature for many bacteria is 30-60C or something like that. No-chill works because of good sanitary practices and typically the vessel isn't exposed to open air while it is naturally cooling.

 

[Finlandbrews]

I was under the impression that chilling quickly helps avoid infection since the optimal growth temperature for many bacteria is 30-60C or something like that. No-chill works because of good sanitary practices and typically the vessel isn't exposed to open air while it is naturally cooling.

I also believe that the idea with quick chilling is to reduce the risk of getting the wort contaminated. If we imagine that at flameout we are not playing around with an open lid but closing the lid immediately and have it perfectly sealed wouldn't that be better contamination wise?

Would dms appear then? I'm not sure at all...

Regarding stopping hop isomerization which occurs above 83-85 celsius the rapid chilling is not really necessary as it is a temperature so close to 212 F and Ibus extracted are not so big I believe. It also depends your hop schedule of course. If you put only 60 mins addition, you don't need to worry about stopping hop isomerization for these as there is very little to none happening by the time you chill.

The word "no-chill" is also quite funny because we are still chilling it but over a longer period of time. I would rather call it a "10 hours chill" or a "5 hour chill". Couldn't there be a chill schedule?

Also chilling Is great for completing the brew day quick but I'm really wondering if it is not more hassle and riskier for getting contaminants into the brew...

 

[normonster]

I also believe that the idea with quick chilling is to reduce the risk of getting the wort contaminated. If we imagine that at flameout we are not playing around with an open lid but closing the lid immediately and have it perfectly sealed wouldn't that be better contamination wise?

Would dms appear then? I'm not sure at all...

Regarding stopping hop isomerization which occurs above 83-85 celsius the rapid chilling is not really necessary as it is a temperature so close to 212 F and Ibus extracted are not so big I believe. It also depends your hop schedule of course. If you put only 60 mins addition, you don't need to worry about stopping hop isomerization for these as there is very little to none happening by the time you chill.

The word "no-chill" is also quite funny because we are still chilling it but over a longer period of time. I would rather call it a "10 hours chill" or a "5 hour chill". Couldn't there be a chill schedule?

Also chilling Is great for completing the brew day quick but I'm really wondering if it is not more hassle and riskier for getting contaminants into the brew...

I don't see how there's added risk as long as you treat it the same as chilled wort. I transferred to my fermenters while it was still near boiling and sealed them up. Suckback is really the only concern, as it begins to cool. I think.

I'm not doing it again though due to the hop deal above. It changed the finished beer a lot.

 

[WrQth]

There is more than one way to skin a cat...

 

[normonster]

There is more than one way to skin a cat...

But are there nasty bastards who skin cats?

 

[Finlandbrews]

There is more than one way to skin a cat...

But isn't there a better way?

 

[flars]

Needing to chill quickly is a leftover from the old days. The need has been dispelled by no chill brewers. Can the word myth be used? Lot of recipes which require holding off on chilling because of the final hop addition.

 

[Qhrumphf]

As already said, the whole "chill fast" thing has been blown wide open for any reason other than hopping. It's not even a pro v. homebrew thing (as many other of these issues are) as pros take longer to chill than anyone (save the no-chill homebrewer). The differences in hop character between a beer with lots of late addition and flameout hops chilled immediately, vs the exact same with an extended whirlpool and plate chiller vs. replacing those late hops with whirlpool hops or hopback before the chiller, are pronounced. However, that can be planned for and accounted for. If you use an immersion chiller, late hops are the way to go. If you use a plate chiller and whirlpool for an extended period, taking a long time to chill, then late hops are isomerized and lose the flavor and aroma but gain bitterness. So it's better to use whirlpool hops later, and/or a hopback.

DMS shouldn't be part of the equation.

Worth noting though, that some bacterial contamination can produce DMS.

 

[Clarke]

I'm in the boat that chilling stops hop isomerization, the hop oils creates different characteristics at different temp. if you do a 5min hop addition but don't chill, your basically turning that hop into a bittering hop, hops do different things at different temp. and time frame, hence:
Mash hopping, First Wort hopping, Bittering hopping, Late Hopping, Flame out, Hop Back, Dry hopping, and cooling to a certain temp and holding while adding more hops before proceeding to pitch temp.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2013/01/21/late-hop-additions-and-hop-oils-in-beer-brewing/

another great site about hops and oils, I use this all the time to create my hop profiles

http://beerlegends.com/myrcene-oil

 

[normonster]

Welp, I just learned some stuff. Thank you OP for the thread.

 

[TexasWine]

Dialing in my hop profile/utilization is the only reason I switched from no chill to chilling. I can still do beers with no late hop additions (only 60 minute additions) as no chill and it wouldn't have any impacts.

DMS was never an issue in my no chill brews.

 

[Beernik]

Brad Smith on DMS.

It's not just the SMM, there is also DMSO (DMS + Oxygen). DMSO is more stable then SMM and DMS.

I've come to the conclusion that most modern malts, especially at a homebrew scale, render most DMS concerns mute. I'm reading a lot of success stories about short boil and no boil beers.

When I finally get my system back up and running (I moved 2 weeks ago), I'm planning to brew a 15 or 20 minute boil IPA and no-chill it.

 

[Finlandbrews]

Brad Smith on DMS.

It's not just the SMM, there is also DMSO (DMS + Oxygen). DMSO is more stable then SMM and DMS.

I've come to the conclusion that most modern malts, especially at a homebrew scale, render most DMS concerns mute. I'm reading a lot of success stories about short boil and no boil beers.

When I finally get my system back up and running (I moved 2 weeks ago), I'm planning to brew a 15 or 20 minute boil IPA and no-chill it.

When you say no boil, do you mean that hops are infused in the mash and the boil is skipped ? Or do you mean there is a hop schedule with a temperature close to boiling but not boiling? It's very interesting.

 

[brewfun]

Wow! This thread went off topic, fast!

However, the conversation does show that there are a lot of interconnected parts to brewing, and brewer choices have more impact than almost anything else.

I learnt that s methyl methionine (SMM) is found in malt

Specifically, we're concerned with pale malts. The paler the malt, the more SMM is present. DMS is not an issue in malt kilned to at least 10 lovibond because the kilning process eliminates SMM along with enzymes.

Here is my problem: if there is a limited quantity of SMM and SMM can not regenerate what is the importance of chilling quick if we boil long enough because all the SMM will be transformed and therefore all Dms will volatilize, no?

Yes. The light colored lager breweries in the world are very concerned with specific levels of DMS and have done a lot of studies on the subject. They find that a little bit of DMS is important to taste.

Does anyone know from the moment the wort boils, how much time it takes for dms to volatilize?

Many of the studies are available through the MBAA and ASBC organizations. What they point to is that with 90 minutes of boiling, SMM is essentially depleted enough that the residual DMS is below the threshold of taste.

Why many no-chill homebrewers seem to have no problem with dms?

I can't exactly say if they do or don't. What matters is the beer satisfies the brewer and therefore their beer "never had a problem."

On a technical level, vigorous fermentation scrubs out DMS, too. Not nearly as much as boiling, but again, enough to reduce what's there to a threshold below perception. Some DMS adds graininess to flavor and can be important.

If it is not totally possible to get rid of dms, why so if it volatilize under boiling?

Chemically, DMS is lighter weight that SMM. As just solo DMS, it volatizes at 100^F. DMS is also hydrophobic, so it doesn't want to be in water. But, chemistry adds complexity to the issue, since DMS has affinity for other wort compounds, which inhibits its volatility.

The mechanical action of steam bubbles gives DMS a place to go by increasing the surface area it can escape to. In commercial brewing, DMS escapes in the whirlpool because of the surface area contact created by agitation. A homebrew wort stand without any movement doesn't do the same thing, but, it might not be necessary if the boil was long and vigorous enough to reduce SMM.

Also, can a mash continue if the grains are not in the kettle anymore? For example if you mash 75 mins but at 45 mins you pull the grains out can there be conversion into the last 30 mins?

Totally different question.

Wort conversion continues until either substrate is depleted, or enzymes reach their "life" limit. The latter can be through either time or temperature.

One of the things that makes a wort work is that there is water inside the grain structure, providing a pathway to starch conversion for enzymes. Without grain, the available starch gets reduced pretty quickly.

Can SMM appear or increase after the grains have been pulled out?

SMM is extracted right along with starches, protiens and glucans at the same ratio as it is available in the grain. Once you stop extracting sugar, you also stop extracting SMM.

Again, brewing is a lot of interconnected parts/processes. We can explain any one of them, but the whole is what matters.

 

[Finlandbrews]

Wow! This thread went off topic, fast!

However, the conversation does show that there are a lot of interconnected parts to brewing, and brewer choices have more impact than almost anything else.




Specifically, we're concerned with pale malts. The paler the malt, the more SMM is present. DMS is not an issue in malt kilned to at least 10 lovibond because the kilning process eliminates SMM along with enzymes.



Yes. The light colored lager breweries in the world are very concerned with specific levels of DMS and have done a lot of studies on the subject. They find that a little bit of DMS is important to taste.



Many of the studies are available through the MBAA and ASBC organizations. What they point to is that with 90 minutes of boiling, SMM is essentially depleted enough that the residual DMS is below the threshold of taste.



I can't exactly say if they do or don't. What matters is the beer satisfies the brewer and therefore their beer "never had a problem."

On a technical level, vigorous fermentation scrubs out DMS, too. Not nearly as much as boiling, but again, enough to reduce what's there to a threshold below perception. Some DMS adds graininess to flavor and can be important.



Chemically, DMS is lighter weight that SMM. As just solo DMS, it volatizes at 100^F. DMS is also hydrophobic, so it doesn't want to be in water. But, chemistry adds complexity to the issue, since DMS has affinity for other wort compounds, which inhibits its volatility.

The mechanical action of steam bubbles gives DMS a place to go by increasing the surface area it can escape to. In commercial brewing, DMS escapes in the whirlpool because of the surface area contact created by agitation. A homebrew wort stand without any movement doesn't do the same thing, but, it might not be necessary if the boil was long and vigorous enough to reduce SMM.



Totally different question.

Wort conversion continues until either substrate is depleted, or enzymes reach their "life" limit. The latter can be through either time or temperature.

One of the things that makes a wort work is that there is water inside the grain structure, providing a pathway to starch conversion for enzymes. Without grain, the available starch gets reduced pretty quickly.



SMM is extracted right along with starches, protiens and glucans at the same ratio as it is available in the grain. Once you stop extracting sugar, you also stop extracting SMM.

Again, brewing is a lot of interconnected parts/processes. We can explain any one of them, but the whole is what matters.

Very interesting read. I enjoyed that a lot, thanks brewfun. Now I just didn't catch the part of whirlpooling and wort surface contact in affecting the volatility of dms. If someone whirlpools his wort will there be more dms volatilizing?

 

[trentm]

Again, brewing is a lot of interconnected parts/processes. We can explain any one of them, but the whole is what matters.

Very well said. Thank you!

 

[brewfun]

If someone whirlpools his wort will there be more dms volatilizing?

Yes. In very simple terms, when you stir a hot liquid, more steam (heat) escapes than if it is simply standing still because more surface area comes in contact with the atmosphere. This is an analogy for DMS.

 

[Beernik]

When you say no boil, do you mean that hops are infused in the mash and the boil is skipped ? Or do you mean there is a hop schedule with a temperature close to boiling but not boiling? It's very interesting.

It's called "raw beer". And they are either not brought to a boil or they are boiled for very short periods of time or only part of the wort is boiled. Hops can be treated like whirlpool additions / hop stands or you can pour boiling water on the hops or pull a portion of the wort and boil it with the hops and leave the remainder of the beer unboiled.

The main problem that I've been reading about with them isn't DMS, like boogyman-conventional wisdom would suggest. The problem is stability from proteins not being removed as break material. They don't stay "good" for more than a couple months. So it's a technique that could lend itself to any beers you intend to drink young.

For my first attempt at something close to this, I was thinking a 20 minute boil for bittering, a flame out addition, a hop stand, and slow chilling it in my ferm-fridge.

 

[dreaded_rust]

Learning so much here.
So...not to derail the conversation here, but i brewed an ipa a while back and left a lid about 3/4 of the way on during the boil. Am I to understand that was a bad idea?

 

[hanuswalrus]

Learning so much here.
So...not to derail the conversation here, but i brewed an ipa a while back and left a lid about 3/4 of the way on during the boil. Am I to understand that was a bad idea?

I wouldn't recommend leaving the lid on while the wort is boiling. However, you can leave the lid on about 3/4 of the way before the wort reaches the boil. I sometimes do this to cut down the length of time it takes me to get my wort boiling. As soon as the wort shows signs of boiling, I remove the lid completely. It's the condensation that forms on the bottom of the lid that can contain DMS (which can then drip back into the wort) that you need to worry about.

 

[flars]

Learning so much here.
So...not to derail the conversation here, but i brewed an ipa a while back and left a lid about 3/4 of the way on during the boil. Am I to understand that was a bad idea?

I boil with the lid mostly on to reduce the amount of heat needed to keep a rolling boil. I do wipe the condensation from the under side of the lid before it begins to drip back in. Doesn't reduce the amount of boil off just energy reduction and less chance of scorching.