Consistently high attenuation

[AlexKay]

I'm not sure if Web of Science is the best resource to capture descriptive details of practices in traditional ale brewing in Britain, to be honest. Maybe try searching the archives of the Journal of the Institute of Brewing. Sufficiently well documented there, you'll find.

WoS indexes J. IoB. Its algorithm for presenting results may mean that older papers don’t show up near the top of searches, though.

@AlexKay
Plenty of British beer recipes on Shut up about Barclay perkins website

I appreciate having a source!

I also appreciate the change in tone of the conversation. Thanks.

 

[monkeymath]

I usually try and mash for high fermentability (and make adequately sized starters etc), but my attenuation almost never leaves the 70-75% range. (Saisons are an exception, but even there is see 85-90% rather than the 95%+ often reported.)

And yes, I have checked my thermometers as well as my hydrometer.

In an effort to increase attenuation, I had started to mash in at 60C and then raise the temp only after 10 minutes or so, to ensure beta-amylase would not denature before nutrients and enzymes were distributed in the wort etc.
Based on an article I encountered very recently (Optimization of Beer Brewing by Monitoring α-Amylase and β-Amylase Activities during Mashing), that line of thinking appears to be correct, but the temperature isn't: to actually preserve beta-amylase, you need to mash in below 55C. So it seems like what I was doing was actually slowly kill off the beta-amylase at a temperature below its optimum range and before gelatinisation of starches.

Anyhow, to bring it back to *your* problem, if you want to call it such: if you mash in high, it shouldn't make a ton of difference if the temperature drops a bit after a while (like half an hour). Beta-amylase denatures very quickly at 69C.
And for the whole strike-water-temp thing: it seems weird from a perspective of physics, but I have never observed that temperature drop at dough-in. Not when recirculating with the Grainfather and not when stirring manually in a pot. I'm admittedly puzzled as to what I might be doing wrong (or at least different from everyone else).

 

[Miraculix]

I usually try and mash for high fermentability (and make adequately sized starters etc), but my attenuation almost never leaves the 70-75% range. (Saisons are an exception, but even there is see 85-90% rather than the 95%+ often reported.)

And yes, I have checked my thermometers as well as my hydrometer.

In an effort to increase attenuation, I had started to mash in at 60C and then raise the temp only after 10 minutes or so, to ensure beta-amylase would not denature before nutrients and enzymes were distributed in the wort etc.
Based on an article I encountered very recently (Optimization of Beer Brewing by Monitoring α-Amylase and β-Amylase Activities during Mashing), that line of thinking appears to be correct, but the temperature isn't: to actually preserve beta-amylase, you need to mash in below 55C. So it seems like what I was doing was actually slowly kill off the beta-amylase at a temperature below its optimum range and before gelatinisation of starches.

Anyhow, to bring it back to *your* problem, if you want to call it such: if you mash in high, it shouldn't make a ton of difference if the temperature drops a bit after a while (like half an hour). Beta-amylase denatures very quickly at 69C.
And for the whole strike-water-temp thing: it seems weird from a perspective of physics, but I have never observed that temperature drop at dough-in. Not when recirculating with the Grainfather and not when stirring manually in a pot. I'm admittedly puzzled as to what I might be doing wrong (or at least different from everyone else).

Did you try a step mash?15 Minutes @ 56 C, 30 minutes @ 62 C , 30 minutes @ 72 C, 15 Minutes @ 77C gives me the highes fermentability.

 

[x3la]

I might add that by traditional English Ale's, I'm referring to those that I grew up drinking, beers available from late 1980's - present, mostly from family brewers still in business in the UK. Those are the recipes I am trying to replicate.

Ron Pattinson's book "Bitter!" has some interesting details on English Bitter of olde:

The author splits Pale Ales into two groups: the strong type and the light type. The strength of the former is "on account of the completeness of their fermentation". Or the very high degree of attenuation. We've seen Bass and Allsopp Pale Ales that were 85% to 90% attenuated. Their gravities weren't necessarily that high mostly 1060 to 1070 but the very high attenuation left some over 7% ABV.

19th century Pale Ale – what was it really like?

While there's considerable variation in strength, there's one thing all the beers have in common: a high degree of attenuation. Only three are below 80% apparent attenuation. Four are over 90%. All must have been pretty dry.

Late 19th century Pale Ales

A couple of the beers are very highly attenuated. Between 65% and 75% was typical for other styles of beer. Hodgson's Bitter Ale was pushing 90%. Very impressive. I wonder if the low pitching temperature (just 52º F) played a role?

In the recipes section there are indeed higher mash temperatures (and lower).

 

[monkeymath]

Did you try a step mash?15 Minutes @ 56 C, 30 minutes @ 62 C , 30 minutes @ 72 C, 15 Minutes @ 77C gives me the highes fermentability.

Yup. Same difference.

 

[DuncB]

@monkeymath
I have noticed that the strike temperature calculator works out too high a temperature for my Guten 70 as well. It does drop though, I have the element turned off once strike temp is reached and recirculate to ensure that all the water is well mixed including the dead space around the malt pipe. I recirculate during dough in as well.
I do think these all in one systems run better with a higher liquid to malt ratio and have a tendency to have the grain sitting at a lower temp than the sensor would have us believe due to heat loss between the element and sensor at the bottom and the outflow of recirculation at the top. I'm going to fit the wortometer and use a second sensor on my brew system to see what the difference is.

 

[DuncB]

So an update I found that 2.5 degrees positive put me bang on mash temp with 8kg of grain and 35 litres of water in the Guten.
The wortometer with temp probe fitted on the recirc pipe just before it went through the lid hole and onto the grain was consistently 0.3 degrees cooler than the temp measured by the sensor on the bottom of the kettle.