Controlling Wort Fermentability

[bob1]

Hey guys, recently I have been working on a number of all grain beers, mainly pilsners, with high adjuncts 20%+ rice. What I want to get out of them is a refreshing almost malty-sweet finish. I know that if I did not have the adjuncts to worry about I could just keep the mash temp high 152-160 and there would be plenty of unfermentable sugars left over to yield the sweetness I want.

1)What is the best way of dealing the conversion of the adjuncts while ensuring the sweetness that I want? I've read about decoction mashing but I am worried about boiling the grain and the tannins that would release. Maybe I misunderstood the description of the process? What I've been doing so far is overcooking the rice in a double broiler to gelatanize it and then adding it like flaked, but this is very time consuming. I've read a bit about how AB (my fav brewers /s) does it and it sounds like they ramp mash from 140-160 with uncooked rice. I have tried this in the past and have had some off tastes from what I believe was conversion issues.

2)Would a refractometer be useful in hitting my targets for this? ie: If i knew my calculated OG could I halt the mash 5% or so before it completes? Does it measure only fermentable sugars?

 

[brewshki]

Hey guys, recently I have been working on a number of all grain beers, mainly pilsners, with high adjuncts 20%+ rice. What I want to get out of them is a refreshing almost malty-sweet finish. I know that if I did not have the adjuncts to worry about I could just keep the mash temp high 152-160 and there would be plenty of unfermentable sugars left over to yield the sweetness I want.



1)What is the best way of dealing the conversion of the adjuncts while ensuring the sweetness that I want? I've read about decoction mashing but I am worried about boiling the grain and the tannins that would release. Maybe I misunderstood the description of the process? What I've been doing so far is overcooking the rice in a double broiler to gelatanize it and then adding it like flaked, but this is very time consuming. I've read a bit about how AB (my fav brewers /s) does it and it sounds like they ramp mash from 140-160 with uncooked rice. I have tried this in the past and have had some off tastes from what I believe was conversion issues.



2)Would a refractometer be useful in hitting my targets for this? ie: If i knew my calculated OG could I halt the mash 5% or so before it completes? Does it measure only fermentable sugars?

I feel like you are shooting yourself in the foot by adding such a high percentage of adjuncts if you want malty sweet. I'm not that experienced though, so take that with a grain of salt. You could maybe try adding some sort of unfermentables

 

[theseeker4]

Hey guys, recently I have been working on a number of all grain beers, mainly pilsners, with high adjuncts 20%+ rice. What I want to get out of them is a refreshing almost malty-sweet finish. I know that if I did not have the adjuncts to worry about I could just keep the mash temp high 152-160 and there would be plenty of unfermentable sugars left over to yield the sweetness I want.

1)What is the best way of dealing the conversion of the adjuncts while ensuring the sweetness that I want? I've read about decoction mashing but I am worried about boiling the grain and the tannins that would release. Maybe I misunderstood the description of the process? What I've been doing so far is overcooking the rice in a double broiler to gelatanize it and then adding it like flaked, but this is very time consuming. I've read a bit about how AB (my fav brewers /s) does it and it sounds like they ramp mash from 140-160 with uncooked rice. I have tried this in the past and have had some off tastes from what I believe was conversion issues.

2)Would a refractometer be useful in hitting my targets for this? ie: If i knew my calculated OG could I halt the mash 5% or so before it completes? Does it measure only fermentable sugars?

If you want malty sweet, why are you adding an adjunct that will dry out the beer? What is the purpose of the rice?

Tannin extraction is a problem if the pH of your mash is too high. This is why a decoction mash works without extracting tannins, because the pH is low enough. High temperature alone won't cause tannin extraction.

You can determine what the refractometer should read, but you need a calculator. It isn't that the refractometer only reads fermentable sugars, but it measures sugar concentration by the refraction of light by different concentrations of solutions. Water alone refracts the light a certain amount, which is set at 1.000 in a calibrated refractometer. Different chemicals dissolved in the water, like sugar, change how much the light is refracted by the solution, so you can use this property to measure the amount of sugar in the solution. Alcohol has its own refractive index, so as soon as fermentation starts, you aren't just measuring sugar and water, but a mixture of sugar, water and alcohol, which completely changes the scale of the refractometer. There are online calculators to determine the gravity of a sample after fermentation has begun, but they are imperfect and a hydrometer measurement is better. You CAN easily use a refractometer to determine when fermentation is finished, since the value will stop changing when no more sugar is being consumed and no more alcohol is being produced, but to determine the actual, true gravity of the sample, more steps are needed.

Also, OG is original gravity, which is the gravity that you should have before fermentation starts. You want to have an actual number for that, since the calculated OG may or may not be accurate, depending on the assumed efficiency and your actual efficiency. Calculated final gravity, or FG, is also based on the yeast used, mash temperature, and fermentation conditions, and it is an imprecise number, better represented by a range of numbers than a hard single gravity number. You could measure the gravities and possibly stop fermentation early by cooling the beer down.

The problem is, you are guessing to some extent what the actual FG will be, so you don't know if you are stopping the fermentation at 90% finished, 95% finished, or 100% finished. It would be easier to allow it to completely ferment out, then "back sweeten" with some extract, where you can control exactly what you are adding to the beer.

Last point, you do NOT want to back sweeten or stop fermentation early if you are bottle conditioning your beer. You will end up with bottle bombs sending shards of glass all over if you try to do this. Only try back sweetening or halting fermentation early if you have the capabilities to keg, and to cool the beer down and keep it cold.

 

[bob1]

Yeah I have looked into maltodextrine and lactose. I have just heard that they are pretty dissapointing. Can anyone confirm?

I guess the other side the question is: do unfermentable sugars give me the sweetness i want or just body? If not then I'll have to ferment until I hit the gravity I want and then cold crash, filter the yeast, or pasteurize to halt the fermentation.

 

[jerbrew]

If you want malty sweet, why are you adding an adjunct that will dry out the beer? What is the purpose of the rice?

Why the rice? brew with barley and mash high. Ever taste a Lagunitas IPA? that stuff is pretty sweet IMO cuz they mash high. Use the techniques brewers have used for centuries to do things people have done for centuries. Don't complicate what you don't have to with crap your LHBS wants to sell you.

 

[bob1]

Thanks seeker, I force carbonate so im good to back sweeten and thats what ive been doing - didnt think of adding extract to do it though. The last beer I made was perfect at the two week mark - i could have bathed in it. It had a nice floral nose with that slight maltiness and when i moved to to kegs to carbonate at week 4 it still had then nose but was bone dry and I was soo mad. ;p

How do they make production pilsners taste as refreshing as they do with the adjuncts that i know they contain?

 

[bob1]

Ever taste a Lagunitas IPA?

I'm scared of IPAs, I heard that they make you grow a neckbeard.

Also, yes mashing temp is something I've been playing with. I've even thought of mashing the rice with some malt separate and then adding the rest of the malt and mashing at a high temp. Think that would work? It would be like a decoction, just without one.

 

[jerbrew]

I'm scared of IPAs, I heard that they make you grow a neckbeard.

Also, yes mashing temp is something I've been playing with. I've even thought of mashing the rice with some malt separate and then adding the rest of the malt and mashing at a high temp. Think that would work? It would be like a decoction, just without one.

You should be scared. Neckbeards take control of your life.

Yea I don't see why it wouldn't work to some extent. But you're still using a 20% adjunct recipe. With that much rice you're really only able to change the character with 80% of your total sugars not all of it. And the rice is going to dry out your beer that's one of the things using it "does". so... depending on what you're going for try mashing super high at say 158-160 and see how it goes.

good luck.

 

[bob1]

You should be scared. Neckbeards take control of your life.

Yea I don't see why it wouldn't work to some extent. But you're still using a 20% adjunct recipe. With that much rice you're really only able to change the character with 80% of your total sugars not all of it. And the rice is going to dry out your beer that's one of the things using it "does". so... depending on what you're going for try mashing super high at say 158-160 and see how it goes.

good luck.

Thanks man, didn't realize that rice does that. I live in a place where rice is grown locally and I have been experimenting with a bunch of very interesting varieties just to see what I can do with them.