• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

do various malts have different mouth feel

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
If they are all mashed at the same temperature?

Higher mash temps do increase mouth feel, which I like, so I mash some of my beers at 158*f. That's one way of creating mouth feel and body to the beer. But so do adjuncts like oatmeal in a stout.
You're probably aware that malts that are kilned into caramel/crystal malts, have had their sugars caramelized by varying degrees of temperature and kilning times. As those sugars are caramelized in these specialty malts, the polymer chains are too big for the alpha amylase and beta amylase enzymes to break apart. If the polymer chains can't be broken, the yeast we use can't metabolize them. That means more mouth feel and residual sweetness.
I hope that is an answer you were looking for.
 
Not really, maybe, but thanks for trying....

I'll correct my question to be concerned with strictly base malts, but other than that the question stands.

The specific mash temperature isn't important. If all base malts are mashed at the same temperature will they all have the same mouth feel?

Perhaps with your mention of kilning process you were eluding to why the answer would be not necessarily, but I can't tell without a definitive answer :)
 
Higher mash temps do increase mouth feel, which I like, so I mash some of my beers at 158*f. That's one way of creating mouth feel and body to the beer. But so do adjuncts like oatmeal in a stout.
You're probably aware that malts that are kilned into caramel/crystal malts, have had their sugars caramelized by varying degrees of temperature and kilning times. As those sugars are caramelized in these specialty malts, the polymer chains are too big for the alpha amylase and beta amylase enzymes to break apart. If the polymer chains can't be broken, the yeast we use can't metabolize them. That means more mouth feel and residual sweetness.
I hope that is an answer you were looking for.

This IS the answer to your question. As all malts, even base malts, are kilned, you get varying amounts of non-metabolizable compounds produced. The darker the malt, the more of these present. Pilsner will have the least, then pale, vienna, munich, and up. A beer brewed with pilsner malt, and then brewed exactly the same with pale malt will be different in body. It might not be a big difference, but it will be there. It is hard to get the crispness of beer made with pilsner malt using a pale malt (assuming trying to brew a crisp beer). Now keep in mind that not all pils malts are the same, nor are all pale malts and there is likely some overlap depending on manufacturer.

Then there are difference in protein content, and this can affect body as well.
 
And is there a measurement value for this? So that when shopping for malts you can gain a feel for how you will be affecting mouth feel?

Thanks for clarifying. The previous response kept eluding to specialty malts, so I wasn't certain on how much this factored in to base malts
 
And is there a measurement value for this? So that when shopping for malts you can gain a feel for how you will be affecting mouth feel?

Thanks for clarifying. The previous response kept eluding to specialty malts, so I wasn't certain on how much this factored in to base malts

Not really. I mean, sure you can look at see at high something is in color, and that is related to the amount of kilning but that doesn't tell the whole picture.

Pilsner malt is the lowest colored malt on the SRM scale, as it's very light colored and not highly kilned, say an SRM of 1. On the other hand, you may have dark Munich, which is very dark by comparison, 20L. The darker Munich malt will be "richer" and "maltier" in flavor and a bit in mouthfeel.

Of course, as Mr Tuba explain, there are more compounds in these (like protein content) that impacts this as well.

You can mash a pilsner malt beer at 158, and it will probably be different in the mouthfeel and the amount of body than if you mashed it at 147 as well, so there can be variations in this. Color and kilning is only one part of the who picture of using and choosing base grains.
 
Back
Top