Does dastatic power of whole pale malt degrade with age?

[z-bob]

I have pilsner and a little bit of pale ale malt that are several years old. It still smells good and tastes good and brews good. But I want to try a beer with a *lot* of adjuncts. Will it still have plenty of enzymes to convert the adjuncts, or is it doing good to convert itself at this point? I want to do 50% pils and 50% unmalted wheat. (5 pounds of each) That should work with DP to spare, but not much to spare. Think I might ought to hedge my bet by substituting a pound of fresh wheat malt for a pound of the unmalted wheat. What do y'all think?

 

[Bramling Cross]

Paying a dollar to ensure that your mash will turn into beer seems like a wise investment to me.

Got a half-pound of six-row handy?

 

[z-bob]

Paying a dollar to ensure that your mash will turn into beer seems like a wise investment to me.

Got a half-pound of six-row handy?

No I don't, and both LHBS's here shut down. But I do have a few pounds of wheat malt, which is almost as strong as 6-row. So I thought 5# pils, 1# wheat malt, and 4# wheat flour would be pretty close to my original recipe but a lot higher DP.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Just toss in some wheat malt, at least you don't have to worry that way.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

Do a mini mash on the kitchen stove with 1/4# of each. Test for conversion. Might take a little longer than usual.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Does dastatic power of whole pale malt degrade with age?

This is something I have wondered about. My instinct says it should, but pre-malting the barley is treated pretty rough (shipped around in hot rail cars, stored in hot silos, etc.) and even after being malted for brewing it is not babied. I am not sure what the typical timeframe for field to maltster to you is for a typical "fresh" bag of malted barley. I have not experienced any noticeable differences with malted barley that was in my possession for 2-3 years before use.

In this case, adding in some malted wheat seems like a good idea.

 

[mashpaddled]

You would think with time the enzymes would degrade. How fast that happens I'm not sure. I've brewed with malted barley that was several years old with no problems. I would test for conversion at the end of the mash.

 

[McMullan]

All power degrades with age. Unless fundamental laws of physics are being broken, which is pretty unlikely, irrespective of YouTube personalities and all things else considered.

 

[z-bob]

All power degrades with age. Unless fundamental laws of physics are being broken, which is pretty unlikely, irrespective of YouTube personalities and all things else considered.

Yes, of course it does. What I should have asked is if it degrades significantly.

 

[McMullan]

Yes, of course it does. What I should have asked is if it degrades significantly.

As long as the low moisture content has been stable it's going to be fine for years. Use some in a mini mash for a yeast starter.

 

[lurker18]

Big boys like Bud in North America are almost always sitting on at least a year of barley just in case of a worldwide crop failure, and they still do an amazing job of making a beer.

 

[bracconiere]

4# wheat flour

i'd be more concerned with sparging, then conversion? i've done quite a few batches with homemalted fresh 6-row malt with 8lbs malt, 5 lbs flour...


sparging was a be-ahtch....i'd think store bought malt should still have the ability to convert even after several years?

you could just use like 5g's malt, 5g's of your flour...and a few drops of titratable iodine? maybe figure out a way to work vitamin c into the experiment?