Dry beer

[FiskBrews]

I remember from when I was doing all grain brews, you could control the fermentability of the sugars through mash temperature. I want to have make a dry beer from extract. With all grain when I wanted a dry beer I would try to keep the mash temp in the 145 range. How do I do this with extract? Are certain extracts more fermentable than others?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

How do I do this with extract?

Enzymes. Online instructions from a couple of extract based brut IPA kits should help with the ingredients and process.

 

[bellhp]

Glad you piped up Brewnwkopperkat ... I was going to say I think yeast selection would be the only option with extract fermentability ... also some amber /dark extracts I believe contain crystal so you would want to avoid those , yes?

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[FiskBrews]

Awesome! I see a DryPA kit that uses US05 as well as the enzymes. Would using a champagne yeast be a good idea or a bad one.

 

[bellhp]

Stick to beer yeast would be my suggestion . There are plenty to choose from .

 

[Steveruch]

This ended up pretty dry considering the high O G.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Are certain extracts more fermentable than others?

I'm not aware of any current summary information (across brands and styles). There apparently was an article in Zymurgy (before the year 2000) that had that information.

also some amber /dark extracts I believe contain crystal so you would want to avoid those , yes?

I brew occasionally with Briess Amber DME. It seems to ferment similar to their pilsen, golden light, and pale ale DMEs. I don't use dark DME.

An extra-light or pilsen DME would be a good starting point.

Would using a champagne yeast be a good idea or a bad one.

It would be worth a try.

Are you able to ferment multiple smaller batches - so you could make a five gal wort and ferment five one gallon batches?

 

[RM-MN]

Awesome! I see a DryPA kit that uses US05 as well as the enzymes. Would using a champagne yeast be a good idea or a bad one.

Stick to beer yeast would be my suggestion

Mine too. Champagne yeast likes simple sugars such as are found in fruit juices. Beer is much more complex and contains sugars that Champagne yeast can't eat. Even some of the beer yeasts can't digest all of the sugars in beer.

Here is the list of the extracts that Briess makes with their composition. For instance, golden light extract has 1% Carapils with the rest base malt.

https://www.brewingwithbriess.com/products/extracts/

 

[beermanpete]

Another option is adding sugar in place of some of the malt extract. This should dry out the finished beer a bit.

 

[pvtpublic]

Another option is adding sugar in place of some of the malt extract. This should dry out the finished beer a bit.

Pete, you got to it 22 minutes before me

 

[FiskBrews]

OK, I think I have many avenues to explore now. And that's what this hobby is all about! Am I right?

 

[WestMichiganSteelheader]

I remember from when I was doing all grain brews, you could control the fermentability of the sugars through mash temperature. I want to have make a dry beer from extract. With all grain when I wanted a dry beer I would try to keep the mash temp in the 145 range. How do I do this with extract? Are certain extracts more fermentable than others?

I brew a brut IPA that uses gluco-amylase and sugar that produces a FG of 1.00 or lower. Here is a link with more information. Brut IPA

 

[geezerpk]

Just whisper "Vermouth" over the bottling bucket before proceeding. ;-)