I have no backbone

[cwheel]

I was drinking a Loose Cannon IPA today, which is one of my favorite beers. I drank it alongside my recent Terrapin Rye Pale Ale Clone, and I noticed that the Loose Cannon was much maltier than my batch. It was a tasty, warm flavor, accentuating all of the hops in that brew. My batch tasted good, but is extremely clean and the lack of malt backbone brings out some lesser tastes that I would like to stay hidden.

I guess I have two questions:

1) When doing an AG batch, do brewing techniques (ie temperature) have an impact on maltiness? IE - should I be brewing warmer or cooler? I normally mash at 154 or so.

2) My water is extremely soft. I add about 2 teaspoons of gypsum and 1 teaspon of Calcium Chloride to each mash. Can water quality affect how malty your beer gets?

Would love to be able to brew something with the depth of Loose Cannon, but tonight I realized that all of my brews suffer from a lack of maltiness. Any thoughts?

 

[DregAddict]

A higher mash temp should give you more unfermentable sugars, adding more maltiness. You might just want to go up a couple degrees, maybe a 156-158 degree mash. I'm not sure about your exact recipe, but you could also use certain malts over others to get more body.

As far as the water goes, I'm not qualified to say, but I'm sure others will chime in.

 

[makomachine]

A higher mash temp should give you more unfermentable sugars, adding more maltiness. You might just want to go up a couple degrees, maybe a 156-158 degree mash. I'm not sure about your exact recipe, but you could also use certain malts over others to get more body.

As far as the water goes, I'm not qualified to say, but I'm sure others will chime in.

Higher mash temp is one approach, but id like to hear more about your grain bill and yeast you use as well before going any farther. Water chemistry is not my forte...

 

[cwheel]

Not sure if this will be readable (from brewmasterswarehouse):

Volume 6 Gallons
Gallons
Efficiency 75%
%
My Custom Recipe.Ingredient Name Amount
Briess 2-Row Brewer's Malt 9 lbs, 6 oz
Weyermann Rye Malt 1 lbs, 6 oz
Caramel Munich 1 lbs, 6 oz
Briess Victory 0 lbs, 11 oz
Gambrinus Honey Malt 0 lbs, 8 oz
Magnum Pellets, GR .5 oz @ 60 mins
Fuggles Pellets, UK .5 oz @ 30 mins
Kent Goldings, UK Pellets .5 oz @ 20 mins
Kent Goldings, UK Pellets .5 oz @ 10 mins
Cascade Pellets .6 oz @ 1 mins
Amarillo Pellets 1.25 oz @ Dry

 

[bob1852]

mix in some flaked barely and/or carapils with a little higher mash temp...

 

[cwheel]

sorry, and my house WY1968 yeast

 

[makomachine]

What yeast? I agree with the higher mash and the addition of some Carapils, maybe 8 to 10 oz as a start.

 

[cwheel]

thanks everyone! will definitely try a higher mash temp

 

[Beerrific]

I would have to somewhat disagree about the mash temp. A higher mash temperature will make the beer sweeter which is not the same as maltier. Sweetness and body serve to accentuate maltiness, but really if you want it to be maltier....add more malt.

Loose Cannon is an IPA (borderline IIPA?) and a very malty one at that. Terrapin Rye is a pale ale and while it does have a strong malt character, it is no where near as malty as Loos Cannon. So if your Terrapin clone came out less malty than Loose Cannon, I think you are on the right track. I would suggest making a beer that is notorious for being malty. Maybe a Loose Cannon clone?

On the water, some people say that the Cl:SO4 ratio can make a beer taste more/less malty. This is marginally true especially to the extent that SO4 can make hops a lot sharper. For the malty beer attempt, maybe just get your Ca up to about 75ppm using CaCl2 only.

Also, what yeast have you been using? Some yeast tend to accentuate hops while some accentuate malt. For example wlp001/WY1056 (and even to a large extent US-05) accentuate hops a lot more than the malt.

 

[Yooper]

That is a bit hard to read. It looks like about 9 pounds of basemalt, and then some rye, victory, and crystal-Munich?

That seems ok but for a beer to have a strong malt backbone, usually the first fix is simply more malt. A bigger grain bill will give a stronger malt taste. Then, add some of the "maltier" malts to it, like Vienna malt, and more Munich malt. Some aromatic malt gives an intense malt flavor and aroma.

The next thing would be balance. If you have too many hops, you "lose" some of the malt flavor. Generally, a higher OG with more "malty" malts, and firm bittering with an SG/IBU ratio of .700-.900 will give a nice firm malt backbone. It's hard to get a nice firm backbone with a beer that only has 9 pounds of malt in it- especially a 6 gallon batch!

I wouldn't add gypsum, but the CaCl2 is good. If your water profile is very soft, 5 grams of CaCl2 may be enough salt additions for the batch, depending on your actual profile.

 

[jonmohno]

Somebody correct me if im wrong but it seems that by adding those salts it accentuates the hops more, it seems i commonly see these 2 being added more to pale ale type beers, I would try leaving your water alone and see what happens, also picking the right yeast is very important some mailorder Co.s have good descriptions or you can just look into white labs, or wyyeast to read yeast descriptions and what they are good for.Its your best bet it helps me alot with picking what hops i think would fit in a recipe.

 

[Yooper]

Somebody correct me if im wrong but it seems that by adding those salts it accentuates the hops more, it seems i commonly see these 2 being added more to pale ale type beers, I would try leaving your water alone and see what happens, also picking the right yeast is very important some mailorder Co.s have good descriptions or you can just look into white labs, or wyyeast to read yeast descriptions and what they are good for.Its your best bet it helps me alot with picking what hops i think would fit in a recipe.

Adding sulfate can accentuate the hops more I guess, but it's more of a harshness than a good taste. Even for IPAs, I don't add much gypsum. The CaCl2 is for yeast nutrition, and brings a "rounder" fuller flavor to the beer.

 

[makomachine]

Yooper makes a good point on the qty of malt in the grain bill itself. (As she has forgotten more on brewing than Ive learned) That said, I'm thinking I'd first bump up your base malt qty with a small addition of Vienna or some lighter Crystal malts depending on the type of 'character' you prefer.