Increasing mash temp...thoughts?

[MrBJones]

Will be brewing tomorrow, recipe is "Programmer's Elbow", an ESB in Brewing Classic Styles.

12 pounds English pale ale malt (I'm using Baird's Maris Otter)
0.50 pound Crystal 20
0.25 pound Crystal 120
2oz EKG at 60
1oz EKG at flameout
Wyeast 1968 (London ESB)
Mash at 152º; ferment at 68º

I've made it before, followed the recipe exactly and it came out great. Considering this time mashing at 155º for a little more mouth feel, maybe a little less ABV. Any thoughts?
Thanks

 

[bajaedition]

Will be brewing tomorrow, recipe is "Programmer's Elbow", an ESB in Brewing Classic Styles.

12 pounds English pale ale malt (I'm using Baird's Maris Otter)
0.50 pound Crystal 20
0.25 pound Crystal 120
2oz EKG at 60
1oz EKG at flameout
Wyeast 1968 (London ESB)
Mash at 152º; ferment at 68º

I've made it before, followed the recipe exactly and it came out great. Considering this time mashing at 155º for a little more mouth feel, maybe a little less ABV. Any thoughts?
Thanks

that will do what you want. good luck
I love London ESB yeast, I use it for my ESB

 

[Paps]

that will do what you want.

What ^^^^^ he said.

 

[MrBJones]

Thanks for the replies! Do you think it will impart any noticeable sweetness? (I don't want that)

 

[Paps]

It will have more unfermentable sugars which will both impart mouthfeel and sweetness. If you want mouthfeel without added sweetness mash at the same temp but add flaked oats to the grain bill.

Also, sinse you mentioned you want a little less ABV.
You could drop the base malt to 10-lbs instead of 12-lbs.
I'll often use 10-lbs of base malt per 5-gallons and get somewhere between 5-6 %

 

[roadkizzle]

I've mashed at higher temperatures. Even 160-170. I do get higher FG readings but it really does not seem sweet to me then.

The extra heavier sugars really do not add sweetness while they create a similar body to a normally mashed one.

For interest Brulosophy performed their mash temperature test with two beers mashed at 147 and 161.

Their taste testers did not seem to be able to identify the difference between the beers even though they were a full 1 abv different. The low mash temp reached a FG of 1.005 and the high mash temp reached 1.014.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/12/the-mash-high-vs-low-temperature-exbeeriment-results/

 

[IslandLizard]

I've mashed at higher temperatures. Even 160-170. I do get higher FG readings but it really does not seem sweet to me then.

The extra heavier sugars really do not add sweetness while they create a similar body to a normally mashed one.

For interest Brulosophy performed their mash temperature test with two beers mashed at 147 and 161.

Their taste testers did not seem to be able to identify the difference between the beers even though they were a full 1 abv different. The low mash temp reached a FG of 1.005 and the high mash temp reached 1.014.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/12/the-mash-high-vs-low-temperature-exbeeriment-results/

Yeah, that puzzles me greatly. IMO, it also discredits their tasting panel and perhaps many of their exbeeriment results.

At higher mash temps (above 150F) beta amylase gets outside of its optimum range, leaving more dextrins behind, which give a beer most of its body. Dextrins don't taste sweet. Lauter fast and start heating the runnings right away, or follow up with a mashout to keep that sugar profile. Don't mash extra long either.

 

[eric19312]

Yeah, that puzzles me greatly. IMO, it also discredits their tasting panel and perhaps many of their exbeeriment results.

I'm not ready to discredit the tasting panel yet but would like to know how the panel is prepared for the tasting. Have they been drinking RIS and DIPA for a couple hours then get asked to participate in the panel?

Reading the comments it does seem the experiment was repeated with similar results. Puzzling is the right word.

 

[dmtaylor]

More data is needed. Even Marshall will always advise you not to accept their test results as gospel. Definitely don't do that. Run your own experiments and see what you get.

 

[mongoose33]

I've mashed at higher temperatures. Even 160-170. I do get higher FG readings but it really does not seem sweet to me then.

The extra heavier sugars really do not add sweetness while they create a similar body to a normally mashed one.

For interest Brulosophy performed their mash temperature test with two beers mashed at 147 and 161.

Their taste testers did not seem to be able to identify the difference between the beers even though they were a full 1 abv different. The low mash temp reached a FG of 1.005 and the high mash temp reached 1.014.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/12/the-mash-high-vs-low-temperature-exbeeriment-results/

Yeah, that puzzles me greatly. IMO, it also discredits their tasting panel and perhaps many of their exbeeriment results.

At higher mash temps (above 150F) beta amylase gets outside of its optimum range, leaving more dextrins behind, which give a beer most of its body. Dextrins don't taste sweet. Lauter fast and start heating the runnings right away, or follow up with a mashout to keep that sugar profile. Don't mash extra long either.

When I was first learning about this, I ran across the chart below. If it can be believed, even at 160 degrees beta-amylase is still active. I suspect that at a higher mash temp, if you want to dry it out as much as possible you want to extend the mash, perhaps to 90 minutes.

I've been tending toward lower mash temps (150 or so) to reduce sweetness and make the beer a little drier. I wish I had the capacity to do a side-by-side comparison of this. I have a mash tun, can do BIAB. It's just that the processes are different. Hmmm....a buddy has a mash tun....wonder if we could do a side-by-side, we each brew a batch with different mash temps, everything else the same.....

 

[Owly055]

My 10 minute mash produced a heaver though not noticeably sweeter brew, about 1% lower in alcohol than normal. The process I used started with a fine crush, about .030, followed by a dough in with 130F water, and rapid heating to 145, then slowing down to 1 deg per minute up to 155. conversion was extremely rapid, almost instant, from 153 to 155, at which point the starch test showed no residual starch.

Taste your wort........ who hasn't? The sugars in wort are not especially sweet to the taste.. If you want sweetness, try adding some xylitol. It's a "natural artificial sweetener" that is unfermentable. But don't give your beer to your dog!

H.W.

 

[dmtaylor]

My experience agrees with Owly.... it can be much more interesting and useful to play around with mash TIME than mash temp. Personally I mash almost every beer for just 40-45 minutes, then sparge and boil. If I wanted a more heavy bodied beer, I'd consider mashing for just 20-30 minutes, but usually I don't want that. Have I done it a time or two? Yes I have. Efficiency doesn't suffer much, but fermentability does take quite a hit, i.e., you'll end up with higher final gravity. After about 40 minutes, you probably won't notice much if any difference in fermentability. That's my experience. All this assumes a consistent mash temp between different mash times. If you introduce more variables, results are more complicated and difficult to predict.

 

[roadkizzle]

Yeah, that puzzles me greatly. IMO, it also discredits their tasting panel and perhaps many of their exbeeriment results.

At higher mash temps (above 150F) beta amylase gets outside of its optimum range, leaving more dextrins behind, which give a beer most of its body. Dextrins don't taste sweet. Lauter fast and start heating the runnings right away, or follow up with a mashout to keep that sugar profile. Don't mash extra long either.

You're questioning the group when you then go on and say that the higher mash temps are out of optimal range for the enzyme that clips the non-sweet dextrines into the shorter sugars which are sweeter and more fermentable?

That was the exact point of why the experiment yielded non-significant results.

The body remained very similar between the two beers. The more dextrins kept the OG the same.
But there wasn't corresponding sweetness from an underattenuated beer because the sugars remaining were not the ones perceived as sweet to the human palate.

The entire point WAS that the enzymes are not able to function optimally so they leave heavy sugars creating body without perceptible differences in sweetness.

Possibly with high mash temperature and controlling the mash time you'll get even lower alcohol beer without being perceptively different.