Low Attenuation US05

[jslive4now]

Hello.. First Partial mash, Amber Ale, and fermentation seems to have ended at 68% attenuation. From what I can tell kind of on the low side for this yeast.. Trying to confirm the issue and I think it may have been the mash itself.. Below are the details;

2-3/4# 2row
.25# C40
.75# C120
.25# Carapils
4# LME, Late Extract addition (15mins)

Mashed started at 156° (target was 154°) for 45mins and ended at 150°. Collected first wort. Batch sparged at 162° for 5 mins.. Collected 2nd wort and continued as a normal late extract boil..

OG was 1.049 and now SG is 1.015... Fermented in a fermentation chamber at 66° and ramped up to 68° around day 5 and is now at 69°..

Thought's and/or comments appreciated .

Thanks!!

 

[day_trippr]

C40 is 60% fermentable, C120 closer to 50%, and carapils is basically dextrins.

I bet if you did the math the FG is reasonable...

Cheers!

 

[Weezy]

What d_t said. Theres a lot of unfermentables in that beer. I'd be happy at 1.015 imho.

You could get it down some more if you'd mash at 146-148....and ditch the carapils. No real call for it in such a recipe. All that DME and crystal doesn't need extra body building adjuncts.... unless you want a 1.015 beer, that is.

 

[jslive4now]

What d_t said. Theres a lot of unfermentables in that beer. I'd be happy at 1.015 imho.

You could get it down some more if you'd mash at 146-148....and ditch the carapils. No real call for it in such a recipe. All that DME and crystal doesn't need extra body building adjuncts.... unless you want a 1.015 beer, that is.

I'm cool with the 1.015.. Will give me a 4.5% beer.. Just off a bit from target of 5%. Just using every brew as a learning curve.. This was an extract kit I turned into a partial mash by removing some of the LME and adding in some 2row and mashing.. Trying to better my beer best I can since I live in an apartment and unable to do full boil and all grain..

Any ideas or can you point me in a direction so I have a better understanding of grains and what they add/do for brewing???.. Like Carapils being 100% dextrin..

 

[Weezy]

Well you have a good attitude towards it. I don't really have a good link to give you other than to keep reading here. I'd recommend picking up Ray Daniels Designing Great Beer book. Lots of eye opening info about the brewing process and the intricacies of designing recipes , imho.

As far as grains, that's a small book. You can read some in John palmers book here:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html
I'll post some more when I'm not on my phone.

 

[jslive4now]

Well you have a good attitude towards it. I don't really have a good link to give you other than to keep reading here. I'd recommend picking up Ray Daniels Designing Great Beer book. Lots of eye opening info about the brewing process and the intricacies of designing recipes , imho.

As far as grains, that's a small book. You can read some in John palmers book here:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html
I'll post some more when I'm not on my phone.

Appreciate the help Wezzy..

 

[Weezy]

Alright, these lists aren't complete, I'm sure. This is stuff off the top of my head.

Malts that are generally called 'base malts' include lightly kilned malts, cooked malts, and unmalted grains. These must be mashed as the light kilning and cooking does not convert the carbs to sugars so we must ask the enzymes to convert them for us. Here's a list of base malts.

Base Malts
Amber Malt
Aromatic Malt
Barley, Flaked
Barley, Raw
Barley, Torrefied
Brown Malt
Corn, Flaked
Melanoidin Malt
Mild Malt
Munich Malt, All Colors
Oats, Flaked
Oats, Malted
Pale Malt (2 Row)
Pale Malt (6 Row)
Pale Ale Malt (2 Row)
Pale Ale Malt (6 Row)
Peat Smoked Malt
Pilsner (2 Row)
Rice, Flaked
Rye Malt
Rye, Flaked
Smoked Malt
Special Roast
Toasted Malt
Victory Malt
Vienna Malt
Wheat Malt, All Colors
Wheat, Flaked
Wheat, Roasted
Wheat, Torrefied

Note that the darker, cooked, and unmalted malts cannot self-convert.
They do not have any or a sufficient amount of enzymes within them and thus rely on the simpler base malts (pale, pils, vienna, munich) which are commonly the biggest portion of malt bills to provide enzymes.

Adjuncts include the common crystal/caramel malts and many other common additions. The way these adjuncts are prepared at the factory has the majority of the carbs already converted to sugars. These adjuncts generally don't need mashed. They just need to be cooked to dissolve the sugars in them already created in the factory. Note however that the malted grains on this list still have some starches in them that can be converted to more sugar through a mash process.

Adjuncts
Biscuit Malt
Black Barley/Patent Malt
Brown Sugars
Candi Sugars
Cane (Beet) Sugar
Cara-Pils/Dextrine
Caraamber
Carabrown
Carafoam
Caramel/Crystal Malt, All Colors
Caramunich Malt, All Colors
Carared
Cararye
Caravienne
...heck, all of the 'Cara's...
Chocolate Malt, All Colors
Corn Syrup
Grits
Honey
Invert Sugar
Maple Syrup
Milk Sugar (Lactose) (not fermentable but doesn't need mashed)
Molasses
Roasted Barley
Special B Malt
Sugar, Corn (Dextrose)
Sugar, Dememera
Sugar, Table (Sucrose)
Sugar, Turbinado

Fermentability is another story. Generally, the base malts are the most fermentable, besides the simple sugars which are nearly 100% fermentable. The rest are less so. There's no rule or hard/fast numbers to give you to say that Carapils is 50% fermentable, etc. The best idea to keep in your head as you start formulating your own recipes is that when your base malt (or base malts, if you're using multiple in a recipe, like pale malt and flaked barley and wheat) gets to be less than 85% of the recipe, you should take another hard look at the recipe you're formulating. If you're working on a light, simple beer, I'd take a hard look at the recipe if my base malts got to be less than 90% of the malt bill.

 

[chickypad]

Pretty sure "unmalted malts" is an oxymoron, no?

You seem to be confusing the terms base malt/adjuncts with require mashing/don't require mashing. I think most would define base malts as malted grains with the diastatic power to at least convert themselves. I also think the more common use of the the term adjuncts refers to unmalted sources of fermentables like flaked grains, corn, rice, and sugars, but not so much specialty malts like roasted and crystal malts. Many adjuncts do need to be mashed.

Edit: some sources:
How to brew (bottom of page)
HBT wiki
BYO
mad fermentationist

 

[Weezy]

Feel free to edit it if you don't like the terminology I used!

 

[chickypad]

It's not so much what I like or don't like, but I'm worried you're confusing a new brewer using non-standard terminology. By your list you seem to be defining base malt as anything that needs to be mashed, which is not the common use. A base malt has to have diastatic power. If you can't make a SMaSH with it, it's not a base malt.

The term "adjuncts" is a little more fluid, but as per the references I listed most people use it either to denote non-malted sources of sugars, or the more strict definition which is any source that is not malted barley. Instead you are using the requirement of a mash to define, i.e. anything not needing a mash = adjunct. That not only leaves out a great number of adjuncts like flaked grains, corn, and rice but it also incorrectly includes a lot of types of malted barley that don't fall in to the common definition of an adjunct.

Just trying to help!

 

[m00ps]

Yeah I agree stuff like Amber, Special Roast, Victory, toasted malt, etc are not base malts.

Like chickypad said, if you can't reasonably make a SMaSH beer with it, its not a base malt

 

[Weezy]

Whew, ok fellas. apologies. I was just trying to use simple terms. Would it be acceptable if I divide into three groups? Base grains that need to be mashed and can self convert, grains that must be mashed and need base grains to aid in conversion, and how about 'other common additions' instead of adjuncts?

 

[m00ps]

Well everyone has their own understanding of categorizing malts I guess. Probably more info than the OP wanted, haha

In my drunked brain I lump things into base malts, adjuncts, and "sugars" (which I try to make at least 80% of the bill) and then "specialty" malts. I started all-grain from the get-go so I never educated myself too much on the conversion thing. I figured as long as I kept my recipes balanced, the mash would go just fine