sarsippius
New Member
Hi all, new to the forum, been brewing about 6 years now . . . Have been doing 5 gallon all-grain batches for about 2 years now and am now getting the gear together to move up to 15 gallon batches. I have a friend who grows barley and is giving me 100 pounds of unmalted barley. I'm looking into what I can do with it-- ideally i'd like to use it as a portion of my base malts, but am a little foggy on the enzymatic capabilities of regular malted barley-- mainly how much I can get away with adding to my mash and still hope to get a decent conversion.
From what I've read so far, I need to do a cereal mash to get the starches into solution and easily accessible to the enzymes in my malt. I also understand that 6-row generally has more diastatic power (DP) than 2-row. There's a lot of math and formulas involved, which is where things get confusing for me.
One thing I've read is that 6-row has about 60% 'extra' enzymes than it needs to convert it's own starches. I've seen 6-row given a 'typical' DP of 160°L (L stands for Lintner for this discussion, not Lovibond!) and 2-row given a 'typical' DP of 120°L. I've also read that a malt needs a DP of 35°L to convert it's own starch.
So now for the questions . . . I have only 2-row malt on hand, but can get 6-row if I need it. Of course I always like to use what's on hand 1st . . . I found one discussion of this where a 2:1 ratio of malt:unmalted barley was recommended for a good conversion using 6-row. If I want to use my 2-row, my guess is that I could start experimenting at a 4:1 ratio and then maybe try a 3:1 ratio if I get good conversions with my 4:1 ratio. Do these ratios seem reasonable for any of you all that are more scientific about their beers than I?
Also, it would be nice to really understand this whole Lintner scale thing. If 35°L will convert itself, does that mean that double that (70°L) would convert itself and an equal weight of unmalted grain? It doesn't seem right with the numbers I've seen in other discussions, as if that's the case and 2-row has a DP of 120°L, I should be able to get away with a 1:3 ratio of malt:unmalted grain rather than a 3:1 ratio. This would really save on the amount of malt I need for a batch and local unmalted barly is next to free here. It would be really nice to brew a 5 gallon batch of decently strong beer and only need to use 3 pounds of malt mixed with 9 pounds of unmalted barley-- that would stretch a 50lb bag of malt out to over 80 gallons of beer! My guess is that this Lintner scale is not linear, and that doubling the DP won't double the amount of grain it would convert, but would like to know if someone can confirm that.
Any thoughts? The grain is arriving today and I have several batches I need to brew within the next week that I'd like to try this with if I can get some firm numbers (or at least respectible guesses). I could always do a few 'mini-batches' to experiment with, do some iodine tests to see if I'm getting a decent starch-to-sugar conversion and then check the specific gravity to see if I'm winding up with the right amount of sugars in my wort, but it would be nice to hear if others have tried this and how things went. Thanks for the read and any feedback!
From what I've read so far, I need to do a cereal mash to get the starches into solution and easily accessible to the enzymes in my malt. I also understand that 6-row generally has more diastatic power (DP) than 2-row. There's a lot of math and formulas involved, which is where things get confusing for me.
One thing I've read is that 6-row has about 60% 'extra' enzymes than it needs to convert it's own starches. I've seen 6-row given a 'typical' DP of 160°L (L stands for Lintner for this discussion, not Lovibond!) and 2-row given a 'typical' DP of 120°L. I've also read that a malt needs a DP of 35°L to convert it's own starch.
So now for the questions . . . I have only 2-row malt on hand, but can get 6-row if I need it. Of course I always like to use what's on hand 1st . . . I found one discussion of this where a 2:1 ratio of malt:unmalted barley was recommended for a good conversion using 6-row. If I want to use my 2-row, my guess is that I could start experimenting at a 4:1 ratio and then maybe try a 3:1 ratio if I get good conversions with my 4:1 ratio. Do these ratios seem reasonable for any of you all that are more scientific about their beers than I?
Also, it would be nice to really understand this whole Lintner scale thing. If 35°L will convert itself, does that mean that double that (70°L) would convert itself and an equal weight of unmalted grain? It doesn't seem right with the numbers I've seen in other discussions, as if that's the case and 2-row has a DP of 120°L, I should be able to get away with a 1:3 ratio of malt:unmalted grain rather than a 3:1 ratio. This would really save on the amount of malt I need for a batch and local unmalted barly is next to free here. It would be really nice to brew a 5 gallon batch of decently strong beer and only need to use 3 pounds of malt mixed with 9 pounds of unmalted barley-- that would stretch a 50lb bag of malt out to over 80 gallons of beer! My guess is that this Lintner scale is not linear, and that doubling the DP won't double the amount of grain it would convert, but would like to know if someone can confirm that.
Any thoughts? The grain is arriving today and I have several batches I need to brew within the next week that I'd like to try this with if I can get some firm numbers (or at least respectible guesses). I could always do a few 'mini-batches' to experiment with, do some iodine tests to see if I'm getting a decent starch-to-sugar conversion and then check the specific gravity to see if I'm winding up with the right amount of sugars in my wort, but it would be nice to hear if others have tried this and how things went. Thanks for the read and any feedback!
