Sweeter than anticipated finish to beer.

[dadshomebrew]

Hi all

I am currently dialing in my all grain process and seeing some results from my first few all grain brews.

A fat tire clone mashed at 154 and a Moose drool clone mashed at 152

My concern is both beers have a sweet lingering aftertaste on the back of the tongue. Of course I can post recipe specified when I get on beersmith later. Good amount of crystal in both recipes.

Basically I am looking to confirm a suspicion about the cause of the sweetness. I use a 10 gallon igloo cooler mash tun, and (had) been overshooting strike temps slightly while I figured out the potential heat loss. Stirring the temp down and using ice if needed. Also I these early batches I was not stirring mid mash. I'm sure I was adding the grain super slow too, being a new AG nervous nelly.

So, could I have denature my beta amylase to some extent from using a higher than recommended strike, slow grain addition, and potential hot spots in the tun. And if so, would this cause the lingering sweetness.

My gravity was right on the money for both recipes and I have calibrate my thermometer, hydrometer, and Refractometer.

Thanks

 

[pjj2ba]

Hi all

I am currently dialing in my all grain process and seeing some results from my first few all grain brews.

A fat tire clone mashed at 154 and a Moose drool clone mashed at 152

My concern is both beers have a sweet lingering aftertaste on the back of the tongue. Of course I can post recipe specified when I get on beersmith later. Good amount of crystal in both recipes.

Basically I am looking to confirm a suspicion about the cause of the sweetness. I use a 10 gallon igloo cooler mash tun, and (had) been overshooting strike temps slightly while I figured out the potential heat loss. Stirring the temp down and using ice if needed. Also I these early batches I was not stirring mid mash. I'm sure I was adding the grain super slow too, being a new AG nervous nelly.

So, could I have denature my beta amylase to some extent from using a higher than recommended strike, slow grain addition, and potential hot spots in the tun. And if so, would this cause the lingering sweetness.

My gravity was right on the money for both recipes and I have calibrate my thermometer, hydrometer, and Refractometer.

Thanks

What I bolded in red is most likely your problem. The only other option would be that the yeast crapped out and didn't finish fermenting the beer.

There is very little sweetness to be gained in most base malts. All of the sweet tasting simple sugars that are released during the mash are consumed by the yeast. There will be some dextrins (medium length chains of sugars) left that are unfermentable, but these DO NOT taste sweet. There could be a little bit of sweet materials produced during kilning of the malt, but the amount of these in the final beer is not really affected by how you mash. These are simply extracted from the grain.

During the production of crystal malts there are sweet tasting compounds that are produced via the maillard reaction that the yeast cannot breakdown so they end up in the final product. The darker the crystal malt, the more of these compounds present.

 

[dlester]

Overshooting your temperature for a short period of time shouldn't hurt, or denature the beta amylase. I've done it a few times and the beer seemed fine. I believe that the first short period of time your grains are soaking up the water and it takes time to break down the starch enough to begin the conversion process.

pjj2ba is correct is saying that most of the sweetness is most likely the crystal malts, depending on how much is in the recipe. I have found that more than 3% in my beers tend to overwhelm the beer with sweet flavors. I tend to use them sparingly unless I'm brewing a style like a Scottish Wee Heavy. However, your base malt can give you a perceived sweetness, which is actually maltiness when mashed at higher temps, but it is more maltiness than sweetness.

Cheers,

 

[dadshomebrew]

Great responses, and more than enough to get my brain turning.

Its time to post the recipes. Let me know if these look like the kind of crystal percentages that would yield an overwhelmingly sweet brew.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Fat tire
Brewer: EJ
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Amber Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.26 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.56 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.26 gal
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated Color: 12.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 71.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.50 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 1 43.9 %
4.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 39.0 %
1.00 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 3 9.8 %
0.50 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.9 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 90L (90.0 SRM) Grain 5 2.4 %
0.76 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 24.4 IBUs
0.57 oz Hallertau [4.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 4.8 IBUs
0.24 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 1.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35. Yeast 9 -


Mash Schedule: EJ Single Infusion, Medium Body 154, Batch Sparge 168 x2, No Mashout
Total Grain Weight: 10.25 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 3.45 gal of water at 167.9 F 154.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 4.29gal) of 168.0 F water




BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Carribou Slobber
Brewer: EJ
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Brown Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.26 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.72 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.07 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 18.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.9 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
10.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 86.0 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.5 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.3 %
0.25 lb Pale Chocolate Malt (220.0 SRM) Grain 4 2.2 %
0.13 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 5 1.1 %
0.84 oz East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - Boil Hop 6 13.5 IBUs
0.84 oz Liberty [4.30 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 7 8.9 IBUs
0.84 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 7.4 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 9 -


Mash Schedule: EJ Single Infusion, Medium Body 152, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 11.63 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 3.88 gal of water at 164.1 F 152.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 4.02gal) of 168.0 F water[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]

 

[dadshomebrew]

Im working on another brew to blend with some of these malt bombs. I'm thinking i will go 2-row only, and about 1.045 starting gravity with 50 IBU's. Of course I will dry hop it because I dry hop everything.

The goal is to have an unbalanced thin dry hoppy beer to cut through the malty cloying sweetness.

what do you think?