Understanding Points in caramel/Crystals

[r4dyce]

For example one list shows caramel/Crystal 60 as 1.034. my understanding is those 34 points are including unfermentable sugars, correct? How does one account for this when developing a recipe, what's the percentage of unfermentables?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Yes, the gravity points added by a malt include unfermentables. It sounds like you are looking at a metric called PPG (Points per Pound per Gallon). This is useful for predicting OG, but really not all that useful in general when designing a recipe in my opinion.

I don't have a specific answer for your question regarding the percentage of unfermentables, and I'm not sure that one exists. There's a lot of chemistry and biochemistry happening along the way and it's not all well understood, at least not by me.

The points of final gravity are mainly composed of unfermentable sugar.
The FG depends on the OG, malts used, mash procedure (temperatures), yeast health, and yeast strain.
Generally a yeast lab will post an attenuation range for their yeast. This is based on a standard reference wort, so naturally your results may vary. Falling within the range of 60 to 90% apparent attenuation is common. Any decent recipe building tool will use the reported standard attenuation to predict FG, as well as accounting for special adjuncts like lactose or simple sugars (e.g. honey).

Cheers

 

[Jayjay1976]

There is a recent episode of Brew Strong on the brewing network that deals with residual sweetness, body, OG/FG, dextrines vs. simple sugars, etc. It was enlightening, and I highly recommend giving it a listen.

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/brew-strong-body-and-sweetness/

EDIT: Huge thanks to John Blichmann for sponsoring the BN. Someday I'll buy a 3 BBL setup, and I'll definitely buy it from Blichmann.

 

[Jtk78]

There is a recent episode of Brew Strong on the brewing network that deals with residual sweetness, body, OG/FG, dextrines vs. simple sugars, etc. It was enlightening, and I highly recommend giving it a listen.

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/brew-strong-body-and-sweetness/

EDIT: Huge thanks to John Blichmann for sponsoring the BN. Someday I'll buy a 3 BBL setup, and I'll definitely buy it from Blichmann.

Thanks for posting. I recently heard some of this in another podcast, but cannot remember the show.

 

[chickypad]

You might be interested in this thread. Provides some evidence that crystal malts (at least those from Briess) have unconverted starches and may contribute more fermentable sugars than people think when mashed with a base malt, especially the lower L malts. Final conclusions start around post #100.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/testing-fermentability-of-crystal-malt.208361/