What am I drinking with poorly attenuated beer?

[LAbrewer]

I made my first all grain batch a month ago (3 since) and made a rookie mistake of mashing in the 160's. I thought if I stirred frantically, the temp would drop down and I'd be good in mid 150's. Well it took about 15-20 minutes to drop down and I guess the damage was already done. So it sat in the fermenter at 1.030 (supposed to be 1.017). Last weekend, I racked it onto a good yeast cake but it hasn't moved much since then. (BTW, I know now that I should have used ice. :cross

So I tasted it and it seems to be fine to drink. I'm good kegging it like this, but what exactly am I drinking? Are the added unfermentables sugar? Is it more unhealthy than it would have been if properly femented. Is it higher carbs, calories?

 

[Warthaug]

Depending on exactly what happened in conversion, you'll have a number of things in there.
1) Gelitanized starch. Assuming the worst-case scenario, there could be completely unconverted starch in there. This will be evident as a white haze, and you're beer may even give a positive iodine test.
2) Liquefied starch. Given your high heat, there is probably some liquefied starch in there - basically, starch chopped apart enough to become soluble, but still fairly long-chained. Often called dextrins.
3) "Short dextrins" or "long sugars". Yeast can eat short sugars - glucose, maltose (aka two glucoses stuck together) some yeasts process maltotriose (three glucose's stuck together). Anything longer than that is undigestable by the yeast.

None of that stuff is bad for you. Starches can leave a starchy-taste in the beer (duh), dextrins tend to give body to a beer, the short dextrins/long sugars taste sweet/malty. Any of the shorter sugars that were produced will be turned into alcohol. Calorically, it is probably higher-cal than a fully fermented beer would be. Its debatable if our bodies can have a net positive generation of energy from alcohol*, but even if it can, there is more energy available in starches/dextrins (which we can process) than in alcohol (which is essentially, partially digested glucose).

So expect a lightly alcoholic beer, likely with a lot of body and maltyness.

Bryan

* in thoery we can make 8 ATPs from one alcohol molecule. Compare that to 32-36 from a single molecule of glucose.

 

[kanzimonson]

And let me just throw this in as a baker and bakery owner: beer isn't inherently "unhealthy" if we temporarily ignore the alcohol. My wife complains that my homebrews are 200 cal and up per 12oz glass, but I remind her that they can also be considered nourishment, similar in a way to eating a slice of bread.

BUT, it's dissimilar from bread as well. Bread is lots of starch, but a beer with a high FG is still not going to have as many long chain starches as bread. What that ultimately means is a higher glycemic index - i.e. beer gets sugar into your bloodstream more quickly than bread.

Not trying to get into a discussion about the health of alcohol consumption, just trying to talk about all the other stuff in beer! I'd say if you were diligently working to include beer in a healthy and BALANCED diet, you would probably slightly decrease your carb intake from other sources, especially the carbs-as-sugar category.

The wife's a registered dietitian as well, so I'm just spouting this info second hand with no qualifications.

 

[cluckk]

First of all, what did you make? You made your own beer. Enjoy it.
Second, will it be less healthy or higher calorie, etc. ? Short answer, "yes," real answer, "at most you have two cases so it is not likely to change your health."
Finally, realize that even though you made a mistake, it is a lesson learned. Next time you'll know how to drop the temperature quickly. Also, I can only imagine that if your mash temp was 160 you were way high on the temperature of the mash water before adding the grains. In my system I usually look for 152 or so degrees in my mash. I start with 168 degree water for most mashes, knowing the grain will pull the temperature down when added. I also know that I lose about 5 degrees when transferring from the kettle to the cooler MLT so I start with water that is 173. I transfer it in, and wait until it drops to the perfect 168 or so to add the grain.

 

[LAbrewer]

Yeah cluckk I figured all of that out since then, and the last three batches have all dropped down nicely.

o.k. now that I've researched a little, I'm thinking about either racking and kegging and just enjoying the 4.5% product that it is or...

...adding a beano pill, letting the FG drop down 10 points and then crashing, racking, kegging and chilling with the new 6% product. It might be a worthwhile experiment. I just hope it doesn't taste like arse.

Not sure yet though.

 

[pm5k00]

I have added beano to a beer before and it tasted much better before i added it. There wasn't an odd flavor or anything from the beano, but it did taste watered down.