[brewinhard]

Jim owes you a beer.   

[klickitat jim]

I'll need an address LOL

Well cool Marshall. Interesting findings

[charles1968]

Interesting post from the reddit subforum on this exbeeriment:

"If the sugars left are mostly dextrines, then the beer simply won't be sweet - I've made diy cycling hydration/nutrition mix with 60g/L maltodextrine, and this is really un-sweet; it's kind of somewhere between very dilute sugar solution and very dilute starch water, which I guess makes sense. I then add 30g/L fructose, and that's all you can taste. 9 points is less than 30g/L maltodextrine, so I'm really not surprised it barely has any flavour impact."

So maybe a high mash temp just leaves a load of tasteless dextrines that hydrometers detect better than taste buds.

[erockrph]

Interesting post from the reddit subforum on this exbeeriment:

"If the sugars left are mostly dextrines, then the beer simply won't be sweet - I've made diy cycling hydration/nutrition mix with 60g/L maltodextrine, and this is really un-sweet; it's kind of somewhere between very dilute sugar solution and very dilute starch water, which I guess makes sense. I then add 30g/L fructose, and that's all you can taste. 9 points is less than 30g/L maltodextrine, so I'm really not surprised it barely has any flavour impact."

So maybe a high mash temp just leaves a load of tasteless dextrines that hydrometers detect better than taste buds.

That was exactly my thought when I was reading this. The yeast is going to eat up all the simple sugars that would taste sweet, and leave only the relatively flavorless dextrins behind. I quickly gave up on using maltodextrin in my extract batches because I never noticed a difference in the finished beer.

It would be interesting to see this xBmt repeated with a low attenuating yeast like Windsor. If you have a yeast that already leaves a bit more fermentables behind than others, maybe that would be enough to notice a flavor difference. I also wonder whether using a large amount of crystal malt would lead to a more noticeable difference as well.

[charles1968]

Another factor to consider is that tasters might find it hard to discriminate between drinks after the first mouthful of beer has coated their taste buds and muddled their palates. There are lots of well known studies showing that the outcomes of wine competitions are little better than random -
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis

Bias and confabulation clearly play a large role, distorting judges' perceptions (just as they distort homebrewers' perceptions of their processes). But I wonder if muddled palates are also involved. If you asked people to blind taste-test slightly different commercial pale ales, for instance, would they be able to tell the difference? Would it help if they rinse their mouths out between samples? Does the alcohol numb taste buds?

There are so few statistically significant results from the exbeeriments that I even wonder whether those are due to chance (95% significance tests generate false positives 5% of the time) and whether beer tasters can never tell roughly similar samples apart when taken in quick succession.

[narvin]

I think it would be interesting to try this with different yeasts, especially after seeing Sean Terrill's post about getting the highest attenuation with lager yeast at 156 or so.

[charles1968]

Interesting post from the reddit subforum on this exbeeriment:

"If the sugars left are mostly dextrines, then the beer simply won't be sweet - I've made diy cycling hydration/nutrition mix with 60g/L maltodextrine, and this is really un-sweet; it's kind of somewhere between very dilute sugar solution and very dilute starch water, which I guess makes sense. I then add 30g/L fructose, and that's all you can taste. 9 points is less than 30g/L maltodextrine, so I'm really not surprised it barely has any flavour impact."

So maybe a high mash temp just leaves a load of tasteless dextrines that hydrometers detect better than taste buds.

That was exactly my thought when I was reading this. The yeast is going to eat up all the simple sugars that would taste sweet, and leave only the relatively flavorless dextrins behind. I quickly gave up on using maltodextrin in my extract batches because I never noticed a difference in the finished beer.

Thinking about this, there's something about conventional mash advice that doesn't quite add up. How can a low mash temp produce a more fermentable wort and a higher final abv by favouring beta amylase? Surely optimum conversion of starch to sugars occurs at a medium mash temp where alpha and beta activity ranges overlap. These enzymes depend on each other to break down starch to sugar - favouring one or the other will surely lead to more leftover dextrines and less alcohol. Perhaps what's going on in the exbeeriment is that both beers have the same abv and same dextrine level, but the low-mash temp dextrines are too large to affect specific gravity. So the hydrometer readings of both are misleading and the abv calculations of both might be wrong.

[denny]

Greg Doss of Wyeast gave a talk at NHC 2012 in Seattle about mash temp vs. fermentability vs. yeast strain and showed some surprising results.  If you're a member, I recommend you check it out.

[toby]

Thinking about this, there's something about conventional mash advice that doesn't quite add up. How can a low mash temp produce a more fermentable wort and a higher final abv by favouring beta amylase? Surely optimum conversion of starch to sugars occurs at a medium mash temp where alpha and beta activity ranges overlap.

The real trick is pretty much exactly that.  Mash in the overlap range for long enough to give the beta time to work.  I use 149F for 75 minutes for most 'normal' strength beers and 90-120 minutes for high grav beers.

[erockrph]

The real trick is pretty much exactly that.  Mash in the overlap range for long enough to give the beta time to work.  I use 149F for 75 minutes for most 'normal' strength beers and 90-120 minutes for high grav beers.

Enzyme content of the malt is a huge factor in determining the time and temperature of this overlap range, and is why is is so hard to extrapolate data from any experiment like this. Enzyme activity and denaturation are temperature-sensitive rates. In particular, the denaturation of enzymes have temperature dependant half life. So if you have more of a particular enzyme in one malt you can push the temp higher and still have some enzyme remaining at the end of the mash that hasn't yet been denatured.

It would be interesting to see how this experiment looks using Munich malt or something else with lower enzyme content.

[brulosopher]

Interesting post from the reddit subforum on this exbeeriment:

"If the sugars left are mostly dextrines, then the beer simply won't be sweet - I've made diy cycling hydration/nutrition mix with 60g/L maltodextrine, and this is really un-sweet; it's kind of somewhere between very dilute sugar solution and very dilute starch water, which I guess makes sense. I then add 30g/L fructose, and that's all you can taste. 9 points is less than 30g/L maltodextrine, so I'm really not surprised it barely has any flavour impact."

So maybe a high mash temp just leaves a load of tasteless dextrines that hydrometers detect better than taste buds.

That was exactly my thought when I was reading this. The yeast is going to eat up all the simple sugars that would taste sweet, and leave only the relatively flavorless dextrins behind. I quickly gave up on using maltodextrin in my extract batches because I never noticed a difference in the finished beer.

Thinking about this, there's something about conventional mash advice that doesn't quite add up. How can a low mash temp produce a more fermentable wort and a higher final abv by favouring beta amylase? Surely optimum conversion of starch to sugars occurs at a medium mash temp where alpha and beta activity ranges overlap. These enzymes depend on each other to break down starch to sugar - favouring one or the other will surely lead to more leftover dextrines and less alcohol. Perhaps what's going on in the exbeeriment is that both beers have the same abv and same dextrine level, but the low-mash temp dextrines are too large to affect specific gravity. So the hydrometer readings of both are misleading and the abv calculations of both might be wrong.

Right there with you...

Greg Doss of Wyeast gave a talk at NHC 2012 in Seattle about mash temp vs. fermentability vs. yeast strain and showed some surprising results.  If you're a member, I recommend you check it out.

I believe he recommended 153F as optimal, no?

[narvin]

Perhaps what's going on in the exbeeriment is that both beers have the same abv and same dextrine level, but the low-mash temp dextrines are too large to affect specific gravity. So the hydrometer readings of both are misleading and the abv calculations of both might be wrong.

That seems unlikely.  But you could test it by boiling some water and maltodextrine and testing the gravity.

[charles1968]

That seems unlikely.  But you could test it by boiling some water and maltodextrine and testing the gravity.

Yes that's worth a try. However, I remembered after posting that the two beers had the same OG. If the low-temp-mash had produced lots of magic dextrines invisible to a hydrometer, it would have started from a lower gravity.

[jeffy]

Interesting post from the reddit subforum on this exbeeriment:

"If the sugars left are mostly dextrines, then the beer simply won't be sweet - I've made diy cycling hydration/nutrition mix with 60g/L maltodextrine, and this is really un-sweet; it's kind of somewhere between very dilute sugar solution and very dilute starch water, which I guess makes sense. I then add 30g/L fructose, and that's all you can taste. 9 points is less than 30g/L maltodextrine, so I'm really not surprised it barely has any flavour impact."

So maybe a high mash temp just leaves a load of tasteless dextrines that hydrometers detect better than taste buds.

That was exactly my thought when I was reading this. The yeast is going to eat up all the simple sugars that would taste sweet, and leave only the relatively flavorless dextrins behind. I quickly gave up on using maltodextrin in my extract batches because I never noticed a difference in the finished beer.

Thinking about this, there's something about conventional mash advice that doesn't quite add up. How can a low mash temp produce a more fermentable wort and a higher final abv by favouring beta amylase? Surely optimum conversion of starch to sugars occurs at a medium mash temp where alpha and beta activity ranges overlap. These enzymes depend on each other to break down starch to sugar - favouring one or the other will surely lead to more leftover dextrines and less alcohol. Perhaps what's going on in the exbeeriment is that both beers have the same abv and same dextrine level, but the low-mash temp dextrines are too large to affect specific gravity. So the hydrometer readings of both are misleading and the abv calculations of both might be wrong.

Right there with you...

Greg Doss of Wyeast gave a talk at NHC 2012 in Seattle about mash temp vs. fermentability vs. yeast strain and showed some surprising results.  If you're a member, I recommend you check it out.

I believe he recommended 153F as optimal, no?

That's what I remember.

[hopfenundmalz]

The real trick is pretty much exactly that.  Mash in the overlap range for long enough to give the beta time to work.  I use 149F for 75 minutes for most 'normal' strength beers and 90-120 minutes for high grav beers.

Enzyme content of the malt is a huge factor in determining the time and temperature of this overlap range, and is why is is so hard to extrapolate data from any experiment like this. Enzyme activity and denaturation are temperature-sensitive rates. In particular, the denaturation of enzymes have temperature dependant half life. So if you have more of a particular enzyme in one malt you can push the temp higher and still have some enzyme remaining at the end of the mash that hasn't yet been denatured.

It would be interesting to see how this experiment looks using Munich malt or something else with lower enzyme content.

This! It would make a great DFSS with malt, temp, and yeast as variables.

The Greg Doss presentation's temperature study was for Pils malt (slide 33). 153F, but what yeast?