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Author Topic: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!  (Read 23755 times)

Offline brulosopher

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When it comes to making dark beers, one important consideration is how to go about using the roasted grains. Based off of a recommendation from Gordon Strong in Brewing Better Beer, I began adding roasted grains during the last 10 minutes of the mash, a technique referred to as capping the mash, believing it would lend a smoother roast character. After years of using this method, I finally did a proper xBmt, comparing it to the same beer with the roasted malts mashed the entire time. Results are in!

http://brulosophy.com/2015/11/30/roasted-grains-full-mash-vs-capped-at-vorlauf-exbeeriment-results-2/

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2015, 06:18:18 am »
Awesome!  And I am not surprised

Offline 69franx

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2015, 06:18:23 am »
Easier sounds good to me, I will continue to mash all together as I have been doing with "proper" water treatment. Great exbeeriment Marshall
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Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2015, 06:28:05 am »
Thanks, Marshall. It's pretty interesting. I mash it all together and honestly expected the opposite, only because of the lower pH - I love the more rounded roast at 5.5 -5.6 pH for a dark beer. Regardless, this does nothing to make me want to stop mashing it all together.
Jon H.

Offline PORTERHAUS

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2015, 06:28:48 am »
I had just asked about his in another post. I'm going to look into this when I can read it fully.

Offline charles1968

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2015, 06:50:15 am »
I've always suspected that capping the mash simply results in less extraction of colour and flavour from roasted malt and this seems to support that idea. Astringency from tannins comes from high mash pH, oversparging or high sparge pH, so perhaps people who get lower astringency from a capped mash are not treating water properly for the main mash.

Offline dmtaylor

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2015, 08:22:45 am »
Fascinating results, especially the part about pH being only hundredths of a point different.  I shall henceforth return to full mashes for my stouts and porters, as depth of flavor and color are more important to me with these styles than the theoretical but probably non-existent "smoothness" from late capping.

I have zero constructive comments for this xBmt.  Well done.  Thank you again, Marshall.
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Offline bengelbrau

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2015, 08:57:18 am »
Great data. I love not having to make my brew day more complicated. One question, though... did you  check OG for each batch? I have never understood why having denatured enzymes in a dark malt matters. We are, after all, interested in using the enzymes from our base malts to provide the sugars for conversion. If there are starches that could be converted in the dark malts, we are sacrificing some yield if we don't do a full mash.

Offline BrodyR

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2015, 09:11:32 am »
Nice experiment - final pH being similar makes sense since the roasted barley still had time to acidify the wort for 10m at the end. Wonder if the fairly different mash pH's made a difference?

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2015, 09:26:18 am »
It's interesting that the difference in the mash for 1lb of roasted barley was that big.  Brun Water and Kai's water calculator both predict only a 0.1 drop from roasted barley with this recipe, as Kai's original findings shows that roasted actually contributes less acidity that crystal, per each *L of SRM.  Perhaps it varies by brand and type of roasted malt.

Offline blatz

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #10 on: November 30, 2015, 09:30:33 am »
It's interesting that the difference in the mash for 1lb of roasted barley was that big.  Brun Water and Kai's water calculator both predict only a 0.1 drop from roasted barley with this recipe, as Kai's original findings shows that roasted actually contributes less acidity that crystal, per each *L of SRM.  Perhaps it varies by brand and type of roasted malt.

Might have something to do with it being Simpsons which I use.  Simpson's RB is ~650L, whereas Briess for example, is only 300.  Simpson's actually smells like espresso when you stick your nose into the bag, whereas most other brands I've tried are much more subtle.
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Offline brulosopher

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #11 on: November 30, 2015, 09:35:21 am »
Fascinating results, especially the part about pH being only hundredths of a point different.  I shall henceforth return to full mashes for my stouts and porters, as depth of flavor and color are more important to me with these styles than the theoretical but probably non-existent "smoothness" from late capping.

I have zero constructive comments for this xBmt.  Well done.  Thank you again, Marshall.

Haha, like I said, I always look forward to your constructive comments :)

Offline dilluh98

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #12 on: November 30, 2015, 09:49:57 am »
As someone has pointed out in the comments section of the brulosophy website, the difference in proton concentration, [H+], for a pH of 5.0 vs 5.3 is 5 x 10-6 mol/L. The difference for 4.16 vs 4.19 is 4.5 x 10-6 mol/L for a difference of .5 umol/L. Sub-micromolar concentration differences might be beyond the precision of the instrument. If you need convincing the equation is:

pH = -log[H+

so [H+] = 10-pH

Offline denny

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #13 on: November 30, 2015, 09:54:51 am »
Ya know, it seems like I keep saying it over and over in these recent Exbeeriments....but this is no surprise and something I've been saying for years.  I even posted about it in a thread here recently.  Sorry to be the "Told Ya So" curmudgeon, but what can I say?
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Offline dilluh98

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Re: Roasted Grains: Full Mash vs. Capped At Vorlauf | exBEERiment Results!
« Reply #14 on: November 30, 2015, 09:55:14 am »
Or rather, this should imply that the pH drop, buffering, etc that went on during fermentation was likely similar in both beers.