I've been disappointed with the lack of body and the relatively high attenuation in my last several beers, so I decided to electronisize my brewing log, or at least the quantitative details of it. Rather than keep all this potentially misleading data to myself, I'm posting it here for any and all to sift through.
The one thing I've found interesting so far when looking for trends that would correlate to attenuation is the percentage of base malt in the grist. That's the only scatter plot that looks even remotely correlated. Time & Temp do not correlate well. Since none of this data was collected under controlled, repeatable conditions it's hard to draw too strong of conclusions, but it has give me some ideas on how to concoct my next set of mash & fermentation parameters. For example, I think I'm going to start doing short, hot mashes (e.g. 10 minutes at 160F) to see if corner cases of the time-temp factors make a difference.
If anyone decides to sift through the data set and has questions, don't hesitate to ask. Also, please note that the score I assigned to each beer was completely based on my personal judgement and is really just an informal means of sorting the quality of the brews relative to one another.
DrPaulsen's Brewing Log
DrPaulsen's Brewing Log
- Attachments
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- DrPaulsen_BrewingLog.xls
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Lee,
I envy your attention to detail and records keeping. I think your next big upgrade should be automation so you can really dial in your experiments!
Just a few thoughts for you; I know I'm not the most experienced brewer so take these with appropriate levels of NaCl.
First, have you considered recipe beyond the base malts? Perhaps adding a touch of carapils or wheat malt to the recipes you are having problems with will add to the perception of body? I know this doesn't address attenuation, but I've seen a lot of discussion of perception and things like attenuation or FG and the results can sometimes be surprising.
Anecdotaly, one of the recipes you noted lack of body on was the NB Irish Red. I brewed the same recipe from extract and got similar results. I was a very new brewer at the time so that sure was a factor, but the fact it was extract takes mash parameters out for the most part.
One other variable I can suggest you look at is perhaps the O2 time. I've heard it suggested that too much O2 (especially in ales) can lead to the results you are describing. To my knowledge there has not been any real study of this, so I don't know how much weight to give it. It would be fairly easy to test on a repeated/split recipe though.
I envy your attention to detail and records keeping. I think your next big upgrade should be automation so you can really dial in your experiments!
Just a few thoughts for you; I know I'm not the most experienced brewer so take these with appropriate levels of NaCl.
First, have you considered recipe beyond the base malts? Perhaps adding a touch of carapils or wheat malt to the recipes you are having problems with will add to the perception of body? I know this doesn't address attenuation, but I've seen a lot of discussion of perception and things like attenuation or FG and the results can sometimes be surprising.
Anecdotaly, one of the recipes you noted lack of body on was the NB Irish Red. I brewed the same recipe from extract and got similar results. I was a very new brewer at the time so that sure was a factor, but the fact it was extract takes mash parameters out for the most part.
One other variable I can suggest you look at is perhaps the O2 time. I've heard it suggested that too much O2 (especially in ales) can lead to the results you are describing. To my knowledge there has not been any real study of this, so I don't know how much weight to give it. It would be fairly easy to test on a repeated/split recipe though.
Randy Carris
Randy All the Time Brewing
Randy All the Time Brewing
Randy -- thanks for the comments.
Regarding beer body, I've considered adding carapils, flaked oats/barley/rye/wheat, and even malto-dextrin powder, but haven't taken any specific steps to see if that makes a difference. Since I have a hard time motivating myself to ever brew the same recipe twice, I haven't been all that deliberate about this factor. I should probably capture a qualitative 1-10 ranking for body/mouthfeel of the finished beer in my brewing log (also noting the serving temp & CO2 levels).
That's interesting that your NB Irish Red Ale also dried out like mine did. If I recall correctly, yours still had good body. What was your FG?
I'm confident that attenuation is a complex issue that includes several factors, including grist composition, mash parameters, aeration, pitching rate, ferm temps, and flocculation (driven by yeast strain and water chemistry). It might be helpful to break the problem into separate pieces and think in terms of both the limit of attenuation and the realized attenuation. I think some of my fermentation practices (e.g. lots of O2, high pitching rates, rousing the yeast when activity slows, and ramping up temperature over time) probably dries out my beers because I'm encouraging the yeast to hit the limit of attenuation. I should probably start doing forced ferment tests on a stirplate to compare my realized attenuation to the limit of attenuation.
I suspect that my typical mash parameters do not lend themselves to reducing the limit of attenuation in beers that are dominated by base malts. For example, I rarely mash out, which means that conversion is taking place all the way through my sparge (probably an extra 20-30 minutes). That's partially why I'm leaning towards doing short, hot mashes, so the total conversion time ends up being closer to 60 minutes by the time I'm done sparging and starting the boil.
Regarding beer body, I've considered adding carapils, flaked oats/barley/rye/wheat, and even malto-dextrin powder, but haven't taken any specific steps to see if that makes a difference. Since I have a hard time motivating myself to ever brew the same recipe twice, I haven't been all that deliberate about this factor. I should probably capture a qualitative 1-10 ranking for body/mouthfeel of the finished beer in my brewing log (also noting the serving temp & CO2 levels).
That's interesting that your NB Irish Red Ale also dried out like mine did. If I recall correctly, yours still had good body. What was your FG?
I'm confident that attenuation is a complex issue that includes several factors, including grist composition, mash parameters, aeration, pitching rate, ferm temps, and flocculation (driven by yeast strain and water chemistry). It might be helpful to break the problem into separate pieces and think in terms of both the limit of attenuation and the realized attenuation. I think some of my fermentation practices (e.g. lots of O2, high pitching rates, rousing the yeast when activity slows, and ramping up temperature over time) probably dries out my beers because I'm encouraging the yeast to hit the limit of attenuation. I should probably start doing forced ferment tests on a stirplate to compare my realized attenuation to the limit of attenuation.
I suspect that my typical mash parameters do not lend themselves to reducing the limit of attenuation in beers that are dominated by base malts. For example, I rarely mash out, which means that conversion is taking place all the way through my sparge (probably an extra 20-30 minutes). That's partially why I'm leaning towards doing short, hot mashes, so the total conversion time ends up being closer to 60 minutes by the time I'm done sparging and starting the boil.
DrPaulsen's Brewing Log
Lee,
To clarify, the beer wasn't dry, just a little thin in mouthfeel with a bit of a "watery" quality. The FG was 1.011 from an OG of 1.043, so it wasn't over-attenuated. I know you are concerned more with attenuation though. Keep in mind that this was one of my first ever batches of beer, so the comparison, other than basic recipe, probably doesn't count for much. At that point in time my process was very sloppy and I had no tempurature control on the fermentation.
On Friday 08 July 2011 1:21:51 pm you wrote:
To clarify, the beer wasn't dry, just a little thin in mouthfeel with a bit of a "watery" quality. The FG was 1.011 from an OG of 1.043, so it wasn't over-attenuated. I know you are concerned more with attenuation though. Keep in mind that this was one of my first ever batches of beer, so the comparison, other than basic recipe, probably doesn't count for much. At that point in time my process was very sloppy and I had no tempurature control on the fermentation.
On Friday 08 July 2011 1:21:51 pm you wrote:
Post generated using Mail2Forum (http://www.mail2forum.com)That's interesting that your NB Irish Red Ale also dried out like mine
did. If I recall correctly, yours still had good body. What was your FG?
Randy Carris
Randy All the Time Brewing
Randy All the Time Brewing
So I asked The Google about predicting wort fermentability and found these two very interesting articles. From what I can gather, it's very difficult to predict fermentability ahead of time, simply due to variations in the Apparent Attenuation Limit of malted barley. The PDFs are too large to attach, so if you want to read the articles, you'll have to follow the links:
http://www.scientificsocieties.org/jib/ ... 2-1055.pdf
http://www.cdesign.com.au/proceedings_a ... s_1100.pdf
http://www.scientificsocieties.org/jib/ ... 2-1055.pdf
http://www.cdesign.com.au/proceedings_a ... s_1100.pdf
Tasty has talked about how attenuation doesn't relate to drynesss or sweetness in a beer. He says if you can make the beer the same again adjust your recipe. If you have consistancy in processs try adding some carapils or caramunich depending on the beer.
I did not read through your brew logs. And this post comes after a Red's supper. So this post may be meaningless. If you get the chance try the
Mikkeller Big Worst Barley Wine.
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/mikkeller- ... ne/107991/
I did not read through your brew logs. And this post comes after a Red's supper. So this post may be meaningless. If you get the chance try the
Mikkeller Big Worst Barley Wine.
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/mikkeller- ... ne/107991/
Runamok Brewing
Jesus must have been a yeast. Who else could turn water into wine?
Jesus must have been a yeast. Who else could turn water into wine?
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hoboscratch
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I don't know about you Doc, but I am my own worst critic when it comes to my beer. I find all the flaws I can and sometimes probably invent my own. Have you gotten feedback from others regarding the real or perceived body on your beers? Honest feedback, not just "yeah that's good" kind of remarks? Perhaps before you go trying some different methods, maybe you should make sure its not just something you're searching for. Ways to test that would be to start entering your beer in as many BJCP competitions as you can. You'll be sure to get brutally honest feedback doing that. Or bring bottles to meetings and have people give you feedback at a later date, anonymously if need be.
Or scour through BeerAdvocate for your favorite beers of different categories. Then before you brew compare your recipe of whatever you're brewing to the recipe of a favorite, and see if there are any specialty malts that you might be missing to add that extra body you're looking for.
That and I think that when I generally keep my mash between 152-154, that I have a nice balance between fermentability and body. Often though I'm intentionally mashing at 149 or so to create a drier beer, since I'm usually making hop bombs.
Or scour through BeerAdvocate for your favorite beers of different categories. Then before you brew compare your recipe of whatever you're brewing to the recipe of a favorite, and see if there are any specialty malts that you might be missing to add that extra body you're looking for.
That and I think that when I generally keep my mash between 152-154, that I have a nice balance between fermentability and body. Often though I'm intentionally mashing at 149 or so to create a drier beer, since I'm usually making hop bombs.