A comment on another thread about overnight mashing in an anvil inspired me to try it in hopes of making a very fermentable wort. I mashed from 11 pm to 7:oo am at 148, ramping up to 160 around 6:30 a.m. while drinking my first cup of coffee.
I am making a light ipa again, shooting for 95 cal and 3 carb. I will call it “Jack my Dog”, bonus points if you can guess why.
It’s like this:
5# marris otter
2# valley malt danko rye
1.030 OG
Perle hops 60 min 38 ibu
Lots of late and dry hop cascade and centennial
Beano in mash and fermenter
A touch of monk fruit extract to taste
I am taking a chance on a pack of Denny’s Favorite with a June use by that I would have ordinarily made a starter with but was lazy and the og is so low I think I will be ok. I have backup s05 and 04.
What’s the beano and monk fruit dose?
Two tablets of beano ultra 800 crushed up in mash and same in fermenter. That’s probably overkill but it’s flavorless and cheap. I am planning on finding the monk fruit flavor threshold in a pint of water and adding conservatively when kegging.
The Band, The Weight? Wait a minute, Chester…
Very good, and I just realized the clue was auto corrected (which I just fixed) . The rye malt is called danko. The stanza with Chester and his dog was sung by Rick Danko, at least in the Last Waltz version. And I think “ Jack, my dog” is funny out of context, especially with a missing comma.
Yes, it brings to mind the chocolate eclair scene from Van Wilder…
Y-7408 may be a good choice for well-attenuated beer. I am on my third batch with the culture. It took 1.066 and 1.070 all-malt (mostly TF Golden Promise) worts down to 1.010 and 1.012, respectively. Neither beer tastes thin. It is currently fermenting a big blonde ale, so I am curious as to what it will do with that wort. If the goal is 80%+ attenuation without tasting thin, this culture may do the trick when mashing in the low 150s. Ballantine XXX was not a big beer. Y-7408 is available periodically as ECY-10.
So I was reviewing G Strong’s Porter recipe and noticed something I hadn’t before. At the bottom he describes a ‘session’ version of his Porter. I quickly adjusted my recipe to the lower ABV recipe which gets me down to 12 carbs. Not exactly low carb but better that the 6% or 7%+ versions.
I know it’s only been a couple weeks but any update? Maybe I missed it? Curious how things turned out.
I do believe it worked well. I am kegging this morning. The night before last the beer had dropped clear and the FG was 1.002. That was with enzymes but a similar brew at a similar OG with enzymes only dropped to 1.006 so I would say that was a pretty fermentable wort. I also got a few more points on OG than expected. And I had wort in a fermenter with yeast and everything cleaned up and put away by 10:00 in the morning. Not only is this a good way to increase efficiency and fermentability but it can be very convenient. Next I will mash in in the morning, go to work, and finish when I get home.
My Czech Lager ended up at 1.005. Not bad for not using enzymes yet. …just mash temp, table sugar, and lower OG.
That is good. What was your mash temp and OG?
I used 148F for 30 min then 150F 30 min. OG was 1.037 for 4.2% ABV. It’s lagering now so we’ll see…
Any thoughts on if that 2F change really made a difference compared to just holding one or the other?
No. I was shooting for 150* but forgot to turn on the PID controller so my mash ended up at 148F for about 30 min. When I realized what was happening I pulled my head out and it hit 150F for the duration. Oh well. I can’t imagine 2*F matters that much (if at all).
Yeah, neither can I.
Thanks for the update! I want to try this now! I’m kind of curious how much energy it would use keeping the mash at temp all night but I have a watt-a-meter I could hook up. Hopefully not too bad since the Foundry has that double wall.
I don’t know how much energy but I will mention that I don’t recirculate and put the power on 50%. I actually would have finished my brew day even earlier if I had remembered to put the power back up to 100% for the boil instead of realizing half an hour later. 
Sounds good. A Czech lager and a saison will be my next two light beer experiments. An English bitter is in the fermenter now.
I am drinking my IPA that I kegged yesterday. It will be a few days at least before it hits it’s stride: it needs to carb a bit more, clear up, and I tend to find the first few pulls of an IPA to have a sharper bitterness than the rest of the keg.
The stats as I remember are 3.9% abv, 98 calories and 4 carbs per 12 oz. Very happy with that.
What I am most happy with though is the body of this beer. It really drinks like a “regular “ beer. My previous light/low carb brew had a pretty thin body as did commercial beers that have similar stats. I was prepared to accept this and was actually ok with it for summer beers as they are refreshing.
There are multiple factors so I can’t say for certain why this drinks like a 5 or 6 percent IPA and it’s probably a combination. I used a pretty high percentage, almost 30%, of rye malt. I also used wy1450, known for leaving a full mouthfeel.
The new to me thing is that I used monk fruit, in liquid form, at kegging. I think that was probably the biggest factor. I dosed some water to get a sense of the amount and ended up adding a half teaspoon to five gallons. It was just enough to not actually taste sweet (I can’t taste it at all) but give the mouthfeel that balances the hops. I am very sensitive to sweet and don’t at all like it where I don’t think it belongs so I was very dubious about this working but it really does and I am very excited about future brews.