Hello, if i want to do a porter style with all dark and crystal grains mashed on the sparging, can i neglect the acidification effect of those malts? if yes, i just take the effect of base malts and apply some phosporic acid to achieve a ph 5.2-5.4 on the mash tun?
do you have a better option?
thanks!
I cold steep the dark malts. I mash the base and crystal malts together, just because that’s similar to making beers with no roasted malts. Get the pH correct for the mash, and when it is converted and time is up, I transfer the liquid then vorlauf and sparge. Some also add the roast grains to the sparge and go with it.
What kind of flavor difference do you get here? Significantly less acrid/roasty character?
I’ve been thinking about trying this with an existing recipe, but I want to make sure I account for it in my recipe.
definitely…it makes a more refined flavor…less toastes, more chocolate…
This will minimize the burnt/acrid flavors. You may need more roasted malts as this is a little less efficient on extraction. There is a section on cold steeping. In Brewing Better Beer, and Gordon Strong covers it well.
George Fix started talking about cold steeping 15 years ago, based on info from Mary Ann Gruber, who was with with Briess at the time. Here’s some info from them from an old HBD…
This is what I’ve been doing lately. Mashing all the diastatic malts, acidifying as you mentioned with lactic acid because my local doesn’t carry phosphoric, then after the mash capping with crystal and roast malts, vorlauf and sparge. It lets you set the pH for the optimal mash time after time.
There was a Zymurgy article by Mary Ann Gruber about this back around 2000 or so. Use the sear h function on the AHA page for Zymurgy to find it. On my phone right now.
Kyle, I suspect you and I have similar, highly alkaline water profiles. I too have considered the cold-steeping method, but I think I’d then have to adjust my water to lower the mash pH—I feel like we get that adjustment for free with dark malts.
Still, I’d like to triangle-test two beers made both ways (one pH-adjusted by dark grains in the mash, the other with dark grains cold-steeped or added during the sparge and pH-adjusted by RO dilution or acid additions).
ajk
The Zymurgy article can be found online now. Jan-Feb 2002 issue.