When mashing at 148F is it necessary to go over 60 minutes? It has been a long time but I remember something about it takes longer for conversion at lower temps.
I am trying to get a lot of attenuation for a dry beer style on my next batch and just curious if I can get away with 148 for 60 or if I should go with 75 or 90 instead. I am always trying to save time so 60 minutes is the preference…
There may be differing opinions, but when I mash sub 150F I go for 90 minutes. Enzymatic conversion allegedly takes longer sub 150F, but I don’t have any scientific data on how much slower, just anecdotal observations. Regardless, for a saison where you want super high attenuation, a 146-148F/90 min mash makes a nice dry beer.
Same here…just to be sure. Plus it I’m mashing at 148 it’s becasue I want a highly attenuative wort, so an extra 30 min. doesn’t hurt.
Yup. At 148F I always go for 90 minutes but I’m sure you’ll hear from a few people that even at that low of a temp that basically all the enzymatic activity is done in 45 min and you won’t know the difference. I don’t doubt them but I’m typically not in a rush on brew days anyway so I don’t chance it - and it doesn’t hurt anything to go longer.
See, the thing is that not ALL the enzymatic activity is done that soon. Even if a lot of it is, it still goes on as long as the temp is in range.
Personally, I think pH trumps both temp and time. For dryer go lower = 5.2 (room temp). That’s what I do for my saisons. I have not mashed longer than 30m in years now. I am gearing up to finally abandon the 60m boil too. Also, yeast strain is of equal importance.
We don’t need to get into semantics, but how long is long enough to truly get all the enzymatic activity? 2 hours? 6 hours? It’d be a nice experiment. Same simple recipe (say a saison) one mashed for 45 min and one for 90 min. While I’d always opt for the 90 min mash, it would not surprise me at all if these were indistinguishable beers.
I am planning for a mash pH of 5.25 with what is reportedly a very highly attenuating yeast. This beer should turn out plenty dry with little effort but I am thinking about future beers as well. I used to get FGs below 1.010 consistently and it seems to be rare these days with no changes to recipes, procedures, etc…
Dry finish and low FG aren’t exactly the same thing. Similar to the above comments, I’ve found both pH and time to have an impact, though I haven’t done a lot of work to narrow down the “minimum” mash time for my preferred dry finish (assuming all else is equal).
I’ve had lagers around 5.2 mash pH for 90 mins that finished at 1.010 and tasted dryer than the same recipe mashed at 5.4 for 90 minutes with the same FG.
Yeah, there are definitely factors other than time/temp that impact the sensation of dryness, like pH, water chemistry, hopping levels, etc. But especially for something like a saison, I don’t see any substitute for finishing @ 1.004 or less. Temp/time gets me that.
No, it is not necessary. In my experience 45 minutes is still enough for normal attenuation for most beer styles. But if you want really high attenuation, then 75 or 90 minutes is not a bad idea.
For the record, I actually do mash for 75-90 minutes on saisons and for super high gravity beers. But I don’t waste time for most other styles where “normal” attenuation is “good enough”.
Some lite beers are mashed around 140F for 3 hours with NA malt that has very high Diastatic Power.
Read that a few times.
While I think other factors do influence a “drier” beer, like sulfate levels and even pH does make things seems crisper and drier, it is proven that lower mash pH ultimately favors beta and increases the rate of the reaction. I have no issues getting under 1.010, usually about 1.007-8 on my saisons with 30m mash. There are some animals out there mashing just 15m… If you are determined to hit really low I suppose longer would be something to do but in the end I think both short and long will yield good and very similar results. I started with 90m on my saison and then tried 60m, and then finally caved and did 30m and never saw a problem.
OP, take a look at your crush. I’ve found that the crush was critical (very fine, no more than .030”) when I started dialing my process in with short mash times. The studying I did reveled that more exposed starch the more readily it begins to convert/faster/better conversion.
Thanks. I mill the grains at my LHBS as my mill is is pain in the ass. I have been averaging about 72% brewhouse efficiency so it works for now (I have never gotten very high efficiency but that’s another topic).
I think I will have the time during Friday’s brew session so I will likely just go with the long mash. I am hoping to get down to 1.005 or lower which apparently isn’t a stretch.
There are plenty of sources that report that a mash can show no starch via an iodine test after about 15 min of mashing. While the starch may be converted, the sugars will likely be too complex for good fermentability. Extending the mashing duration AND performing the mash at proper temperatures are needed to produce appropriate fermentability.
While a reduced mashing pH does enhance fermentability, I caution against using that option in obtaining your wort fermentability. It seems to make the beer a little weird for my taste. Mashing at a more normal pH around 5.4 and then lowering pH in the kettle seems more succesful to me.
Martin - any plans to add that functionality to the supporters version of your spreadsheet?
Chicken ;D I would do the same with a LHBS crush. Maybe while you wait for that long mash to convert you can fix your mill. 70% is not shabby at all tho.
My mill works I just need a better one. It’s a corona style that has been converted to be used with a drill. On top of that I have crappy drills that can’t seem to hold a charge so it isn’t out of the ordinary for the drill to die in the middle of milling.
I am chicken though. Ha!
In the meantime if you want to try it you could always just run it through the LHBS mill twice. It might not get you exactly what you want, but it would probably be closer and fairly repeatable.
I did the mill twice at the LHBS before I got my mill. Boy did I get some strange looks!. But I did have better results when doing this. My LHBS actually does not sell mills, but told me if I bought sacks of grain from them, I could bring in whatever I needed to mill when I picked up yeast, hops, etc. I did that for a couple batches, but then I bought a mill and a corded drill. No issues with consistency or efficiency since. A corded drill is such a useful tool to have for so many different projects, glad I bought one for homebrewing