I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around diastatic power. This all started when I was continuously unhappy with the quality of my beers containing Munich malt. They all have a similar sweet, almost caramel like flavor that tastes nothing like the commercial Munich containing beers that I love.
I know that it’s on the low scale for diastatic power and I don’t know I am certain I understand exactly what that means. All I know is that based on what I am reading it might be linked to this flavor I am getting. Am I not getting a good conversion and ending up with less fermentable sugar?
Your malt analysis should have a rating for DP, often expressed in degrees L. IIRC, as long as it’s above 25 the malt should convert itself. Frankly, though, I don’t know if that’s your problem. I’ve never had any problems getting a variety of Munich malts, both continental and domestic, to convert. One way to find out oif that’s the issue of to use Kai’s conversion efficiency chart. It shows a theoretical maximum gravity for various mash ratios. Using your ratio, you compare the graivity of your mash runoff to the chart. You can find it and explanations here…Troubleshooting Brewhouse Efficiency - German brewing and more . That will either confirm what you’re thinking or show you that you need to look elsewhere.
Could be diastatic power, or could be something else entirely. Tell me… are you adding any crystal malts to these beers at all? What temperatures are you mashing at, and for how long? Do you use Briess malt by any chance, or what brand do you use? What yeast are you using? WLP820 by any chance?
It could be this. It could be under-attenuation of converted sugars due to yeast health. It could be something else. But I’d guess that it has nothing to do with DP. Unconverted starches are not going to be caramel sweet.
The only reason I don’t want to jump straight to oxidation is that I feel like a bit of oxidation hasn’t negatively affected my dark beers, especially ones based on Munich malt.
It could be a combination of recipe (too much crystal) and oxidation.
I really don’t think it’s an oxidation issue. I have never had issues with oxidation and this flavor shows up across all my beers containing Munich…ales and lagers.
