Fermentability

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Permalink Reply by MrC on October 9, 2010 at 12:24pm

I was wondering the same as Crabbey.

Here's a link to the reference that I use for this type of information, if you click on a grain/sugar in the list you'll get more details:
http://www.beersmith.com/Grains/Grains/GrainList.htm

Hope that helps.

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Permalink Reply by Soren on October 9, 2010 at 1:27pm

Hehe, maybe the reason why I can't find any answers is my lack of formulating the questsion correctly...

Are you more interested in the mix of types of sugars produced by the various enzymes in the mash, therefore the upper attenuation limit for a given yeast?

this is pretty close to what I mean.

Take Weyermann Munich type 2 for example.

This has been kilned at higher temps, which will give it some slight caramelization and change the enzyme profile compared to a standard pale malt.

So, if we brewed a 100% munich malt beer under given paramameters, what would the attenuation be compared to the same beer brewed with standard pale malt?

It would surely be lower, but probably not all that much?

If we did the same with, say, Weyermanns aromatic malt (which has been kilned even higher) the attenuation would be assumed to be even lower?

What if we did the same experiment with Bairds pale crystal (yes, 100% crystal:), how fermentable would that be?

Let's limit the discussion to malt that has either been converted from the maltster (crystal for example) or can convert it self in the mash.

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Permalink Reply by Soren on October 9, 2010 at 3:48pm

Thus your starch will be broken down in a completely different way than if a 100% base malt was used, and therefore fermentability would be affected.

Yeah. Ultimately, what I am after is a tool to calculate the fermentability of a given grain bill.
That is, not a single malt beer but a more normal grain bill.

My thought was that if I had the numbers for the different malts, a rough calculation could be made from this. For example if the theoretical attentuation of golden promise is 80% and for pale crystal 50% (this number is a wild guess and one that I would really like to know the 'real' value for) then a grain bill of:

90% GP
10% pale crystal

would be 77% fermentable (0.80 x 90% + 0.50 x 10%)

Of course, when we start mixing the malts (and thereby their enzymes) the calculation becomes less accurate but I think we could still get a ball park figure.

I don't know if this makes any sense to anybody but myself...:)

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Permalink Reply by Soren on October 17, 2010 at 6:20pm

Alrighty, I'm taking the bull by the horns: Yesterday I made a Munich and Motueka SMaSH. Will let you all know how fermentable 100% Munich (type 2) is...

Also, this week I will make a small 100% bairds pale crystal brew. Any guesses to how fermentable that will be? I'm assuning that the crystal is fully converted from the maltster but I will do a starch test to be sure. if it's not converted, then my whole thesis is irellevant I suppose, as I will have to add enzymes

Gonna be like science class:)

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