Fermentability

[Soren]

I've been wondering and trying to research this subject for a while now, but I can't find any answers.

 

My question is: How fermentable are different malts?

 

For example, if I made a 100% Golden Promise pale ale, mashed at 67C, boiled for an hour and pitched an appropriate amount of healthy US-05 at 20C, I would probably get, say, 80% attenuation?

 

What would the attenuation be if I did the same with:

 

Munich

Vienna

Various caramalts

Various crystal malts

Aromatic

Wheat

Rye

oat

Molasses

 

You get my idea, any kind of malt/fermentable material really?

 

Does anyone know of any data out there or even better does anyone have any numbers from singlemalt beers they have brewed?

 

I have asked a lot of brewing/malt experts but nobody have been able to give me an answer.

 

Next step is brewing 20 different singlemalt beers myself, but i'd rather spend my time on something a little less scientific:) 

[MrC]

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.

[Soren]

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.

[Soren]

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...:)

[Soren]

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:)