Gladfield Ale Malt Clarity

[Matt Smith]

I brewed a blonde ale today with Gladfield Ale Malt. It was my first time using this, so I went with 100% for the grain bill to familiarize myself with its performance and character etc for future brews.

One thing I noticed was that my wort going into the fermenter was cloudy. I use whirlfoc for kettle finings (1.2grams for a 20 litre batch) and have always had crystal clear wort going into the fermenter when using Golden Promise, Maris Otter, Kolsch and all of the Weyermann base malts. I know Gladfield apparently has a high protein content...I'm wondering if this is the issue, or if it is a ph/conversion issue (although I did get 85% efficiency).

Just wondering if anybody has had similar experiences and how they fixed it. Should I simply increase my whirlfloc dosage ?

[Ralph]

It is likely to clear up in the fermenter, especially if you use a fining like gelatine.

How are you mashing? Did you do anything different (different grind etc)?

I have had clear mashes with Gladfield ale malt from my mash tun, and I used to have cloudy wort from BIAB. Both come out the the fermentor clear as...

[Matt Smith]

Thanks Ralph. Just a regular single Infusion mash at 68 degrees for an hour with a fly sparge. The grind was actually different, I usually get my malt ground at brewers coop but this was ground with a borrowed mill and was much finer. My efficiencies are usually between 68% - 70%, but jumped to 85% today, which I assume is due to the finer crush.

[Richard Jack]

did you vorlauf?

[Matt Smith]

Yep, manual vorlof, about 6 litres until it was looking pretty clear. Thanks for the use of the mill by the way! Very handy that it was at marks when I picked up the grain. Is the gap you have set the factory preset, or have you adjusted it ?

[Richard Jack]

I haven't adjusted it from how it came to me, it's Haish's originally. He says it's pretty close to factory. I love that crush, it vorlaufs clean for me with probably 6-8 litres of recycling. I get way better efficency than from... other crushes I've experienced - no whole grains floating around on top of the mash etc etc. Running some Gladfields tonight so I'll report back!

edit- from Haish: ah, it will have been reset many times, will be smaller gap than factory, was reset to something measured with feeler gauges but can't remember what.

[Matt Smith]

Sweet thanks. Ive got the same mill on order, looking forward to having a play. It was awesome seeing every last kernel completely cracked, Ive never had that before.

[Richard Jack]

Crickey, I know what you're on about now, after brewing with it last night. Did my water chemistry etc and it eventually ran cleanish after lots and lots of vorlauf. Ended up fly sparging because I didn't want to go through the recirc again! It's not typical of the crush, I can tell you that much.

[Matt Smith]

True, do you have a PH meter out of interest, or are you using a spreadsheet and estimating like me ?

[Richard Jack]

Normally I have both, I'll predo my water chemistry on a spreadsheet based on the Palmer one, and then check mash pH. Right now however I'm without my meter so spreadsheet only. I erred low.

I also acidify my sparge water slightly with whatever food acid is handy, think that was a tip from Joe via Tyler? or someone via Tyler anyway.

[Dougal]

Interesting. I usually add just enough calcium for yeast health as our water is pretty low, then correct with lactic acid using a meter. The brews with a Gladfield base always need greater acid adjustments to bring the mash into the right range.

 

[Tilt]

This is an interesting convo fellas. 

Dougal, when you're measuring mash pH (of say a 5kg mostly Ale malt NZPA grist) what values do you usually get back for Gladfields?  How do these compare with other malts? (Bairds or Malteurop)

And then how much acid are you adding to correct these values?

[Ralph]

I have mashed a number of Gladfield pale ales recently here in Chch and have a pH meter. The pH of the water here is around 7.8. I was mashing with maybe 5-10% caramunich/carapils in the mix. With a teaspoon of CaCl in one mash and a teaspoon of CaSO4 in another just to add Ca ions for mash stability.

The CaSO4 was down to a pH of about 5.3

The CaCl was down to a pH of about 5.5