Carapils

[yog]

I am just about to try my first batch using carapils malt in an effort to add more body & improve head retention.

my grain bill includes the following

Maris Otter
Crystal 150
torrified wheat
munich

my question is this,

Do i substitute the carapils for a %age of the the M.O. or do i just increase the total grain bill by adding the carapils? I want to hit the same ABV.

[GOOSE]

Without knowing the %'s of each malt...You should have great head and body. You have the makings of a very classic any shade of pale you want ale, add enough crystal and a little black and its an Amber.
What is your mash temp? Can you step it up? Do you get it to 152f?
You can add Carapils, however I have seen it add undesirable 'nutty' flavors to pale ales.
My 2 cents
Cheers,
GOOSE

[Larry Horwitz]

don't even bother with the C-pils....add more malt and you'll get better results.

[beertje46]

don't even bother with the C-pils....add more malt and you'll get better results.
I concur. I gave up on C-pils years ago. Never lived up to the hype. Add a sack of wheat malt if you need more head.

[Moonlight]

Carapils seems to give me frothy burps. Hate the stuff. Maybe that is just me...

[Bham Brewer]

I always go for a greater % of base malt for color, body and flavor rather than fooling with the specialties... Use Pale Ale malt (around 4L) and Munich (10L) as much as possible and reduce the amount of crystal used. Go for a higher mash temp, 158F, and let the base malt and enzymes do their job. I get better, smoother body that way and richer malt flavors that hold up better over time.

[yog]

Ordered Cara-pils from my maltster only to find that they also sell it as caramalt, which i have been using since day 1.

grain bill
MO 83%
crystal 150 8%
torrified wheat 5%
Carapils 4%

I am getting grief from landord for lack of lacing on the glass, i'd rather not put too much more wheat in as I seem to have a problem with clearing times too ( however I have lengthened conditioning time and this seems to be doing the trick)

How should i adjust the grainbill whilst keeping flavour profile

I tend to mash at 149f for 1 hour. Single infusion.

thanks for your help thus far

[Buckley]

I would say definitely raise your mash temp. 152-155 is nice. Adding a bit more wheat shouldn't be too problematic. What temp are you conditioning at?? I have found with some of my beers the longer they sit at 33-35 the better they fall out. Are you getting a nice head that is falling out quickly, or poor head in general??

[Larry Horwitz]

the cpils will not do what you want it to do. It is NOT a magic head inducing agent (despite what your supplier will tell you). i would check other sources for head problem....Dirty glasses are your most likely candidate followed by other dispense related problems like dirty draft lines etc. If you are brewing all malt products of 10.5P or higher you shouldn't have a head issue related to malt.

[scott isham]

I second the glass as being a major issue of lack of lacing.

[rudge75]

I've seen situations where the bar uses a non foaming iodine sanitizer on the glassware as the last rinse step, then doesn't let them dry before refilling. It's pretty tough to get the lacing when you've got that sanitizer left in every glass.

[yog]

Guys, I think we can discount the glassware as the landlord's beef is that mine seems to be the only beer hat doesn't lace the glass.

Longer time in the CT seems to be an answer and I will raise mash temp by a few degrees.

Is there a formula for how much extra grain to add per extra degree of mash temp, or is it suck it and see?

[tariq khan]

Yog,

Just curious about something, I'm assuming your beer is cask-conditioned ?
How's the condition when dispensing at the pub ? In my opinion you won't get any lacing on the glass if it's under-conditioned which is something I found all too often. How fast is the beer going out after racking ? Any primings ? what's your cask storage temp like ?

T

[GOOSE]

going to a higher temp will not hurt your gravity

[yog]

tariq

Yes the beer is cask conditioned, generally sits around for minimum of one week prior to going out, and then at least three days in pub cellar. I only prime if it really needs it, sometimes beer is really lively. I don't have a chill room at present, so storage is at ambient temp, with no heating anywhere.


Goose

I was working on the theory that if I mash higher, then OG will be the same, but because of increased dextrins, the final gravity will be a couple of spots higher leading to lower ABV. Is this not correct?

[GOOSE]

I don't think your going to trade off anyting, I think you will get more of everything.
What is your typical strike temp at mashin?

[Bham Brewer]

It is true that with a higher mash temp you will have a decrease in ABV, however this is very slight... Maybe 1/2% depending on O.G. You will get a noticeable increase in the mouth feel and malt flavors. It should help your head retention. You might want to consider shorting you mash time too. NOT both together, at least at first.. one variable at a time! Your low mash temp and a full hour mash is really tearing up the unfermentables.

Have you looked to the sanitizer you use in your fermenters or anything else the beer comes in contact with before it hits the glass? Other than peracetic acid, I don't trust other "no rinse" sanitizers... never used the chlorine based ones so I don't have a frame of ref. there. You may find it isn't related to process at all.

[yog]

It is true that with a higher mash temp you will have a decrease in ABV, however this is very slight... Maybe 1/2% depending on O.G

Just to get it perfectly clear, i normally get ABV of 3.8%, are you saying that this could drop as low as 3.3%? or are you saying it may drop to 3.75%?

In answer to your questions, all vessels get a dilute caustic wash after use followed by h2o then peracetic.

Thanks for all of the advice

[Cargill Malt]

It is absolutely correct that if you increase your mash temperature and as a result see an increase in dextrin content, your ABV will be decreased. As to how much it will decrease, who can say? The magnitude of the latter will be determined by the magnitude of the former. The greater the increase in unfermentables the more your decrease in ABV. There are too many system dependent variables for somebody who is not intimately familiar with your system to accurately predict this in advance. The best chance of predicting the outcome would be to look at the other beers you produce on the system in order to extrapolate how much the temp. change will impact you. Your results, on your system, with similar brewing conditions (base malt etc.) is the best predictor of future performance.

That being said, if you are at a loss where to start I'd probably aim for a half point higher OG (Plato) and increase your mash temp. by 3 degrees F. Best case scenario is you get the increase in AE that you are looking for an the abv stays about the same. Worst case is that AE stays the same and ABV goes up. Not the worst thing in the world. If this happens repeat experiment with a further increase in conversion temp. Sneak up on it so you don't overcompensate.

There is also a chance that your conversion temp. adjustment would influence AE so much that abv would actually go down, but from my experience I would say this is unlikely. But it is your system not ours, so no guarantees.

You should be looking at that conversion rest time as well, but independent of this exercise. I concur with an earlier comment that you do not want to be adjusting 2 variables at once. That being said, 60 minutes is a very long conversion rest. The goal of the conversion rest is to suficiently break down the starch to get your desired wort carbohydrate profile, and to move along as soon as possible. There are deleterious effects of long conversion rests. An elucidation of these evils is beyond the scope of this post, but think about extracting lipids and polyphenols from malted barley husk. Long term stability and flavor (astringency) issues.

Once you get your abv/ae issue sorted out it would be beneficial to get some fresh iodine and attempt to determine when conversion is complete. Keep in mind that if you don't do a mash off you are also converting throughout your lautering period. Chances of winding up with starch in your finished beer are slim as a result. As with any other experimentation make small changes over a longer period of time so that you don't overshoot what you are trying to accomplish. You may find that when you get close to a more optimum mash time you might have to adjust that mash temp. back down slightly.

It is well known that North American malt is higher in enzymatic power than British malt, but as a point of reference most domestic 2-row converts in 5-6 minutes assuming the malt is of good quality and is in good condition.

And finally, a word on the head retention issue. One very important thing to remember is that the wort entering fermentation has a set concentration of hydrophobic head forming proteins in solution. Said proteins give you the head and lacing you are looking for. Since these proteins are hydrophobic (water hating) once the come out of solution they stay out of solution. Take home message is that every time you make foam in the brewing process that foam is foam that will never make it to the customers glass. All malt wort has plenty of foaming potential without help from foaming aids etc. But if this potential is squandered through rough transfers, transferring into tanks without top pressure, or excessive in-tank carbonation or oxygen scrubbing with CO2, you will wind up with a less than stellar presentation in the glass. So keep those proteins in the beer where they belong.

Cheers, and good luck.

[Larry Horwitz]

... That being said, 60 minutes is a very long conversion rest. The goal of the conversion rest is to suficiently break down the starch to get your desired wort carbohydrate profile, and to move along as soon as possible. There are deleterious effects of long conversion rests. An elucidation of these evils is beyond the scope of this post, but think about extracting lipids and polyphenols from malted barley husk. Long term stability and flavor (astringency) issues....




Hey Cargill! I'd Love to hear more about this...folks here have been arguing back and forth about our mash rest time for years. Got any literature, etc.?

Thanks a ton

[crassbrauer]

Given that your malt is not modified to the level that British malt tends to be, but still highly modified enough to avoid having to do a protein rest, for best results regarding head retention, flavor stability, drinkability and the overall gustatory impression of a beer, try mashing-in at 144 F, resting for 15 - 30 min, raising the temperature (~2 F per min) to 162 F and resting there for 15 - 30 min (as suggested, test with iodine here), then mashing out at ~172 F. Between 144 F and 162 F, there are enzymes which you'll want to avoid (lipases).

I understand this is not the accepted method for brewing ales and many are limited by a mash/lauter set-up, but research has shown this to be true. I had a bit of a disagreement with someone active in the craft brewing industry who indicated that it was merely my German brewing background which has biased me in this direction. He should know better, or he would've understood that enzymes don't care what kind of beer you're brewing; they simply follow the laws of nature when breaking down the many compounds found in a given type of malt.

I write 'compounds found in a given type of malt', because maltsters in Europe, the UK and the US make malt with different characteristics out of different types of barley (and wheat), hence the importance of getting the corresponding data about the malt you’re using. Of course, if you're using British malt or British-style malt, it's another situation altogether, because many of the enzymatic processes, which occur in the brewhouse in Continental-style breweries, have already been carried out in the malt house. Lipases, etc. are not as much of a problem for traditional British ales anyway, because head retention is expected to be low and flavor stability not as long.

Ultimately though, you have to trust your senses. This brings up an interesting point regarding craft beer in the US, and why I'm always excited to land in a pub sporting American craft beer. Doing things you’re not supposed to do, but do out of necessity anyway, can sometimes yield great results (that’s the history of brewing in a nutshell, really). This has created a unique situation from the standpoint of what types of traditions craft brewers follow in conjunction with what kinds of raw materials they use. It has certainly yielded some wonderful and unique new beers and beer styles...