After Denny posted that a 153F mash temp was reported to produce the most fermentable wort, I’ve mashed at 153 for the last 10 batches. Most of the beers were established recipes with past results for comparison, all worts were oxygenated at the normal levels, with regular amounts of my regular yeasts (007, US-05, and 3787), and OGs ranging from 1.050 to 1.085. I typically mash in the 148-150F range. Every single batch had a higher FG than normal, ranging from two points higher on the lower end of the OGs to as much as six points on the IIPA end of the scale. Not a real problem except for the Belgian IPA that ended up at 1.012 and the IIPA at 1.020, but certainly not the lower FGs that I was expecting. I’m going back to lower mash temps starting with the next batch.
Any one else mashed at 153F with positive results?
thats interesting, I always thought lower mash temps=more ferment-able. Never heard 153f was the ideal temp for highest fermentability. Was this a recent study that was done?
[quote=“Cangrejo”]I forgot the junk email account that I used for this forum–in fact, it’s likely gone out of business by now–so I re-registered because of this post.
Can some please link me to the original post? The search engine doesn’t seem to like the obvious variables, I’m afraid. Thanks for the help.[/quote]
Wow. I never heard this. And I totally don’t believe it, that 153 F is the most fermentable mash temperature. Well okay, maybe if you left all your beers in the mash overnight or something very long like that. However, my experience agrees with Shadetree’s. I mash all my beers at 148 to 152 F, usually shooting for 150 F, and found that it doesn’t much matter if I am off by a degree or two. My own experiments concluded that I should never ever mash above 152 F because the fermentability/attenuability becomes too inconsistent above that point, i.e., if you want a beer consistent with your expectations, then keep your mash temperature down at 152 F or less. However I do recognize that these types of experiments might be specific to brewing system, maltsters, water source, etc. So I do encourage everyone to run their own experiments and come to their own conclusions that might be right for them but wrong for others.
I agree with the others contributing here. A 153 degree mash will typically yield a less fermentable wort that a 151 degree mash. It’s pretty well documented. Here is a pretty detailed experiment showing effects of mash parameters on final gravity:
If you want a very fermentable mash then the Beta-amylase enzymes need to be active for a long time. Mashing at 149 for 90 minutes will accomplish this with most home brew setups. The alpha-amylase will break down the large starch chains so that the beta-amylase can break the sugars that have been produced by the alpha-amylase into simple sugars.
There are numerous sources that show this, but one in particular is “The Practical Brewer” Wort Production, Specific Enzymes of the Mash. p114 in the 1999 hard back addition.
“The role of mash temps on fermentabilty is yielding some interesting info these days. At NHC, Greg Doss of Wyeast presented the results of a fermentability study he’d done. In a nutshell, he found maximum attenuation at 153F, which is very different than what we’ve always thought.”
This is obviously a contradiction to “common knowledge”. I’d like to know if anyone else read Denny’s post and then tried it out and what results they got from the higher mash temp.
My anecdotal experience is 4% less attenuation for every degree above 152. (This is with a 60 minute mash) Mash temperature seems to be the biggest contributing factor to attenuation in my experience. If you were doing a short mash I could see that incomplete conversion of either starch to sugar or long chain sugars to short chain sugars would case a higher temperature mash that yields a more fermentable wort than at a lower temperature.
There will be a blog post with a summary of what I have seen on January 7th.
Well, Dave, you’re free to totally not believe it, but those are the results Greg got under lab conditions. If you’re and AHA member, you can read the results and decide for yourself…http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/a … 20Doss.pdf . Maybe email him to discuss it.
I find it interesting that this has come up.
For years now, I have kept away from a 153F mash temp because my beers were continually over-attenuating.
Not giving this much thought, I just bumped my temps up a couple of degrees to compensate for my lower FG’s.
Me being still pretty new to brewing and without spending more time figuring this all out I will ask the questions of “How much did this REALLY change the ABV?” and “Did it change the taste of any of the beers?”… If very little ABV change and no change in taste…
The 153F is an interesting theory. It’s particularly hard for a homebrewer to hit that number dead on (you’d need a perfect thermometer, perfectly consistant mash temp, and insulation that won’t vary a degree). It’s hard to believe… but also hard to argue with lab tests…
[quote=“GarretD”]Me being still pretty new to brewing and without spending more time figuring this all out I will ask the questions of “How much did this REALLY change the ABV?” and “Did it change the taste of any of the beers?”… If very little ABV change and no change in taste…
Does this really matter?[/quote]
in response to garret:
a beer that starts at 1.060 and ends at 1.018 will be about 5.5%
a beer that starts at 1.060 and ends at 1.010 will be about 6.5%
The later example will be dryer, have less body, and more ABV. the first will be quite a bit sweeter, more body, and less ABV. So it could change your beer quite a bit. although it is a hard to believe theory
[quote=“S.Scoggin”]The 153F is an interesting theory. It’s particularly hard for a homebrewer to hit that number dead on (you’d need a perfect thermometer, perfectly consistant mash temp, and insulation that won’t vary a degree). It’s hard to believe… but also hard to argue with lab tests…
[/quote]
I don’t buy it, but who am I to say? The difference between 153 and 154 seems hardly measurable, even if you could keep 153 or 154 throughout the entire mash for an hour with zero variance in temperature.
i attempted earlier but couldn’t find it. I indeed spoke too soon (not the first time :oops: ). I found it on my second try. According to your link mashing at 153F is 1-2% more attenuative than the examples on either side of it.
I find it interesting there is only 6% difference in attenuation from most attenuative to the least
[quote=“S.Scoggin”]i attempted earlier but couldn’t find it. I indeed spoke too soon (not the first time :oops: ). I found it on my second try. According to your link mashing at 153F is 1-2% more attenuative than the examples on either side of it.
I find it interesting there is only 6% difference in attenuation from most attenuative to the least[/quote]
Yeah, not a huge difference. That’s why I’m not too surprised people are having trouble trying to replicate it.
I wonder if this somehow has something to do with the slight drop in temp from initial mash temp to final mash temp. Also, I note that starches tend not to go completely into solution below 148 to 150F, so mashing at these lower temps may result in some starch that doesn’t get converted.
I can say that the flavor of a beer is VERY affected by mash temp, so if somebody believes all their beers have a similar “flavor” consider changing the mash temp second only to water profile [which makes an even larger difference in my opinion].
I have only recently begun to push mash temp upwards for my pales and IPAs, and yet, I am getting better results…something I would not have believed several years back.
