Finishing with 3711

Interesting idea. But my first thought is why not substitute sugar for some of the grain (equivalent OG contribution)? You would lose some maltiness, but that might be a good thing in a hop bomb. Back to 3711...my guess (and it's only a guess) is that you'd still have some perceptible phenols, even used the way you described.

 

Chico gets my 1.075 ipa's down to 1.005. I would agree with vikeman that 3711 would pitch phenols that may affect the final product.

 

Why not deal with the attenuation issue in the mash or boil?

 

I wonder if this yeast's attenuative prowess will shine when you are pitching in beer as opposed to wort.

 

Why not. Your proposal doesn't sound anything outside of the norm of experimentation. May not give you what you want, may give you what you want, or may give you want you didn't know you wanted. Try it and report back.

 

Hands down my favorite part of homebrewing.

 

I wouldn't. I've made a really hoppy beer, but I used 3711 to ferment it out completely.

Not a fan of bitter and the spice esters 3711 kicks.

 

1.066 down to 1.004 is roughly 94% aa and that is definitely not easy to accomplish without brett or bugs. Definitely need a very high attenuating / low flocculating yeast. Using some sugar in lieu of some grain helps (as you mentioned). Then do everything possible to favor beta amylase like:

1. Stay away from British base malts, as they are generally lower in beta amylase to begin with.
2. keep your mash temp btw 131F - 149F (I'd recommend 142-146F)
3. use extended mash time (say 90 - 120 minutes)
4. Perhaps skip doing a mash out (if you do one) so that the mash is extended throughout the lauter. If you do this, a 90 minute mash to begin with is probably perfect.
5. Keep your mash ph btw 5.1 - 5.3
6. Use a thicker mash
7. Perhaps keep your calcium content in your water to the bare recommended minimum (50ppm or atleast don't be excessive with it) since calcium aids in yeast flocculation and is a cofactor for alpha amylase

NOTE: Lots of these beta favoring suggestions will lower your overall mash extraction.

 

Correction on #4

While skipping a mashout would indeed extend the mash at cool temperatures, doing a mashout would also lock the fermentable mash profile into place prior to sparging. That might be better than mashing cool, skipping the mashout, and then sparging since the sparge could potentially raise your mash to a warmer temperature range that favors less fermentable sugars. So I'd probably stick with a nice long 90-120 minute mash in the 142-146F range and then do a mashout to denature all of the enzymes asap after that.

 

So Koopa's answer seems to be pretty comprehensive. All I have to add, is there is potential for 3711 with certain types of hops. It works well with fruity ones - really fruity - Mosaic, Dorado, etc, but you probably want it to be fruit-forward.

 

I was definitely making those suggestions from a single infusion perspective and you raise an interesting point to consider. I'm not implying that it can be "undone" I'm just suggesting that beta amylase is your real workhorse in reducing chains down to the most fermentable sugar forms possible. Sure alpha amylase can assist beta amylase by creating new non-reducing ends (that beta can munch away on) as it cleaves chains. But some alpha amylase action will still be occurring even if you favor beta by mashing on the cool side.

Now if you go the opposite route and mash in the ideal temp range of alpha (158F), you risk significantly suppressing the beta action (and are knocking on the door of denaturing it completely) and that alone should hinder the potential fermentability of your wort. That was my concern with skipping the mashout and just adding hot sparge water. Namely, that you might raise the wort in the MLT too much (to 158F or more). You even destroy lots of beta (and a bit of alpha) by doughing into strike water hotter than 158F to begin with!

I would assume that wouldn't be an issue in your scenario though, where you do a step mash in ideal beta range first and then outside beta range (but below the beta denaturing point) second. Then again, it depends on how good you are at getting that wort up that step. If you direct fire it, you will surely raise the temperature of the wort at the bottom of the kettle to a much higher degree than your second step temperature target. If you add hot water to raise to the second step, you will overshoot the target for a few minutes until the MLT equalizes.

Either way, I'm not 100% sure that this 2 step approach would INCREASE fermentability. It's possible but I honestly don't know for sure. It all comes down to how much of an increase in alpha creating non-reducing ends you gain from that second temperature step vs. how much you might reduce beta's performance by doing that second temperature step.

 

My interpretation of the biochemisty (perhaps only a tiny step above pedestrian) supports it and my own experience seems to as well. I tend to do the 90+ minute mash at 149F or below for my saisons and definitely see an increase in fermentability compared to my regular approach. I brewed one about 1.5 years ago and did a 90 minute mash @ 148F using 7% sugar in the recipe and an ECY strain rated up to 80% aa but reached 87% aa. I actually just brewed another Saison using the same ECY strain this past weekend and did a 70 minute mash around 145F with 9.5% sugar in the recipe. Malt bill was slightly different as well. So it definitely won't be a controlled comparison, but either way it will be interesting to compare my attenuation this go around (with the lower mash temp but shorter mash duration) to the results from 1.5 years ago. I'll let you know what happens in a few weeks when I take my last gravity reading before kegging!

 

For single infusion mashes, experiments by both Greg Doss and Kai Troester found the sweet spot for fermentability to be higher than conventional wisdom (i.e. "the lower the temp the better"). Doss's fermentability was highest at 152F and Troester's was highest at 151F.

 

I do remember Kai's results suggesting he did better in the low 150's but I don't recall how he set the test up. I should re-read his work. One factor that I know is really important to getting more fermentability out of a colder mash is extending the mash length. Beta needs extra time to get the job done to that level, especially with less help from alpha in that cooler range. I wonder how long Kai mashed for at the various temperatures he compared? Again, I should re-read his work. I believe he also suggested that no attenuation differences were found in his experiment due to varying the mash thickness. I've been taught that a thicker mash yields a more fermentable wort due to it better protecting beta amylase from heat. Again, don't know if it's true or not but it's what I've been taught. Thanks for references Greg Doss, I haven't heard of him and don't know of his work regarding this topic. So that's something else for me to read!

 

Just read Greg Doss's NHC presentation pdf and he indeed used a 60 minute mash in his study. His results do show his highest aa result was 153F (84.93% aa). His results also showed the same exact aa for a 148F mash and a 154F mash (83.02% aa) and that it was only 0.16% higher than a mash at 146F (82.86% aa).

He also did an experiment testing mash time for a mash @ 151F and his results were that a 60min mash yielded 83.02% aa, a 75 minute mash yielded 85.71% aa and that a 90 minute mash yielded him 84.91% aa. It would be very interesting to see those time tests at various mash temps!

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/presentations/pdf/2012/1616-04 Attenuation - Gregg Doss.pdf