Sweet Pastry Stouts

?

 

I interpreted it as “just my 2 cents....here’s the big beer I brewed".

 

indeed.

 

Here's the edited recipe i'm actually brewing
60% 2 row
12% Flaked Oats
10% Munich 10L
6% Crystal 40
6% Chocolate
2% Black Patent
4% Lactose

1.140 OG, 4-6 hour boil. SRM 55.1

 

I recently brewed an imperial (pastry) stout that I double mashed as @pweis909 outlined. My advice would be to make sure you use some rice hulls in your second mash as the wort will be pretty thick. Luckily I BIAB so I didn’t have a “stuck mash” exactly, but it did take some squeezing of the bag to drain half the wort. I mainly went that route so my efficiency wouldn’t suffer as much for the amount of grains I used and because I was going for a thicker mouth feel. Used Voss Kviek and went from 1.119 to 1.045. I don’t have the grain bill on hand but I know there was something like ~15% crystal malt and ~5-6% roasted.

 

Usually I respect what you have to say, but these two steps won't give you a sweet beer.

 

Man, I cant believe how many people have fallen off BA in that thread.

 

High mash temps and short mash lengths both result in a less fermentable wort. It's less fermentable because there are less simple/shorter sugars and more complex/longer sugars/dextrins (Maltotriose and longer). Almost all beer yeast strains do not use all of the Maltotriose present in wort. Maltotriose is about 30% as sweet as table sugar. Thus, all other things being equal, high mash temps and short mash lengths make a sweeter beer.

Now, will those two things alone make a pastry-stout-level-sweet beer? Definitely not, but they can contribute. There are obviously other, more powerful contributors, which I listed in my post.

 

Except that the starches don't start out sweet at all, and the ones that are partially converted are still not what we would call sweet. Lower attenuating strains will leave a sweeter beer, mashing high will net a buttload of body though.

 

Maltotriose is not a starch (though you could think of it as a "partially converted" starch). It's a sugar. And more maltotriose in the wort leads to sweeter beer.

You're right about lower attenuation strains leaving a sweeter beer. And it's for exactly the same reason that more maltotriose in the wort leaves a sweeter beer. In both cases, there's more residual maltotriose in the finished beer.

 

Assuming those complex carbs got broken down to maltriose in the first place.
Edit... while researching the composition of barley starches and carbohydrates I find it interesting that maltriose isnt found in barley to begin with.

 

Every beer wort has maltotriose in it (probably about 20% of the carbs on average). High mash temps and short mash lengths result in higher proportions of maltotriose and lower proportions of simple 100% fermentable sugars. If you have a beer "wort" without maltotriose, you have a failed mash.

Correct. Barley has fairly negligible amounts of sugars in general. For practical purposes, it all starts with starches.

ETA: You do believe (correctly I might add) that lower attenuating yeast strains result in sweeter beer. Why do you think that is? i.e. what's the thing that lower attenuating strains are leaving behind that higher attenuation strains are not?

 

My argument is based on the idea that high mash temps do not inherently leave higher amounts of sweet sugars. I would like to see where you are getting data supporting sugar content in worts based off mash temps.

 

I'm not saying that high mash temps create more (very) sweet sugars. Just the opposite. I'm saying that they create more of the sweet-ish sugar Maltotriose.

My logic is that high mash temps favor Alpha Amylase over Beta Amalyse. Alpha Amylase breaks down long chain carbs, producing Maltotriose. Beta Amalyase, which is not favored at high temps, produces little maltotriose. I don't have numbers. Just a few facts, applied logic, and subjective experience.

To summarize, I'm saying that high temps produce the following (as compared to low temps)…
Glucose+ Fructose + Sucrose + Maltose: Less
Maltotriose: More
Longer chains: More (or no change)

If I understand your argument, you are saying that high temps produce the following (as compared to low temps)...

Glucose+ Fructose + Sucrose + Maltose: Less
Maltotriose: No change
Longer chains: More

Is that what you're thinking? If so, do you have data, or if not, what do you base it on (i.e. what logic)? If that's not what you're thinking, could you please lay it out?

Either of these scenarios would be consistent with lower fermentability. But only one is consistent with higher mash temps favoring Maltotriose production.

 

^^^ Too late to edit, so adding here:
I'm not trying to get into a peeing contest about this. I would happily welcome an alternative explanation that fits the facts.

And Happy Turkey Day to all. I'm off to the couch to wait out the tryptophan coma.

 

My logic is this based off of personal experience with high mash temps. My high mash temp stouts (read 160) are no sweeter than my low mash temp stouts (read 150) . Yes, there are more polysaccharides in the high temp mash wort than the lower, however there is more alcohol in the lower mash wort with all things being equal. Alcohol adds percieved sweetness while polysaccharides are perceptibly less sweet. It all comes out in the wash netting a beer that has more body and equal sweetness if you mash high.

 

Well . . . you got me since then, so you've got that going for you.

 

Also, no posting contest at all. Totally civil discussion, both sides have validity.

 

Seems like a lot of peeps are saying Irish ale yeast, which certainly has a history with stouts. I will suggest that Lallemand's ESB yeast might work well too. I've only use it 1x, in an old ale. I don't have my notes in front of me, but I got about 70% attenuation, maybe 8.5% ABV with some simple sugar in the recipe, and it left the wort sweet. This yeast does not do well with maltotriose, which factors into the low attenuation and sweetness. According to Lallemand, it tolerates up to 12%. I selected it for my old ale based on its low attenuation. I wanted to add brett to secondary and give it a lot to chew on. Before adding the brett, it was very sweet, probably would have been a nice matrix for a dessert beer.

 

I've had luck using the Irish ale copitched with 1056 in a 4l starter to get those huge og beers down a bit further. I will say that without temp control Irish ale throws all sorts of esters.