Thought Experiment: Enhancing Malt Flavor

I know there have been past discussions on the forum about people doing 15-minute boils for the whole batch. Boil-off and hop adjustments need to be taken into account, but I seem to recall that nobody noticed any prominent DMS with 15-minute boils, which tends to be one of the big reasons for boiling longer. I don't recall if anyone specifically mentioned noticing a better malt presence. I recall that discussion taking place more in the context of trying to cut down on the length of a brew day.

 

Come to that, no boil at all is a thing - a normal mash temperature ought to be enough to sanitize the wort, and you can either add hop bitterness by making a "hop tea" or just not at all. I seem to recall a Larsblog post or two about this in the context of NE European farmhouse ales, and a lot of people seem to do Berliner Weisse and other lacto-sours that way

The broader question, though, is whether what we describe as "fresh malt flavour" is actually the same as the flavour of raw malt.

 

I like the idea, and wonder if maybe it might improve malt flavor. Don't know.

Having just toured the Briess malting house here in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, I know there is tons of vegetal aroma that volatilizes during the malting process, the likes of which I'd never experienced before. It really makes me wonder how much of those aromas stay out of the malt, versus how much stays in until brew day, and whether a minimum boil time is necessary or not to get more of that out, without losing too much "maltiness". And just what components of "maltiness" are desirable or not desirable, anyway? As always, I'm sure it's in the eye of the beerholder. More real experimentation would be needed if I wanted to determine what *I* think the minimum boil time should be. I do think it's certainly interesting to think about and maybe play with in future.

Cheers.

 

I associate great malt flavor with biscuit and bread character. So if I am trying to get that effect I will keep the late hop additions minimal if at all, use moderate to mild hops, keep the bitter under say 30 IBUs and most of all use Victory or Aromatci, maybe Vienna, anything to boost the malt profile.

I do not think a beer should be everything either.

We essentially get malt hops yeast and water. I choose one to play the leading role and the rest can be supporting characters. So I do go for big hop aroma and lots of malt flavr as well. That's my taste.

I have not thought of holding wort for a later addition. That will increase some haze, probably DMS, mess up expected bittering, to name a few.

Cheers.

 

An interesting thought here.

There are two aspects concerning boiling that would concern me here:

Precipitation

I would be concerned that the portion of the wort removed would not have experienced optimal precipitation from a 15 minute boil and this would impact the appearance aspect of the finished beer.

Volatization

A full 1 hour boil will drive off unwanted compounds with just one example being DMS (there are others).

Would this method of brewing genuinely improve the malt flavor of the finished beer and does this ‘outweigh’ the topics discussed above?

Cheers!

 

One thing Lars mentions when he discusses raw beer is that its shelf life is greatly diminished compared to boiled beer. This would be a concern for me if I were experimenting with this approach.

(That said, I've done a couple of no-boil Berliners and they seemed to age just fine.)

 

Some interesting points. Regarding precipitation, I wonder if the cooling time the wort spends would help precipitate matter out of suspension, especially if one were to use a chiller of some sort. Could also toss in whirfloc or irish moss when the sample is pulled out initially?

 

What about beer clarity? I'm assuming that not boiling for long would hinder hot break?

 

A full hour of boil optimizes the precipitation aspect.

I add rehydrated Irish Moss for the last 15 minutes of the one hour boil. I do not think adding these kettle finings to a portion of wort removed from boil would 'work'.

Cheers!

 

Yup, this is the precipitation aspect I discussed above.

Cheers!

 

Many people claim to get a "richer" malt flavor from the no sparge method, including Gordon Strong. I believe he mentioned it in Brewing Better Beer?

 

You have a good memory:

“This is the method suggested by Gordon Strong in his book, "Brewing Better Beer".

Why do this? Apparently, it results in a richer and more-intense malt flavor, with less harshness compared to other methods, according to Strong; he also mentions that the resulting beer is also a bit deeper in color, with lower acidity. This may not be a technique you'd use for a hop-forward beer, such as an American IPA, but for malt-forward beers, such as Scotch Ales, it sounds like something worth trying.”

http://meekbrewingco.blogspot.com/2012/10/no-sparge-brewing-simple-approach-to.html

Cheers!

 

I never do a mash out temp because of that book and I think it makes a better beer fwiw

 

A mash-out is not the same as sparging. I don't recall Strong's book advising against mash-out temps. I think that would have caught my eye, since I almost always mash-out. Can you point to where he says that?

 

I thought this was going to be about Schröedingers beer.

 

The beer exists in a superposition of malty and not malty, until tasted by an intelligent observer.