A possibly stupid "raw" Grätzer bier experiment

[mashani]

In that BEERMKR thread I said I might do this, and I am just for the hell of it and because it lets me play with ideas from Larzblog too.

So I have all this oak smoked wheat, so I wanted to try a Grätzer. But absolutely know for sure I would not like a 100% smoked wheat beer, so I based this on a different 19th century commercial German Grätzer bier recipe I found that is 65% smoked wheat, and 35% Pilsner. Even that sounded like too much, so I went with a 60/40 mix to target a 1.042ish pre-boil wort @3.5 gallons (1/2 gallon of kettle loss). Except I'm not boiling, so the 1.042ish is what it is. Even though I'm not going to do a "mashout", nor stir the mash, I am still going with 85% mash efficiency in these calculations because of how long the mash is gonna be. (see below).

So for the BEERMKR part, that thing doesn't boil. It doesn't even come close to boiling. It just mashes @150 and never heats it above 150... and they use pre-isomerized hops for AAUs. Or you can use really high AA regular hops and/or a lot more of them and get similar effect, except for whatever downside there is there (more flavor/aroma then intended).

Since I'm not sure I'm going to like this beer that much at all anyway (but maybe I will, I do like this smoked wheat in smaller amounts), I figured it was a good one to see if it would make beer, or make garbage doing something like it in my Mash & Boil. I will easily be able to tell the difference between the process making garbage or me simply not liking it if it's too smoked for me to stand. Although I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen by adjusting the amounts / using pils.

So for the Larzblog, part, I know that there are also many brewers out "there" (as in northern/eastern European farmhouse brewers) that use Pilsner all the time and do not even remotely boil it as well, lots of their beer is "raw" like this, just mashed and then fermented directly. And supposedly the results can be good if not great. The one caveat is they often do really long duration mashes.

So for the mash I am following the basic process that the BEERMKR does, as in I just put my grains in cold campden treated water, set the Mash & Boil to 150 and 1000 watts, and then like one of those Northern European types I'm just doing other stuff for 3 1/2 hours. (I have no idea how long the BIERMKR mashes for, but I needed this long for my hop utilization to work out, and since I know people do this somewhere, I figure it will be ok). About 1/2 hour of that time is the mash & boil heating to 150, which will take me through acid/glucan/protein, and high fermentable sacc temps (briefly) before it settles at 150. Which is more or less what the BEERMKR does to avoid protein haze and such. If it doesn't work I'll end up with haze, but lots of the raw farmhouse beers are hazy, especially going into the fermenter, which has no impact on their flavor, so that doesn't matter to me for this experiment, it will just be interesting to see which happens.

I don't have proper Polish hops, and even if I did the AAUs would be too low for this to work, so instead I threw 1.25oz of Hallertau Blanc hops (9.7%AA) right into the mash.

Everything I can find says a 30-40 minute hop stand at 150 will give you about 5% of the AAU utilization you would get in a 60 minute boil. A 60 minute boil of the hops I have in there would be about 93 IBUs, 5% of that would be 4.65 IBUs, but I am effectively hop standing for 5-6x that long, so I am going with a guess of 25-30% utilization compared to a 60 minute boil. That would put me somewhere between 23-27 IBUs or so. Which is about where I would want this beer, and it is enough to suppress lacto pretty well, although at 150 for that long it should pretty much be dead.

I will probably get flavor/aroma from the hops, but those things are very mild and you have to use a lot to get much, so I don't think it's a biggie.

As far as DMS/SMS, the key here is the temp, it's hot enough to pasteurize, but not hot enough to make significant amounts those things. Larz has never mentioned DMS issues in any of the raw beers and the BEERMKR people are saying this works too. So we will see.

I don't know what the OG is yet, I will find out when I pour it into the fermenter around midnight.

I'll be using S-05 in this.

I'll let you know what the OG actually is and what else happens as things continue to happen.

EDIT: BTW, I am doing this full volume no-sparge BIAB style, with water volume calculated to include absorption but excluding the boil off amount. I'm also just totally ignoring it, not stirring or anything. Because the "idea" is to save work. Assuming it works. I wouldn't do this all the time regardless, but it might be useful for some things if it works.

EDIT EDIT: So I screwed up my volume calculation slightly and ended up with 3.75 gallons of wort instead of 3.5. My measured temperature adjusted gravity was 1.040, which is about right considering that. I tasted the wort and it didn't taste disgustingly sweet compared to what I would have thought it would be, nor too smoky to be enjoyable, but we will see about that after the sugars ferment out. But it seems like the hops did something. It would actually have been a good warm "after winter skiing" beverage the way it was. What went into the fermenter was slightly hazy, but no more then any other wheat beer wort I've ever made. So we will see.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: But clearly the 1st "downside" of this process is just figuring out how to figure out stuff. But I've figured out weird processes before so if this works I'm sure I can nail it down over time. The BEERMKR people I'm sure have it nailed down in how their machine works. And the farmhouse brewers who do the long mash/raw beers, they don't care about precisely how many IBUs they get or an exact OG, they just make beer following a formula and don't stress about it. So I guess "downside" is relative, as long as the results are good. We will see. I'll just RDWHAHB.

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT: I should mention that this mash was very free flowing when I pulled the basket. I did not use any rice hulls. The 60% wheat was no problem at all, it seems that the "step up mash" that went through all the rest steps, and the long duration of it, along with the BIAB like full volume solved any gooey mash issues. So that was cool. Also cool was nothing at all stuck to the burner of the Mash & Boil, so clean up was very easy. There was stuff on the burner that might have burned to a crisp if I did boil it, but it was just goo and wiped right off.

[Inkleg]

As aways a very interesting read. Looking forward to the follow up.

[bpgreen]

Keep us posted on the results.

I don't know if I'll try this or not, but it's nice to have options.

[mashani]

So this finished at 1.008. I took a picture of they hydrometer sample I thought but instead I took a selfie. But it was clear and very pale, it's going to be the lightest colored beer I've ever made, it is probably going to look like Amstel Light or something like that, and there were no adjuncts. Just a matter of not boiling it.

It tasted fine, I can't taste anything in the sample that would lead me to believe this process made screwed up beer. It is smokey with a little bit of fruitiness from the hops. It was not "too sweet" it will actually taste pretty dry I think when carbed because I carbed the snot out of it.

In about 4 weeks I'll pop one open and take a picture of the finished product and see if anything did go wrong that I just can't notice yet.

But I'm pretty sure I made good beer without any issues caused by me not boiling it at all, and slow-chilling it as well.

If in 4 weeks it doesn't taste like garbage, I might try this with something like a Session IPA or a Brut IPA where I want a lot of hop flavor, but not a lot of hop bitterness. I could throw in a ton of hops at flameout doing it this way and lose virtually nothing from them flavor/aroma wise.

Long term stability is also maybe a possible issue, in this case though the smoke should help, I know it acts as a preservative somehow. Lots of hops might do the same I don't know. I'll keep some around for a long time and see how it goes.

But so far, so good, it seems to have worked fine.

So that BeerMKR thing should actually make beer.

[mashani]

So this wasn't stupid, it actually worked, it's amazing clear for what it is and doing everything theoretically possibly wrong to make clear beer according to theories espoused about hot break/cold break/yada yada, at not even 3 weeks in the bottle. A lot of what you see is just condensation on the glass. And this "Polish Champaign" is really delicious, although I'm not sure I'd say so if I went with 100% smoked wheat... but this amount was fine. Long term stability, we will see... but right now me like. It is actually lighter in color then the picture too, this was with crappy indoor lighting.

IMG_0398.jpg (90.94 KiB) Viewed 2911 times

[Inkleg]

Me likey! Oh and sign me up for the Tree ID class. I’m pretty good at it, but I’d like to get as good as my uncle was.

[Beer-lord]

Sounds interesting and looks lovely!

[John Sand]

Good experiment, and good thread. I think I read of this style in BYO.
Jeff, I've studied trees, mostly as an extension of my interest in wooden boats.

[Kealia]

Very cool! I'll say it again - I like that we have a variety of brewers and techniques here to talk/read about.

[bpgreen]

My last brew was an overnight mash, and I think my next one will be the same.

But maybe the one after that will be a no-boil.

Actually, why not both?

I could do an overnight mash and have the hops in the entire time. Then, when I wake up, sparge and let it cool. If I do this, I should be able to do a no-chill brew and not waste any water.

[mashani]

If you do it, I would suggest after you pull the basket, you let it heat back up to 150 with a sanitized lid on it and hold it for about 30 minutes.

That way you will pasteurize anything that gets in while it's draining and/or if you sparge.

I did this for this beer, and the one I just made. I think it's important (at least in my house).

I did slow-chill both, slow chilling causes no harm and just extends the pasteurization time until it drops below 140 or so. I've slow chilled more then 25 batches now, and never had an issue that I could attribute to it. The couple of infections I had were both 1 fermenter out of 2 from the same batch, so it wasn't something that occurred in the mash & boil, it happened because of something that got into the fermenter (as in fruit flies).

Just be aware that slow chilling is still... slow... even from 150 to pitch. It seems like it drops from boiling to 150 a hella lot faster then it drops from 150 to pitch. With my 60ish degree ambient temps, 12 hours after I turned it off it was still about 95 degrees. The mash & boil insulation works.

If I wanted to at 150, I could just dump it into my fermenters, they are perfectly safe at that temperature, and then let it slow chill in there. It would chill faster. But the downside is that I'd get a large amount of break material that hasn't settled, I think especially so in the non-boiled beer. I did get more break material in the non-boiled beers btw, but it just clumped up and sank to the bottom during fermentation and didn't seem to have any negative effect. I know someone did experiments with break material and actually concluded that some actually helped with fermentation instead of harming it. Also I think it would be a bit less safe from contamination then me doing it like I am now.

BTW, I don't think you have the fermentation lid and a foam stopper like I do, so I would cover your regular lid with foil that goes down over the edges of the entire mash & boil if I were you and slow chilling in it. That will keep anything from getting sucked into the little hole. You do not want to try to seal it completely air tight, or it will form a vacuum and maybe crush up the mash & boil. The foil over the lid and down below the edges should keep anything out. The fermentation lid with a sanitized #11 foam lab stopper (meant for growing pure cultures on a stir plate) works great, it is worth the investment if you are going to go that rout on a regular basis like I have been doing. It lets it breath, but keeps out the bugs just like it would in a lab flask.

[bpgreen]

When I did a no-chill before, I used a piece of paper towel soaked in star san and periodically spritzed with additional doses of star san. I don't know if that's really sufficient, but I didn't see any signs of infection.