Braggott Question
- Thread starter jpog
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For the one braggot that I did which was not a later blend of Scotch Ale with a wildflower mead, I used something like 1 lb of DME and 1 lb of honey per gallon.
Dried Malt Extract, for those of us who for whatever reason don't mash our base grains for beer/braggot. This is also Liquid Malt Extract, sort like honey, but made from grain.
That's usually the ratio that I use, if I'm using extract. It'll give you about 60% of your fermentables from the Honey.
A word about Extract...Only add about 1/3 of it at the beginning of your boil (and expect it to foam and expand) and add the rest in the last 10-15 minutes of the boil (again expect foam and expansion). This will prevent the DME for darkening due to the heat of the boil, also boil as much of the water as you can as this will also prevent the darkening of the DME.
Good advice. This should also help with hops utilization (assuming they're being included).
Yeah that's how it is usually done. The different timeline for hops are for extracting the goodness out of them. Bittering hops are usually an hour long (or more) boil, flavor extraction is usually in the 10-15 minute mark and aroma is usually 5 minutes or less (a lot of people will add the aroma hops as they turn off the heat, but before they start really trying to cool the wort). Dry Hopping will add aroma and a little flavor, but will not increase the bitterness at all.
Oh, and add the first 1/3 of the DME before you put the pot on the stove, if you try to add it once the water starts to boil the steam clumps it all up and it is a pain in the ass.
Yeah I should have mentioned that I usually pull out a little bit of the wort and mix the rest of the DME in it and pour it back in. It still clumps but not as bad (it seems like the steam is what makes it real bad) and then yeah I just wisk the crap out of it.
Also interested in braggots, I was wondering, when you boil the DME you mentioned that it darkens it if you boil the full time, what effect does this have on the flavour?
I never noticed a real difference in the taste, just the color which isn't so much of a big deal in a Braggot unless you are trying to replicate a beer style (ie you'd want a Stout Braggot to be dark).
If you do like a 90 minute boil you can start to pick up some caramelization or similar flavors. Can also start to make some of the sugar unfermentable again.
generally no reason to boil that long though. Well I guess you could do a DFH 90 Minute IPA Braggot
A boil this long can be used for Maillard reactions and melanoidin production, ie the darkening effect. This will give the finished product a more malty character.
I've done this with all-grain brewing, but haven't seen the same outcome when I've used DME
If you actually boil a DME based wort for an hour and a half or longer, you will see some darkening.
The effect is even more pronounced if you do a partial boil, as in dissolving your DME in just a gallon or so of water and boiling the resulting thin syrup. Maillard reactions are accelerated at higher temperatures, and at typical concentrations of DME to water for a beer wort (SG 1.060 or less), the temperature during the boil doesn't get much hotter than if you were boiling plain water. At significantly higher SGs, the wort will heat up to much higher temperatures before sustaining a boil, which will darken the sugars more rapidly.
The effect is even more pronounced if you do a partial boil, as in dissolving your DME in just a gallon or so of water and boiling the resulting thin syrup. Maillard reactions are accelerated at higher temperatures, and at typical concentrations of DME to water for a beer wort (SG 1.060 or less), the temperature during the boil doesn't get much hotter than if you were boiling plain water. At significantly higher SGs, the wort will heat up to much higher temperatures before sustaining a boil, which will darken the sugars more rapidly.
Yeah I tend not to boil DME longer than my hop addition, I tend to do a (close to) full volume boil and I practice the 1/3 DME at the beginning of the boil and adding the last 2/3 with 15 minutes left to reduce the darkening affects so that probably explains why I've never experienced it when I've used DME.
Which is exactly what I do with most of my wee heavy scotch ales. Boil all of the DME for about 80 minutes in about two gallons of water. Seems to work out nicely. The only odd score sheets I've ever had for one of these was at the latest WEB, and it was suggested that I had made a Brown Porter instead of a scotch ale. ???
