Author: Ray Found

Used to increase body, mouthfeel, and head retention in beer, dextrine malt is a staple ingredient in many breweries. Classified as a specialty malt since the process used to make it differs from those use to make standard base malts, dextrine malt is often mistakenly believed to be a very lightly colored Caramel malt. Indeed, Briess points out that while “Carapils kernels exhibit a glassy character from the starch that has been converted to dextrines and then dried, it is not a caramel malt.”

To be sure, there are multiple varieties of dextrine malt available to brewers, all produced using proprietary methods said to have an impact on the character it ultimately imparts in beer. For this xBmt, we chose to focus on one of the more popular dextrine malts, Carapils, which is produced by Briess Malting. Briess provides the following description of Carapils on their website:

Carapils Malt falls into the category of dextrine malts and is intended to improve body, mouthfeel and head retention by adding resistant dextrines, proteins, non-starch polysac-charides , and other substances to the wort and beer. Because of the crafted design, Briess Carapils is very effective in this regard and is intended to be used at 2-3% to show a positive effect.

I’ve personally used Carapils for the stated purpose in numerous beers, in fact it made up a small portion of the grist in all of my first few batches as a matter of course, when I generally thought of it as an insurance policy for good head retention– alongside acid malt for water manipulation, Carapils was the first grain I stocked in house, simply adding a few ounces to every grist on brew day. I brewed a few batches without it after running out of my supply at home and, noticing no shortcomings of foam, never resumed the practice. Curious if I was missing out on something, I decided to put it to the test.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a beer made with Carapils and an otherwise similar beer made without Carapils.

| METHODS |

Understanding that any effect on flavor was likely to be minor, I wanted to brew a very simple beer for this xBmt to make sure any differences would shine through and went with a Blonde Ale where 1 contained 10% Carapils and the other had additional base malt in its place, both of equal total weight. While Briess claims using Carapils at 2-3% of the grain bill will benefit head retention, they also state up to 10% can be used for certain applications, and since we sought to maximize the effect of the variable, that’s what I went with.

Citra Blonde Ale

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.5 gal 60 min 46.5 IBUs 4.2 SRM 1.049 1.013 4.7 % Actuals 1.051 1.012 5.1 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Malt, 2 row (Gambrinus) 8.75 lbs 87.5 Carapils (Briess) 1 lbs 10 Honey Malt 4 oz 2.5 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Magnum 6 g 60 min Boil Pellet 12.1 Citra 30 g 20 min Boil Pellet 12 Citra 40 g 5 min Boil Pellet 12 Amarillo Gold 20 g 5 min Boil Pellet 8.5 Notes Water Profile: Ca 57 | Mg 0 | Na 8 | SO4 67 | Cl 55

I started collecting RO water the evening prior to brewing in order to have my full volume ready the following day.

After making mineral adjustments, I began heating the water to my target strike temperature.

The relatively small grain bill made weighing out and milling the grains quick and easy.

It wasn’t until after milling both sets of grain noticed an interesting statement on the Carapils package: No flavor or color contribution. I guess we’ll just have to see about that.

Each batch underwent a separate full volume no-sparge mash with consistent temperatures between them.

Once each 60 minute mash was complete, sweet wort was collected, transferred to individual kettles, then brought to a boil where they remained for an additional 60 minutes. At the conclusion of each boil, the wort was quickly chilled to just above my current groundwater temperature.

The worts were then cast off into their own marked 6 gallon PET carboys.

At this point, I took hydrometer measurements to find the non-Carapils wort yielded a slightly higher OG compared the batch including Carapils, which was unsurprising given the slightly lower extract yield of Carapils.

While I waited for the worts to finish chilling to my target fermentation temperature in the cool chamber, I spun up a pair of matching vitality starters using WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast.

A starter was pitched into either batch a few hours later and I observed active fermentation the following day, both appearing quite similar.

After some time away from home for work, I returned to what appeared to be two batches of fermented in beer and took hydrometer measurements confirming FG had been reached in both.

I performed my typical routine of cold crashing and fining with gelatin before transferring the beers to kegs and force carbonating them in my cold keezer. Side by side samples of the ready beers showed not only that they were similar in terms of color and clarity, but that the batch made with Carapils had no better head retention or lacing than that batch made without it. In fact, it almost seemed as though the opposite were true.

| RESULTS |

At total of 11 people of varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt. Each taster was served 1 sample of the beer made with Carapils and 2 samples of the beer made with only base malt in different colored opaque cups then asked to select the unique sample. In order to reach statistical significance with this number of participants, 7 (p<0.05) would have had to make the accurate selection. However, only 2 (p=0.95) tasters accurate selected the Carapils sample as being unique, suggesting tasters were unable to reliably distinguish a beer made with Carapils from one made without the specialty malt.

Indeed, the sample size for this xBmt was smaller than we usually aim for, an issue I blame on the fact the beers were really tasty. While I personally avoided the taps to maintain supply for data collection, my attempts to encourage similar restraint by my wife and house guests was clearly ineffective. Extrapolating from a set of data isn’t going to give us a very powerful result, but I thought it was interesting to note that in order to reach statistical significance given the current data set, every single one of 9 additional participants would have had to correctly identify the odd-beer-out. While a response rate so far from what was observed isn’t impossible, it certainly is highly improbable.

My Impressions: I attempted 3 “blind” triangle tests and chose a wrong sample every time. Guessing wasn’t my strong suit this time. The beers were strikingly similar in every respect including mouthfeel and body, which is where I expected to notice any differences. What I found most interesting is that over multiple attempts where I poured various ways to produce head and watch for lacing, I simply could not get the beer made with Carapils to exhibit better foam qualities than the batch with all base malt. If anything, the opposite was the case, I observed the beer made without Carapils to have better foam stability and lacing, though those differences were minor and generally difficult to detect.

| DISCUSSION |

The fact participants in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish between a beer made with Carapils and one made without the malt not only confirms my own personal experience, but provides support for the notion Breiss puts forth that Carapils does not contribute to flavor or color in any appreciable way, even when used at 10% of the grain bill. However, I’m at a bit of a loss when it comes to the fact the beer made with Carapils had no better head retention or lacing than the beer made without it, and furthermore, that tasters were unable to tell them apart based on mouthfeel and body. Considering some possible explanation for these results, perhaps the head retention benefits are only relevant in beers with notably poor foam without it, that the addition of Carapils may help to correct a foam-deficit, but not work in a cumulative sense for beers that already display “normal” foam qualities. Given our decision to use a higher amount of Carapils for this xBmt, I also wonder if there’s a point of diminishing returns whereby a smaller amount might produce a more noticeable effect. But this is all mere speculation, it could very well be that Carapils simply doesn’t do what we’ve been led to believe. In fact, these results align with studies performed at UC Davis demonstrating Cara- and Crystal malts generally aren’t foam positive.

Since I had already eliminated the use of Carapils in my own brewing, this didn’t really give me any reason to reconsider that position. If I were still a regular user of this grain, I would likely be tempted to try a few batches without it to see if it resulted in any noticeable changes if only for the fact base malt is a little cheaper and stocking fewer grains is easier.

If you have any thoughts about this xBmt, please do not hesitate to share in the comments section below!

New Brülosophy Merch Available Now!

Follow Brülosophy on:

If you enjoy this stuff and feel compelled to support Brulosophy.com, please check out the Support page for details on how you can very easily do so. Thanks!

Advertisements

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email



Like this: Like Loading...