Looking to learn grain flavors fast

I am thinking of doing a "pico" mash (not sure if there is a term so I am making one up) to learn new grains.

My plan is to mash 76 g of grain in 1 cup of water (the same ratio as 1.5qts/lb) in a small pan on the stove to get to know the flavors of specific grains. Then I plan on doing mixtures to see how different flavors interact.

My question is do I need to do a full 60 min mash or can I just hold temp until the starches have fully converted? Also, will this give me a general idea of the flavors to expect or am I just wasting my time and energy? I'd love some more experienced brewers input on this plan and would especially love to hear from anyone who has tried something similar.

I don't know how much you will be able to learn from this. I have a tough time making much sense out of the flavor of my wort; I think the sweetness overpowers my palate. My OG samples all taste pretty similar to me even though the finished beers end up very different.

Neat idea but the interaction of grain/hop/water/yeast can produce can and will change dramatically with the addition or subtraction of any. I am a big follower of my nose sniffing grains can give you an idea. Make a 5 gallon batch then separate into 5 1 gallon and give them each a different yeast. You'll be amazed how different each turns out. This is actually one of the things I love is the testing and tweaking of recipes, have fun and good luck

beaksnbeer said:

Neat idea but the interaction of grain/hop/water/yeast can produce can and will change dramatically with the addition or subtraction of any. I am a big follower of my nose sniffing grains can give you an idea. Make a 5 gallon batch then separate into 5 1 gallon and give them each a different yeast. You'll be amazed how different each turns out. This is actually one of the things I love is the testing and tweaking of recipes, have fun and good luck

Click to expand...

I agree. I think you've got to have fermentation and carbonation to get a good sample. I encourage you to test and taste more, though. I love to cook, and it's much easier to learn ingredient flavor in food. I just recently started down this path to learn the grain flavors better myself. I've made three different 1 gallon beers with just 2 row and one grain: crystal 60, crystal 120, or Munich. Hopped to about 23 ibus. I've been putting off bottling the small amounts, but I will soon and I look forward to learning the flavors better.

Walk into LHBS, munch on a grain or two from each bin that interests you. A good shop will encourage it.

I eat grains all the time. Agree with the others making a tea and drinking it won't help much. Now, making a small tea, adding a very neutral yeast, and tasting that beer might be interesting.

beaksnbeer said:

Make a 5 gallon batch then separate into 5 1 gallon and give them each a different yeast. You'll be amazed how different each turns out.

Click to expand...

I'm looking forward to experimenting with yeast. I have a bunch of growlers and used them to play with an Arrogant Bastard Clone. I dry hopped one, added a hop tea to another, oaked a third and bottled the rest plain.

zachattack said:

Walk into LHBS, munch on a grain or two from each bin that interests you. A good shop will encourage it.

Click to expand...

Mine definitely allows it. I was hoping to formulate a Russian Imperial Stout though and am interested in the balance of flavors when mixed. I've pegged a basic starting point through research, but was hoping to expedite the fine tuning.

Cyclman said:

Now, making a small tea, adding a very neutral yeast, and tasting that beer might be interesting.

Click to expand...

I may have to do this. If I can find bungs to fit in bottles I may brew a bunch of bottle size batches at once, ferment and carbonate in the same bottle and then sample them.

Thanks everyone for your input.

This was recently a topic on Basic Brewing Radio. In summary, a homebrewer brewed up a very simple pale ale, and added a specialty grain tea to each individual pint. However, he used only specialty grains. Not sure it will will work with a base malt/mash; mash chemistry will complicate things, but it might be worth a try.

March 7, 2013 - Zot's Specialty Grain Experiment
Zot O'Connor joins us to talk about his experiment in adding specialty grains to a finished beer to taste the effects.

Click to expand...

Wort tastes like crap to me... I like the end product much better.

Gary

I've made teacup sized mashes before on all of my grains. Personally, I chill them to about 55F before tasting them, and can definitely taste the differences, but to each their own.

Purchased everything I need today. Got a few pounds of base and about 12 different specialty grains. I think I'm going to take this to the extreme however. I also purchased some drilled bungs that will fit in a beer bottle and a clean dry yeast (easier to pitch a few grains this way).

My plan is to conduct the pico mashes, strain out the grains do a pico boil, adding hops when working to tweak the recipe. Then I will move it to a bottle, pitch some yeast and put an airlock on it. Wait, prime and wait until drinkable. I'll post an update on how it goes after I get to do this (not sure when I will actually have the time to do this, but it's on the to do list). If it actually works out for me I'll post up a more detailed method about it.

only problem I see with fermenting in the bottle and then priming and capping is blowoff. you might not end up with a full bottle when it is time to cap.

These are what I did my mini experiments in. Fermented and primed in same vessel, no racking. A friend gave me these amazing giant swing tops. I'm a little worried about the thin glass that they are made of when it's under pressure. At first the residue from the krausen bothered me, but these aren't for show, just for testing "flavah". Left to right c120, Munich, and c60. I'm a little worried that I don't have a control, but I will just have to compare it to... Beer.

Hogarthe said:

only problem I see with fermenting in the bottle and then priming and capping is blowoff. you might not end up with a full bottle when it is time to cap.

Click to expand...

I may have to think about this. Possibly trying to ferment in a 22oz and move to 12 to bottle. We'll see, not sure if it would make too big of a deal if it's just for a quick taste lesson. It won't be aged, so oxidation risk goes down if it is bottled half full (at least I think it might be).

Nomad said:

These are what I did my mini experiments in. Fermented and primed in same vessel, no racking. A friend gave me these amazing giant swing tops. I'm a little worried about the thin glass that they are made of when it's under pressure. At first the residue from the krausen bothered me, but these aren't for show, just for testing "flavah". Left to right c120, Munich, and c60. I'm a little worried that I don't have a control, but I will just have to compare it to... Beer.

Click to expand...

This looks pretty interesting, I'd like to hear how it turns out for you.

I have to admit, I was sloppy in my process since i knew it wasn't a full-blown batch. I mashed two-row on the stove, appx one gallon batches that I split, and them steeped the specialty grain in hp backs before the boil. I only did one bittering hop edition. The idea came from Basic Brewing Radio. I'll report back for sure.

PS I think 22 oz to 12 oz will be fine. Let us know how it goes.

OK. Well I got around to tasting these a couple weeks ago, and now am getting around to posting the results! I am really happy I did this, and I do look forward to trying other kinds of grains.

The beers we tasted were two-row, one specialty malt (Crystal 60, 120, and Munich), and Willamette bittering hops. Fermented with a 1/3 of a pack US 05 in each bottle. I think these hold about a 1500 ml.

Process:

1) We popped the bail on the three big bottles and poured into pitchers for sampling. This kept the trub on the bottom (thankfully).
2) My wife, a friend, and I poured and tasted, making notes on mouthfeel, aftertaste, flavor, carbonation, etc. Probably should have grabbed a BJCP judging sheet first.
3) We tried a few blends to see what a beer brewed with a combo of these would taste like.

Conclusions: I had a hard time telling the difference between 60 and 120 C. After careful tasting, they did add a different kind of sweetness, but unless I labeled them wrong, the 120 was almost a "lighter" sweetness. The much talked-about raisin/dark fruit character I had a hard time discerning. Perhaps I didn't steep it correctly or at the right temp. The munich = the idea of "malty" for all of us. I wouldn't make a malty beer or one that doesn't need malt backbone without it.

One note: this also could have been a "how long on the yeast cake" experiment. I fermented and primed carbonated in the same bottles, without racking, and poured carbonated beer off the yeast cake and over the fermentation residue, as seen in pic 2. I think total time in bottles, on yeast, was about six weeks. The beer poured clear into the pitchers and had no off flavors whatsoever. I was worried we'd have bits of trub floating in the beer, but not at all.

Looking forward to doing more of these three-way tests. I think it will really improve my brewing.

Photos from last post.

great idea! thanks for posting.

No problem. Kudos again to Basic Brewing Radio for their podcast on a similar idea.

Here is a video from basic brewing on them doing something similar.

Yeah, and they did a great radio podcast where I copied their idea as well. I really think you need to ferment the wort to get the real flavor profile, though.