Adding starch after the boil?

[TheZymurgist]

I've seen that a few have had success by adding flour to the boil, but I'm wondering if it might be possible to boil flour in a small amount of water, and add it to an aging beer that's one-dimensional. I'm not considering doing this to any immediate batches (yet) as they're all fairly young, but I'm curious if this could be a future option if, after a year or so, there isn't enough complexity.

 

[WhamFish]

alternatively, you could add 100% wheat pasta. since it is already gelatinized you can just toss it into the fermenter.

 

[metic]

alternatively, you could add 100% wheat pasta. since it is already gelatinized you can just toss it into the fermenter.

There was an episode of Basic Brewing Radio that included a discussion of this technique: April 3, 2014 - Hoppy Brett and Pasta Sour.

 

[TheZymurgist]

There was an episode of Basic Brewing Radio that included a discussion of this technique: April 3, 2014 - Hoppy Brett and Pasta Sour.

I listened to that episode on my way in to work this morning and was a little disappointed. They split a batch and added maltodextrin to half and wheat pasta to the other half, and it sounds like there was almost no difference between the two. So I'm not sure if adding pasta actually does anything.

 

[TheZymurgist]

alternatively, you could add 100% wheat pasta. since it is already gelatinized you can just toss it into the fermenter.

Have you done this, and if so, did you notice any difference?

 

[WhamFish]

Have you done this, and if so, did you notice any difference?

No I have not. Although I'm considering doing this in the future. My normal approach is to send the runnings through a bag of quick oats as it goes to the kettle. I use 1Lb per 5 gal batch and it seems to put plenty of starch in there as well as proteins that help with mouthfeel. I don't include the oats in my recipe calculations, I only get like 35% efficiency from that 1Lb of grain.

I just like the noodle idea as a way to add more at a later point, like in secondary.

Yes the episode as well as the blog post about it is a bit disappointing in that they do not give good reports on the results other than a couple of comments on slight impressions that they got. The take away for me was that 1) it will not hurt and 2) something does indeed consume it to some degree since the noodle degraded over time.

so it seems easy and I can't think of any other approach that would have a significant edge over this.

Keep us posted if you do try it, I'll do the same.

 

[TheZymurgist]

No I have not. Although I'm considering doing this in the future. My normal approach is to send the runnings through a bag of quick oats as it goes to the kettle. I use 1Lb per 5 gal batch and it seems to put plenty of starch in there as well as proteins that help with mouthfeel. I don't include the oats in my recipe calculations, I only get like 35% efficiency from that 1Lb of grain.

I just like the noodle idea as a way to add more at a later point, like in secondary.

Yes the episode as well as the blog post about it is a bit disappointing in that they do not give good reports on the results other than a couple of comments on slight impressions that they got. The take away for me was that 1) it will not hurt and 2) something does indeed consume it to some degree since the noodle degraded over time.

so it seems easy and I can't think of any other approach that would have a significant edge over this.

Keep us posted if you do try it, I'll do the same.

Will do. I'm leaning more towards steeping/boiling oats in a small amount of water and adding that to the fermentor, though. But, again, it's too early for any of my beers to even know if they need it.

 

[sweetcell]

so it seems easy and I can't think of any other approach that would have a significant edge over this.

one disadvantage of the pasta method, IMO, is that the starches aren't distributed widely. pour some freshly boiled flour or oats in the vessel and it'll get mixed in much more evenly. seems like spreading the bug food around is a good idea...

admittedly boiling some flour is more work than adding uncooked pasta, but to my mind it's worth the small additional effort.