First Partial Mash (Cranberry Ale); suggestions?

[drlars]

Ok so I think I'm ready to step up my game a little bit. I have all my ingredients and I plan to make a yeast starter on Sun for a Tuesday brew day. I plan to do a stovetop BIAB-style partial mash / partial boil. Here is the recipe:

2 lbs. Rahr 6-row malt
8 oz carapils malt
8 oz biscuit malt
2 lbs whole fresh cranberries, frozen/unthawed and light smash
- mash in 1.25 gal with some 5.2 buffer (45 min at 150-ish)
- sparge with 170 in separate pot then and add to main pot

2 lbs. pilsen DME
1 lb. corn syrup (yeah I know; left over from 1st homebrew a couple mos ago... no preservatives though)
bittering hops = 1 oz spaltz (5.8 alpha), 1/2 oz glacier (5.6 alpha)
- full boil (60 min, est 3.5 gal)

whirlfloc (15 min)

3 lbs. pilsener LME
1/2 lb. lactose
flavor hops = 1/4 oz glacier
- (10 min)

flavor hops = 1/4 oz glacier (flame-out)

32oz organic cranberry juice 100% (added to topoff water for 5 gal)

yeast: Wyeast 3711 French Saison

1 lb. fresh/frozen cranberries, thawed and light smash; sanitized with Stoli Cranberry Vodka
- add to primary after the most vigorous ferm has died down

(- eventual rack to secondary)

2 oz. natural cranberry flavor extract
pectinase enzyme
- with priming sugar at bottling

I am well aware that this ingredient list sounds a little 'fancy,' but I have the ingredients sitting around from when I first started, and I plan to go through with it on principle to see what I end up with here. When I had initially started planning, it was going to be just extract, but I am hot to start partial-mashing now. (Also, I view this as a sort-of practice run before trying my hand at a Chimay clone next.)
I am shooting for a medium-alcohol but light color/crisp with bitterness from the cranberries as well as the hops. Also a little sweetness with the lactose. (I am hoping the wife will like it, actually.) What I will end up with, I've no real idea.
Any critiques/advice is welcome. Specifically, I'd like to know if I have enough diastatic power with the 2 lbs. of 6-row. Are there any 'rules of thumb' out there regarding this, without getting too much into the degrees L specific equations? I have heard 1:1 for diastatic:non-diastatic malts.
Also, with the fruit in the mash, do I also need some rice hulls? If so, how much, and do I also have those crushed?

 

[unionrdr]

I think the quart of cranberry juice & flavor extract are a bit much. Just use 3lbs of fruit to get where you said you want to be. don't want to overpower the malts with all that tart juice. I'd use 4lbs of 2 row myself. It's supposed to be better flavor wise. It was with mine.
Also,I found that maintaining mash temp is the hardest part of PM.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

Agree with uniondr on all counts. It sounds like a lot more cranberry than you need. It may end up a little tart. If you want your wife to like it, I would drop the cranberries in the mash (boiled fruit has a very different flavor) and drop the extract. (I know my wife can detect that stuff a mile away) Either the 32oz of cranberry juice plus the pound of cranberries after fermentation has slowed, or just the three pounds as was suggested, will get you plenty of cranberry flavor. That yeast has an awesome amount of character that really comes out if you let it get into the high sixties or low seventies. If you add the corn sugar and the malt extracts close to flame out you'll get better hop utilization.

 

[drlars]

Thanks guys.

So its not worth it at all to mash the cranberries? I guess I'm not sure how much fermentable stuff is there. But I can tell you in the past I have tried adding a banana puree to the primary (with liquor to sanitize as above), and I hardly got anything from it. It seems like in my (admittedly limited) experience the fruit seems to really get burned away in the primary. I was assuming it would be much the same for the juice. Maybe racking on top of all three pounds in the secondary would be better for preserving some of the cranberry flavor?

It seems like when I am drinking most commercial fruit-flavored beers, the flavor is a little too subtle for me. The level of flavor I like seem to be the ones like Wells Banana Bread Beer and Pumpking that are purportedly using some flavor extract. I don't know if Sam Adams Cherry Wheat does too, but thats about the level of fruit flavor that I'm shooting for. I know this is not a popular view.
My favorite style is actually AIPA (e.g Bells Two-Hearted, though I just had a Citra IPA from a small brewery in Grand Haven MI called Oddside that may even be my new favorite....), but I like alot of different styles. And when something claims to be a fruit beer, I need to really taste the fruit.

As to the 6-row, I got 8 lbs of it because I read that its diastatic power was better for brewing with adjuncts. So I'm stuck with that for now.
I guess I'll have to see with the temp-control thing. To tell the truth, I do have some trepidation about it. But I have a digital thermometer from Northern Brewer, and my plan is to bring it up to 155, then shut off the flame, cover it, then wrap it up in a blanket for 45 min. Does this sound reasonable?

 

[WoodlandBrew]

... Maybe racking on top of all three pounds in the secondary would be better for preserving some of the cranberry flavor?

Bingo! Judging by the fruit flavoreth beer you like maybe you would like extract. Real fruit ends up more sour than you will get with the extracts. all three lb of cranberries after fermentation has slowed, and then, tasted it at bottling time. If it needs it, add the 2oz of extract.

I wouldn't mash the cranberries. It seems to destroy the flavor.

For the mash temperature you might want to check your thermometer in boiling water to make sure it reads 212. That will give you an idea of how far off it is at 155.

 

[drlars]

So my yeast starter is going like gangbusters, and I put it in the fridge today to flocc for tomorrow. Also visit the LHBS briefly and I decided that I will modify my planned recipe:
- getting rid of one of the pounds of pilsener DME (shooting for around 6 - 6.5% ABV with this one), so just one now (some of which was used in the starter). One of the things I have learned so far in my short time brewing is that more ABV is not always better, especially when going for certain styles.
- switched out the 8oz of biscuit for 8oz carahell because I want to keep the color light (so, mini-mashing 3# total malt plus the cranberries)
- I decided to still mash some cranberries (since that was the original plan), but I will go with 1# only, and take your advice to rack on top of the other two, then sample the finished beer at bottling to see if it needs any extract.

 

[menerdari]

I am working on a cranberry wheat, I used 2 quarts of unsweetened cranberry juice in the secondary. NONE of the cranberry taste carried over, just the tartness. I am hoping that adding extract at bottling will correct that.

 

[drlars]

@ menerdari: Yes, I'm unsurprised. I think most fruit flavor gets burned off in any fermentation activity. I'm thinking that in some cases I will need the full 4oz of extract to get what I'm after. Still, adding too much extract can also make it taste "wrong", and there's likely variation in quality and strength of extracts, so I suppose it will just be hit and miss until I get more experience in this area. I haven't really found any threads that address flavor extracts in detail, unfortunately. I'm thinking I will go for 2 oz on this one (unless it tastes like I want it to at bottling, but I'm dubious).

So I did my first partial mash yesterday. Bottom line, it was easier than I thought it would be. The BIAB-type process is not much more complicated than steeping specialty grains; you just need to worry about temperature more.

The first pic shows my 2 lbs. of 6-row and my carapils (used 8oz) and carahell (8oz), along with the cranberries (1# since I am reserving the other 2# for the secondary). The second pic shows my mashing "setup" (i.e. the smaller sparge kettle, grain bag, ph stabilizer and digital thermometer).

The third pic shows the grains and the cranberries in the mash bag. I gave the cranberries a light smash, but they still floated. Man, those things pop like bubble wrap! I used 1.5 gallons for the mash with 1/3 tbs of the pH stabilizer. The consistency was that of a soupy bowl of oatmeal. I would stir frequently then take temp readings, and I shut off the heat once it hit 155 F, and then wrapped the kettle in a blanket (4th pic) and simply waited 45 min. Towards the end of that time, I started heating my sparge water to 170. I used 3 quarts, though maybe next time I'll go with 2, since those grains displaced more than I expected and I lost about a cup or two of sparge water to spillage.

 

[drlars]

The thing that really surprised me was the smell of the mash: it in no way smelled like beer or anything related to beer. Very vegetab-ly, more like I was cooking brussel sprouts.
Also, the overall color was gross - sort of a tan / grey type of color (though thankfully, most of this precipitated out as/with the cold break, as seen in pic #6). Is there more sediment with mashing your own in general, or was it just the cranberries? I don't know. But I think there were more 'floaters' in the 'supernate' of the hydrometer flask than with extract brewing alone.
I tasted it just to make sure there was conversion, and it did taste sweet, though not as sweet as I'd have predicted as compared to brewing with malt extract. Now, I know the carapils wouldn't add any sweetness, but the carahell should have (even though its a crystal malt and doesn't technically need to be mashed) so I should have had 2.5 lbs of grain (plus whatever the cranberries added) in about 2 gal (after adding the sparge water). I would guess it tasted a little weak, but I suppose I have no idea whats normal. I also have no good idea what my conversion rate is here.
In fact, it didn't even start to approach what I would have expected from wort until I added my initial sugars (including the DME) and hops. I did add that extra # of DME after all, since 1.) it seemed to taste a little weak, and 2.) I was using various adjuncts and didn't want to make "Zima".
The 5th pic shows my sugar and hop schedule, with the juice and then the yeast starter on the left. At the end, I was relieved to see a nice golden color in the flask (though no reddish tint at all yet, even after the juice....), and it tasted as expected: sweet... the hops are there but not overbearing... and yes, a little tartness from the cranberries and juice (though no real cranberry flavor yet). My initial gravity was 1.064, which is okay, though I was expecting a little higher given all my sugar additions. Made me glad I threw in that extra pound of DME. Final volume was about 5.25 gallons.
I guess the question I have would be regarding conversion. As in, how much fermentable sugar did my partial mash really net me? Does my IG sound reasonable (keeping in mind I also used 1/2 lb lactose)? Or have I gotten too 'fancy' with my ingredient list to even tell with this batch?

Total potential fermentables:
2 lbs. 6-row, 8oz carahell, plus 1 lb. cranberries (mashed; also with 8 oz of carapils)
2 lbs. pilsen DME and 3 lbs. pilsen LME
~ 1 lb. of corn syrup (half of that bottle) plus 2.25 cups corn sugar
32 oz. 100% cranberry juice

Bottom line, I feel like I was successful enough to encourage me to do partial mashes from now on. Just another step in giving me more creative freedom and allowing me to take more control of my beer. I just feel like I need to educate myself more on the process.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

What did you measure for an OG? If you discount the cranberries you should be able to use a calculator to find your mash efficiency. Fruit has very little sugar compared to the wort. As long as the cranberry juice doesn't have sugar added. To estimate your FG take 25% of your OG and add back in the gravity points of the lactose.

 

[drlars]

By OG you mean original gravity? It was 1.064. Or does this mean something else?
The way I figured it, I had 2.5 lbs of mashed grain (+ whatever the cranberries added, if anything) with 5 lbs. malt extract (2 DME, 3 LME), plus the corn syrup (~1 lb.) and about 2/3 lb of corn sugar, and I'm sure there was some fermentable sugar in the cranberry juice as well.
I guess it tasted sweet, so my mash must have added something, but I'm guessing my recipe is too convoluted to tell exactly how much. I'll be less complicated next time, I really just wanted to get a mashing practice run before the trappist dubbel I am planning.