Sunday, June 7, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5565 (June 07, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5565 Sun 07 June 2009


FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Vienna malt is ... (steve alexander)


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Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:10:27 -0400
From: steve alexander <steve-alexander at roadrunner.com>
Subject: Vienna malt is ...


> From: donniestyle at directlink.net
> Subject: Re: A few replies
>
>
>> Subject: Too sweet? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
>> I haven't used Vienna before so am I making an excessively sweet
>> wort if I add crystal?
>>
>
> Vienna is a more highly kilned malt. It is dry when kilned. It is
> fermentable, like pils or pale malt. Munich malt is damp when kilned, and
> is slightly sweeter, but it doesn't make excessively sweet beers either.
>
Yes, agreed, a good start, but ...

Vienna malt is nominally "highly kilned", but a lot less than Munich or
most UK PA malts. "High kilned" refers to the finishing/curing
temperature. Traditional UK malts are high kilned and finished at
90-100C, while traditional pils malts as low as 60C and lager malts
~75C. I have severe doubts that these figures apply to any modern malts.

Gabriel Sedlmeyr Sr bought the (then) small Spaten brewery in Munich in
1807. His son, Gabriel Jr traveled widely, as far afield as Britain,
Austria, Switzerland, and Bohemia studying malting and mashing and
eventually he and his brother Josef took over Spaten ~1838, introducing
many technical advancements. Gab.Jr had developed a friendship with
Anton Dreher of Vienna during his travels. Anton, after great
difficulty, took over the family brewery and introduced the "bright"
(meaning clear and not not very dark) beer using the "new" lager process
(circa 1840). This was unusual as almost all previous lagers were dark
dunkel style. Anton became wealthy and eventually bought the castle
brewery 'Michelob' in Bohemia (producing yet lighter lagers).

Gab.Jr's brother Josef, operating Franziskaner at the time, apparently
introduced a variant of the Vienna style lagers to Bavaria as the 1872
marzenbier, using what has become known as Munich Malt (or "durch
malz/dark malt" in Germany).

Historic records of Anton Dreher's malt and beer color are
controversial, but certainly is was a lighter version of the Munich
"durch malz", which is better documented. Probably the vienna malting
process was less changed from the conventional method, but certainly
there were changed to kilning. What we call Vienna and Munich malt are
cousins, the Munich style is a bit darker and certainly more converted
by the maltster and more Maillard products from the kiln.

To understand the kilning we must recall that all conventional malts
have been chitted sufficient to develop some hydrolytic enzymes. There
are two main phases to the kilning, a drying phase and a roasting
phase. Note that in the absence of water the hydrolytic enzymes cannot
act, but many are instead protected from denaturing by substrate
stabilization. So the enzymes may act (tho' the amount of water is
quite low) during drying, and in the roasting phase there is little or
effectively no creation of sugars and simple amino acids. At the same
time we have Maillard reactions that also require water and simple
sugars and simple amino compounds peaking around 95C-125C, giving way to
less flavor positive reactions of browning at higher temps.
Caramelization (NOT a Maillard reaction) only requires sugars but the
process is enhanced in the presence of amino acids or even nitrogen
salts this happens around 150-180C. Carbonization occurs at a slightly
higher temp (~175-210C) and applies to sugars and starch as well.

The maillard reactions give all sorts of terrific "malty" aromas and
perhaps some modest sweet & bitter flavors. Of course the simple sugars
that appear after malt saccharification are sweet, but the yeast consume
all of these; dextrins simply aren't sweet, or at least not sweet
enough to matter. The sweetness that persists from malt into beer is
primarily due to caramel.

As a side-trip, caramel/crystal malt is made by adding an additional
first kilning phase where the rather wet malt is held at 60-80C for 60
to 90 minutes while moisture is trapped to accomplish a lot of
saccharification. This produces a lot of free simple sugars,
essentially complete conversion of starch. The malt is then caramelized
& dried at 150-180C for variable amounts of time based on the desired
color with considerably caramel formation and some Maillard formation.
Charry roast malts and roast barley are routinely kilned to around 200C.

Munich is somewhat overmodified and begins with high protein malt.
There is a long moist-hot initial drying (as long as 24 hrs ~60C) that
certainly produces sugars, but the chitting and initial kilning is
geared toward a high amino content. Munich finished with a 100C-105C
curing which is certainly high-kilned. Color 15-25EBC. The point is to
encourage Maillard product and not to create much caramel, tho' a little
must exist.

Vienna is conventionally modified, and is cured at a 90C, so it is
barely high-kilned. Color ~6EBC. The processing is roughly akin it
conventional US (2-row) pale malt except the kilning is a bit stronger &
longer. and the color & maillard products correspondingly higher. There
isn't enough saccharification +> caramelization to make a "sweet beer"
from vienna malt, but it will have more Maillard product than a lesser
kilned product, but not an overwhelming amount.

Oddly in recent decades the traditional Octoberfest and Marzen bier have
decreased in color or else competing light colored festbiers
introduced. The Vienna style is almost lost to Europe, but various
authors suggest modern examples, and even the BJCP guidelines aren't
terribly close to the original (perhaps less red color and less aroma in
the original).

-S


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5565, 06/07/09
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