Where we last left you, faithful readers, was sitting patiently 'side the mashtun with some new knowledge, and probably some old news about grains and their place in the brewhaus.
Before we move onto the kettle and the boil, lets stay with the mash for a bit. Alpha and beta amylase are the prevalent enzymes in the mash, cutting and snipping away at starch molecules into smaller saccharine complexes (aka, sugars). Beta amylase works best at 135 to 150 dF and cuts starches apart into maltose units until it nears a branch within the molecule where it cannot operate. Alpha amylase, however cuts randomly at the starches and can bust apart the branches more effectively, yet it works more comfortably in the 150 to 165 dF range.
As you may know, these enzymes, amongst others, are found in the malted grains found in brewing mashes. While they work quite effectively on the starches in the grains, they can chomp away at other starch sources as well. What starches, you ask? You're about to find out.
Pumpkins are quickly becoming a popular source for starches, and, consequently, sugars, in wort production of seasonal brews. Think autumn, people. There are two common sources of pumpkin for brewing I am aware of, the can and the patch. Canned, pure pumpkin can be a nice option since you can brew the beer well ahead of the harvest season and have the beer ready to drink when most folks are in the mood for it. For real authenticity, though one can brew using real pumpkin, cut up and added to the mash.
To maximize the delicate flavor of pumpkin that can be easily lost in beers, and to prepare the starches for the mash, the pumpkin should be cooked first. This not only gelatinizes (aka, explodes) the starches, but helps to bring out the flavor of squash. Just be sure to thoroughly mix in the pumpkin and break it apart so the enzymes can do their job.
Other squash, too, can be used. Butternut squash could make a very nice beer, and I can't help but salivate at the idea of beer brewed with Acorn squash, brown sugar and maple syrup. How's that for thinking outside of the box? Oh, and don't be stingy with the rice hulls or other, additional filter medium.
I'm not done yet, not by a long shot. But I'm not the first to be adventurous, either. A former president of my homebrew club, The St. Louis Brews, Bob Beckman has brewed beer using boiled sweet potatoes. Not only did he use the cooked roots, but he even used the boil water for his mashing liquor to get the maximum flavor and color.
I've made a beer with beets using a similar technique. It turned out to be a nice summertime brew with an earthiness and color I haven't seen since.
Another nutty brewer in my club makes some jalepeno beers, as well, while they don't contribute to fermentability in any significant way, peppers do add a heat to beer that can range from stuble to powerful. He utilized 40 fresh jalepenos, seeded, from his garden added at the end of the boil for a very upfront heat.
Alternate to adding sugars or whole fruit and veggies, Rochefort has taken to adding wheat starch to their mash in order to boost gravity. With little addition beyond gravity this is nice source for neutral fermentables. Don't use too much, though, otherwise all your mash will be good for is a very tasty glue.
Adding fermentables doesn't end with the mash. A wide range of sugars can be added during the boil, heating or whirlpooling, and even during primary or secondary fermentation. For the sake of solubility, most other sugars are added either during the boil or during secondary fermentation, when the wort is most able to accept the additional sugars. So what are these sugars? You ask. And what can they do for a beer? The answers, seeker, are near.
If you have read Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher some of this may be old news for you, but I'm crazy enough to add a bit to this well worn knowledge.
Honey is likely the source of the oldest fermentable sugar and oldest alcoholic beverage, but that is for another day, honey beers are as old as beer itself. Honey is used in all sorts of beers from JW Dundee's Honey Brown Lager to Imperial Stouts to the king of honey beers, the braggot, Also know as brackett or bragot or by any others of class of strange spellings this is the crossover between beer and mead, with a significant amount of fermentable sugar coming from honey. Honey is generally added at the end of the boil or when racking to secondary. Some claim that one should pasteurize their honey before adding it to the fermenting wort, others, well, don't. That is judgement call up the brewer.
I have found honey to work well with a number of styles. It is commonly known that the flavor of honey compliments brown ales and wheat beers very well. Three Floyds and the now defunct Grindstone Brewery found excellent homes for their honey in Imperial Stouts. Honey makes an excellent addition to a pale ale or even IPA. Surprisingly the most lackluster honey and malt combinations I've had were doppelbock-style braggots, however, I believe the brewers added the honey during the boil, inadverantly boiling away all that would have made their beers stand out. To amplify the honey flavor I like to add generous amounts of Gambrinus Honey Malt which has an astoundingly similar aroma and flavor to common clover honey. The rate which has worked best for me is in the order of a three fourths of a pound up to a pound and a half per five gallons.
Candi sugar is likely the second most widely known sugar with regards to use in brewing. Common in many Belgian and Belgian-style brews it provides the function of all brewing sugars in boosting fermentables and, well, original gravity. Now there is more than a bit of confusion on what this candi sugar really is. What is generally sold as candi sugar is little more than rock candi. While conventional wisdom has held that this is fundamentally different than table sugar, this is a half truth at best. At a molecular level this new product is a 50/50 mix of the monosaccharides, or single unit sugars, fructose and glucose. These sugars result from the hydrolysis, or splitting, of the disaccharide, sucrose. In the end, all this accomplishes is making the sugars more digestable for yeast, yet that may not be good for our favorite microorganism in the long run, but more on that some other time.
Belgian brewers rarely mess with this invert sugar, they use candi syrup which is essentially caramel and can be made by starting with corn syrup, or dextrose (corn sugar) and water to make syrup adding in the order of 10 grams of ammonium bicarbonate or ammonium phosphate and heating in a medium-high pan. Colors vary depending on cooking time and temperature, and just like with colored malts, the resulting flavors will vary, too. The best way to test to cool a bit and taste it. The caramel should be added directly to the boil once it is ready, otherwise the process can get a bit, well, sticky.
Alternatively, there is a commercial version recently made available to the American Homebrewer market. Being sold under the name 'Dark Candi Syrup' or something similar it is availible at many homebrew shops around the country. Just give the stated name a search in your favorite search engine and find a shop near you which carries it. Clocking in with a 1000 degrees lovibond rating this stuff is dark and easily makes darker grains unnecessary in Belgian-style brewing stateside. Early reports indicate that the flavors achieved by use of this syrup are delicious and authentic.
Other processed sugars available for the brewer are dextrose or corn sugar, and table sugar or sucrose. Both of these are rather bland, but can thin out the thick mouthfeel of a massive stout or barleywine and are commonly used in Belgian-style ales to make them more 'digestible' or lighter bodied. Alternatively one can use other, less refined sugars. Turbinado, pinocillo, demerara and others can make nice flavor addtions, from buttery to rum-like in addition to boosting gravity and thinning mouthfeel a bit.
Another obvious source of fermentables is fruit. Fruit additions really run the gamut from pomegranate, cherry, peach, apricot, apple, strawberry, courant, mango, tangerine, orange, blackberry, gooseberries, lime, lemon, cranberries to the mighty raspberry. Fruit, as a fermentable, is usually added from any time late in the boil, through secondary fermentation. Simply using fruit portions or extracts as a flavor source is even more flexible, however the results are not always as convincing. Tart fruits with stronger flavors are generally recommended as they can hang with beer more effectively. My own experiments have yielded an Elderberry Irish Ale, a purple porter, if you believe it, and a Kiwi Kolsch, which I was really hoping would come out green, but alas, it didn't. Next on the chopping block is an American Wheat with 100% pinapple juice cocentrate, then a Trappist-style Dubbel and a Quadrupel, both with the caramel described above and the Dubbel utilizing caramelized raisins and aged on rum soaked, charred oak chips, and the Quad with 10lbs of Kansas grown tart cherries, and possibly a few lbs of sweet cherries to make it interesting.
To add fruit, the seemingly best way is as follows: wash the fruit, steam to kill off the buggers on the outside, or just outright cook them, bag and then freeze. The freezing creates ice crystals within the fruit and ruptures the cell walls and membranes, making the good flavors and sugars more readily available.
In the history of brewing fruit has been used in several ways. A couple of the most ancient forms of brewing still in existence today ultilize fruit. The Kriek Lambic 'style' from Belgium is an older, sour ale fermented by a variety of yeasts and bacteria and then matured in oak barrels with cherries. Other fruit lambics are appearing on the market, as well, using bananas, raspberries (Framboise) or even peaches.
When making excellent brews there is no need to limit yourself to malt derived sugars, remember, using extract isn't cheating but make sure its fresh, unless your beer might taste like a rusty tin can. However, always, the name of the game is balance, make sure that whatever sugar addition you chose will enhance the base beer in some manner and never overpower it. Now, go make me some braggot!
