Agentgonzo
Landlord.
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- Aug 23, 2021
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I'm not a huge fan of porters/stouts, but do like dark beers like Dark Island, Old Peculiar and Dunkelweiss that don't have the same bitter/burnt/coffeeish flavours associated with Porters/stouts.
I'd read that by top mashing, you throw in the grains at the end of the mash just before the sparge and extract the colour, without a lot of the roasted/bitter flavours. I don't understand how you get the colour without the roasted bitter flavours, but that's what the internet said happens
.
So I figured I'd give it a short try. I don't need to do a full brew to test this out, so I got a small amount of chocolate malt (what I had on hand), crushed it and put a small amount in the bottom of two insulated cups, then poured hot water on them to emulate a mash.
One cup I let sit/steep for about a minute before I strained off the 'wort' through a fine tea strainer to remove the grain particulates. The other, I let steep for 45 minutes (the length of the cleaning cycle on my coffee machine) before doing the same.
This is what they looked like (top-mash on the left, normal steep on the right)
Obviously, the top-mash is a bit lighter in colour (which is not surprising given it sat on the grain for a shorter amount of time). So I topped the normal-mash up with water until they were the same colour:
Then I set about tasting them.
Interesting note, the roasted/bitter/coffee flavours associated with dark malts lingers on your palette for a long time and so it's hard to distinguish the aftertaste of one from the taste of another. I drank a lot of milk to cleanse my palette between tasting.
As expected, both tasted like thin watery 'beer' without any sweetness and with a roasted flavour and an aftertaste that lingered for quite a long time (which is what you get with stouts/porters).
But were they different? No. After diluting them to the same colour, I couldn't tell the difference. They both tasted exactly the same, both in initial taste, mouthfeel and roasted aftertaste.
So does top-mashing extract the colour but not the roasted/bitter flavours? In my experience, no. In my very quick and unscientific experiment, top-mashing is pretty-munch the same as just using less roasted grain.
I'd read that by top mashing, you throw in the grains at the end of the mash just before the sparge and extract the colour, without a lot of the roasted/bitter flavours. I don't understand how you get the colour without the roasted bitter flavours, but that's what the internet said happens
.So I figured I'd give it a short try. I don't need to do a full brew to test this out, so I got a small amount of chocolate malt (what I had on hand), crushed it and put a small amount in the bottom of two insulated cups, then poured hot water on them to emulate a mash.
One cup I let sit/steep for about a minute before I strained off the 'wort' through a fine tea strainer to remove the grain particulates. The other, I let steep for 45 minutes (the length of the cleaning cycle on my coffee machine) before doing the same.
This is what they looked like (top-mash on the left, normal steep on the right)
Obviously, the top-mash is a bit lighter in colour (which is not surprising given it sat on the grain for a shorter amount of time). So I topped the normal-mash up with water until they were the same colour:
Then I set about tasting them.
Interesting note, the roasted/bitter/coffee flavours associated with dark malts lingers on your palette for a long time and so it's hard to distinguish the aftertaste of one from the taste of another. I drank a lot of milk to cleanse my palette between tasting.
As expected, both tasted like thin watery 'beer' without any sweetness and with a roasted flavour and an aftertaste that lingered for quite a long time (which is what you get with stouts/porters).
But were they different? No. After diluting them to the same colour, I couldn't tell the difference. They both tasted exactly the same, both in initial taste, mouthfeel and roasted aftertaste.
So does top-mashing extract the colour but not the roasted/bitter flavours? In my experience, no. In my very quick and unscientific experiment, top-mashing is pretty-munch the same as just using less roasted grain.
