Beer Forum

Honestly, I haven't been reading this thread, but this post caught my eye. Enzymes do not reactivate.

While this is true, Kai was worried about continued enzymatic activity while still in the temperature range that alpha/beta amylase are still active. I don't worry about it either, and thought I made myself clear on that subject. Guess I better be clearer on my intent in the future

Once they are denatured, that's it. It is exactly the same process that turns an egg from clear and runny to white and hard. Cooling down a cooked egg doesn't make it slimy again. Neither will cooling the wort reactivate enzymes. Anyway, it wouldn't really matter if they did reactivate. Once conversion is complete, it's complete; extra time or even extra enzymes won't change the wort makeup significantly.

While you are essentially correct, given your assumption that Kai has gone beyond the temperature stability of amylase, he said that he hadn't. I thoght I had told him not to worry about it as even if there were any enzymatic activity by that time that it would be trivial and therefore moot. At any rate, relax, don't worry about it and just make great beer bro!

Prost!

Michel

gosh, I almost forgot about this discussion

I assume that at mash-out the beta amylase should be completly done and denatured. But the alpha amylase shouldn't and it can produce fermentable sugars if you give it some time (90 min lautering might be enough).

I know that this is an advanced topic and I'm not really worrying about it. I just want to make my mashes more predictable to the point that I can hit a desired FG withing 0.25-0.5 *P. That's why I want to confine any amylase activity to the mash itself.

I guess I would have to make an experiment with a small test mash. Where I do a mash-out and batch sparge it once or twice. Half of the run-off is boiled immediately, the other half is left to coast back into the amlylase activity range and held there for 90 min and then boiled. Both need to be fermented with the same yeast, temp and pitching rate. Then I could see a difference in attenuation.

I'm not sure when I would be able to find time to conduct this experiement

Kai

While this forum has changed topic, I would like to add that that using the same vessel as a mash, lauter and copper is a very traditional northern French / Belgian set up.

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Primary: Prototype IPA, Chilka IPA, Berhampore Best Bitter
Secondary: Merchant of the Devil Imperial Stout
On the Handpump: OSB ordinary bitter