help i'm in over my head

[hunter]

ok here it is;i was making a cream ale and i steeped barley flakes and rice flaked for one hour did the boil and finished everything as normal,beer is fermenting really well right know.but i just happened to read an article saying none malted grains need to be mashed with malted grains to convert the starches to sugars i did not do that.the rest of the ingrediants was liquid malt ,honey and a little corn sugar.is my batch done before it got started.

[littlebrew]

What was the OG?

[hunter]

the og was 1.050

[hunter]

the article that i read,said you should mash unmalted grains with enzymatic grains to convert the starches to sugar.(i,m not sure what enzymatic grains are).i'm assuming like crystal malt or something like that.

[littlebrew]

A cream ale's OG usually runs from 1.044 to 1.055...that's OK.

The non malted ingredients have little to no enzymes, but plenty of starches.  Enzymes break/convert the starches into sugars.  The malted grains especially the 2 and 6 row contain enough of these needed enzymes to do the job.  

I did the same thing you did on my first oatmeal stout.  It ended up being very drinkalble.  The mouth feel was a bit heavy for my buddies, but I enjoyed it.

Keep going with what you have.  I'd almost guarantee it to be good.  

[hunter]

ok, sounds good,thanks for the tip,i feel better about it already.

[hunter]

will the starches from rice,flaked rice,flaked barley convert to sugar if i put a little bit of liquid malt in with the steeping flaked grains for the converting enzymes.

[bonjour]

no,  you need a "base" malt for that like "brewers Malt" or many others.

Fred

[hunter]

oh,ok i'm trying to get around the 11/2 hour drive to get to the nearest brew store that has grains,i'll have to stock up bettter next time i'm there.thanks man :-/

[hunter]

the final gravity of this beer was 1.010 so i don't see how those flaked grains wouldn't have fermented out.i don't think i had enough other fermentables to give it that much gravity.it's like 5.2%alc.seems kind of wierd.i put 2 tbls of vanilla extract in this and i can really taste it ,i hope that smooths out after a little time in the bottles.

[hunter]

i did some math,i was wrong,it was the other fermentables that brought the alcohol up that high.