Gordon NJ said:
Will keep them going as long as they smell OK through the yeast conditioning. Will let you know how the flavour turns out. Not too worried about the excess protein. I'm sure I could just fine them out with bentonite.
I'm not meaning to take shortcuts, but it almost seems that the boil can seem a bit of overkill where you could also lose much of your volatile favourable aromas. Biological stability should be sorted out at lower temperatures with mashing, protein stability could be sorted out with fining (bentonite, etc.), the only questionmarks are the effectivity of hop isomerisation and DMS removal. What do large-scale breweries do? Seems like a hell of a lot energy needed to make the boil?
Interesting. Very bold of you to jump right in with three batches. What you're describing is often given as directions to very refined kit and kilo extract recipes where the extract has been aseptically packaged and a majority of alcohol is created with simple sugars.
How did you arrive at these conclusions? I'm hearing some wine making theory in this method. It seems based in the theory that less treatment of the wort, the better.
Barley is highly problematic for making bread, because of it's protein levels. There is a lot of nitrogen in that protein. That protein is not a big part of what yeast use to ferment. Plus, it has a viscous quality that is unpleasant to drink. Only a minor part of the small molecular weight proteins are required for yeast health. Unused high weight proteins are very easily oxidized, leading to permanent haze, cardboard and other off aromas. I'm skeptical about how effective bentonite will be in that environment.
Pasteurization is good for slowing the progress of foreign flora, but does not eliminate it. Pasteurized, unopened milk still eventually goes sour from lactobacillus. The flora required to sour beer is already abundant on the grain. Not all starches are converted to fermentable sugars, which, along with proteins and even alcohol are food for much of that flora.
In a very high protein environment, yeast have a habit of making poor cell walls. These cell walls will not fully transfer maltose. Instead, favoring only glucose, which is typically 2% of the sugars created in mashing.
Yeast doesn't give a rip about making good beer. It only wants to consume sugar. It's up to the brewer to create and environment where good beer is the outcome. In a competitive environment, yeast put out a huge array of enzymes, fusel alcohols and phenols as a defense. As flavors, few are good.
Boiling does several important things. Among them are these things missed in your process:
>It isomerizes hop alpha acids into STABLE bitterness. This requires high heat and agitation not provided by pasteurization.
>It volatizes unwanted malt aromatics. DMS, as cited is the main one. You have a great experiment going as to how much from particular grains. They will vary, with Pilsner having lots and Munich having not much.
>It creates Hot Break, which is the denaturing and agglomeration of heavy molecular weight proteins along with polyphenols and unconverted starches. This decreases viscosity, turbidity and enhances head retention and shelf life.
>Finally, it fully sterilizes wort from the length of time. This creates an environment that allows yeast to fully focus on the wort.
What do the Pros do? Well, I am one, and I assure you that from the smallest to the very largest, wort boiling is a part of the process.