Experiment #1 and a couple of questions

[Will Trice]

I mentioned a while back that I thought it would be fun to do
side-by-side batches to see for myself the differences that various
techniques make to the finished homebrew product. Well the first highly
unscientific experiment is complete: extract brewing vs. partial mash.

I took identical pale ale recipes and substituted 3.25# of 2 row malt
for 3# of light malt extract syrup. Not surprisingly, the flavors are
pretty close, with the partial mash having dramatically better head
retention and slightly better body, but with the extract having a
slightly "heavier" taste (a good thing).

Item 1: Oddly, the extract beer had a taste in it that I called grape
during the sampling (in a recent exercise against oils intended to teach
about wine aromas, I misidentified blackberry as grape - so perhaps the
taste was actually blackberry). Two other co-samplers said they knew
what I was tasting but could not identify it. Having discovered the
taste in the extract beer, I found that I could just barely detect the
same flavor in the partial mash, though I don't think I would have
noticed if I wasn't specifically "looking" for that flavor. Any idea
what that flavor was?

Item 2: Though the partial mash matched closely the flavor of a local
microbrewed pale ale, both the partial mash and the extract beers were
dramatically thinner in body than the commercial pale ale. How does one
increase body in a homebrew, particularly extract brews? Dave Miller
suggests in one book to add a pound of Cara-pils to the grist to
increase body. Would a pound added to the specialty grains for an
extract brew do the same thing? (For extract brews, I rest my specialty
grains at 150F for 30 minutes and remove before boiling).

By the way, I also bottled a few of the partial mash in clear bottles to
look at the effects of light exposure on the flavor, that's the next
experiment...

Thanks!
-Will

will dot trice at comcast dot net

[Steve Bonine]

Will Trice wrote:

> I took identical pale ale recipes and substituted 3.25# of 2 row malt
> for 3# of light malt extract syrup.

How did the OG's compare?

[Will Trice]

The extract brew was 1.046 and the partial mash was 1.049.