{"id":928,"date":"2021-01-20T18:29:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T18:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/2021\/01\/20\/dextrin-malt-because-little-things-mean-a-lot-to-your-beer\/"},"modified":"2021-01-20T18:29:31","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T18:29:31","slug":"dextrin-malt-because-little-things-mean-a-lot-to-your-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/news\/dextrin-malt-because-little-things-mean-a-lot-to-your-beer\/","title":{"rendered":"Dextrin Malt: Because little things mean a lot to your beer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dextrin Malt: Because little things mean a lot to your beer<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: <\/strong>Living a Stout Life<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s face it, most craft beer customers aren\u2019t craft beer aficionados. Most people who drink craft beer simply want a good tasting beer. <\/p>\n

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Even when most of us craft beer geeks obsess over a beer, we\u2019re fixated on flavor and aroma. We focus on the senses that are readily understandable and easy to comprehend.<\/p>\n

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As a craft brewer, you want to put a smile on people\u2019s faces. You want them to gobble up your latest creation and shout it from the rooftops. Flavor and aroma are the obvious elements that people notice, but your job includes so much more. You have to consider the subtleties that elevate a good beer to greatness.<\/p>\n

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In addition to flavor and aroma, you need to be keenly aware of characteristics that aren\u2019t easily perceived by most beer drinkers. A brewer has to consider mouthfeel, body, color, head retention, lacing, and many other subtleties that make a beer something that drinkers want to imbibe again and again.<\/p>\n

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These subtle characteristics of beer are where Dextrin Malt enters the picture and why Malteurop Malting Company(MMC) worked closely with brewers like Jackson Borgardt at Eagle Park Brewing in Milwaukee to refine Dextrin Malt specifically for the craft brewer.<\/p>\n

Key Characteristics of MMC Dextrin Malt<\/p>\n

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Dextrin Malt is a specialty malt whose primary job is to introduce dextrin sugars into the beer. Dextrin sugars are mostly tasteless and not fermentable. Without much perceptible color or flavor, the dextrin sugars add viscosity to the body of the beer, giving it more substance.<\/p>\n

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If a beer comes across as thin or watery, adding Dextrin Malt imparts more body, giving it a fuller mouthfeel. Dextrin also improves head retention, an important visual queue and a factor that influences aroma.<\/p>\n

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MMC\u2019s Dextrin Malt achieves this without imparting any unwanted color or flavor. That was a key factor Malteurop focused on with brewers like Jackson, who wanted to round out the body of his beers, but not change their color or flavor.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA lot of the Dextrin out there was a little dark, and at the levels I use Dextrin at, it can add a lot of color; especially our Hazy IPAs, we\u2019re looking for a really, really pale color,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen you\u2019re adding up to 10 percent Dextrin Malt, at like 3 Lovibond it tends to give it a yellow-orange color, which wasn\u2019t what we were looking for at all. MMC was actually able to hit our goal, which was just under 2 Lovibond.\u201d<\/p>\n

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MMC\u2019s highly crystalized Dextrin Malt consistently comes in at 1.7 to 2.0 Lovibond, which at 10 percent or less of the grain bill doesn\u2019t impart much perceptible color. It does, however, add body to the beer and improve head retention.<\/p>\n

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Dextrin Malt Applied in the Brewhouse<\/h3>\n

When applied in the brewhouse, Jackson uses Dextrin Malt in many different styles of beer, not just his Hazy IPAs.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe biggest thing I\u2019m using Dextrin for is to build body. The Dextrin is that last little punch to give the beer that really full mouthfeel and it also helps with head retention quite a bit. So we use Dextrin in a lot of our Pilsners and Stouts as well,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn our Hazy IPAs, it really seems to give it what it needs for a full, creamy mouthfeel and really nice head retention. When we go up to double IPAs, we\u2019re looking for a really full, rich mouthfeel; we\u2019re going to use the Dextrin. Most of our eight percent ABV double IPAs, our triple IPAs, stouts, we\u2019re using a high percentage of Dextrin and that really kind of fills it out, if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Whether a lighter or darker beer or higher or lower ABV, if a beer is highly attenuated, it can seem thin bodied. A relatively small percentage of Dextrin Malt added to the grist can bring the body in line with what you want as a brewer to create a beer that really wows your customers.<\/p>\n

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But even when a brewer like Jackson uses Dextrin Malt at higher rates (upwards of 10 percent of the grain bill), the brewer doesn\u2019t have to worry about gumming up the works. Our proprietary process results in a very low beta-glucan level, which means a brewer can increase MMC\u2019s Dextrin Malt usage without lautering issues.<\/p>\n

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Head Retention and Lacing<\/h3>\n

Though head retention and the lacing left behind in the glass don\u2019t come off at first glance as critical, like body and mouthfeel, head retention and lacing add to a drinker\u2019s perception of the beer.<\/p>\n

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A beer with no head on it imparts the thought that the beer is probably flat, which isn\u2019t something you want in most styles. Keeping foam intact also releases aroma that is important to the drinker\u2019s senses of smell and taste.<\/p>\n

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The effectiveness of dextrin malts in general to improve head retention is something that is debated in brewing circles. At Malteurop, it is not a debate. With the help of people like MMC\u2019s Dr. Yin Li, our proprietary process in producing Dextrin Malt preserves high-molecular-weight foam enhancing protein compounds which aid in head retention.<\/p>\n

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Jackson\u2019s first hand experience with MMC\u2019s Dextrin Malt is a testimony to that fact.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou can tell a beer when I use Dextrin compared to when I don\u2019t. Especially our lagers, it really helps with head retention. You\u2019re going to see nice lacing on the glass. Just using a small percentage of Dextrin goes a long way with lagers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When you combine all these factors into a nice neat little package, it means a much better drinking experience for your customers.<\/p>\n

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MMC works closely with our brewer partners<\/h3>\n

As a brewer, your passion is your beer. Malteurop realizes and appreciates this passion. We love great beer, too!<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s why we don\u2019t simply crank out malts that we think will sell and then task our sales team with pushing them on you. We have that same passion to create greatness that you do, and that\u2019s why we work with all sizes of breweries to develop malts that deliver on that passion.<\/p>\n

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Jackson saw our commitment to working with a brewery the size of Eagle Park \u2013 which produced around 10,000 barrels of beer in 2020 \u2013 as unique.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe met with the Malteurop team and Dr. Yin about a year ago. He shared with me some of his ideas and I told him what I was looking for, and they were able to do some pilot batches and we love it. That\u2019s not that common for a brewery like me. I imagine the New Belgiums of the world and breweries like that (could get a maltster to do that for them), but definitely not usually a brewery our size,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n

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When a brewer is as passionate as Jackson is about beer, how can we not match that passion with our malts? It\u2019s what we love. It\u2019s what we do. So when someone like Jackson wants us in his brewhouse, we\u2019re going to do everything we can to help our brewery partner succeed in making the best beer possible.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe biggest thing for us is a partnership that we know we can rely on and trust. Having people you can rely on is always important in this industry, Malteurop has always done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s face it, most craft beer customers aren\u2019t craft beer aficionados. Most people who drink craft beer simply want a good tasting beer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Dextrin Malt: Because little things mean a lot to your beer","_seopress_titles_desc":"In addition to flavor and aroma, you need to be keenly aware of characteristics that aren\u2019t easily perceived by most beer drinkers. A brewer has to consider mouthfeel, body, color, head retention, lacing, and many other subtleties that make a beer something that drinkers want to imbibe again and again.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product-spotlight"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}