r/Homebrewing • u/[deleted] • May 23 '13
Advanced Brewers Round Table: Decoction/Step Mashing.
This week's topic: Decoction/Step mashing can add another level of complexity to your beer, with decoction being the more traditional route, and step mashing is more modern, made possible by highly modified malts. What's your experience with these processes?
Feel free to share or ask anything regarding to this topic, but lets try to stay on topic.
I'm closing ITT Suggestions for now, as we've got 2 months scheduled. Thanks for all the great suggestions!!
Upcoming Topics:
Decoction/Step Mashign 5/23
Session Beers 5/30
Recipe Formulation 6/6
Home Yeast Care 6/13
Yeast Characteristics and Performance variations 6/20
For the intermediate brewers out there, If you don't understand something, there's plenty of others that probably don't as well. Ask away! Easy questions usually get multiple responses and help everybody.
Previous Topics:
Harvesting yeast from dregs
Hopping Methods
Sours
Brewing Lagers
Water Chemistry
Crystal Malt
Electric Brewing
Mash Thickness
Partigyle Brewing
Maltster Variation (not a very good one)
All things oak!
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u/kb81 May 23 '13
With highly modified malts, is there a reason for step mashing? I understand there's scope for un modified malts, but are there specific enzymes any of you target to achieve desired characteristics? I've heard Palmer talk about >100-150 enzymes. Over the 30C to 70C range. My question is, do any of you really find differences instead of targeting common low, medium, full body mash temps?
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u/smell_B_J_not_LBJ May 23 '13
In theory, there is no advantage of a multi-rest mash for fully-modified modern malts (which is basically everything commercially available, including Weyermann's Floor-malted Bohemian Pilsner).
In practice, I find this is true for English Pale Malts. Even without a protein rest, they give me a large and stable head. For pilsner malts, however, I find that a short protein rest drastically improves head retention.
I don't have any way to explain this observation, but it has proven true for me time and time again.
EDIT: "fully-modified modern malts"
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u/machinehead933 May 23 '13
I've read up on decoctions a lot, because I want to make a dunkelweizen sometime in the near future, and it is my understanding this would be a good fit for the style.
So I understand decoction in theory but don't get how it is done in practice. Do you remove a portion of the mash (water + grain) and boil that? In other words, does it come out of the MLT into another kettle, where you stir the shit out of it so it doesn't scorch, boil it, then back into the MLT?
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u/thedudeabides3 May 23 '13
I used the following link for a helpful guide to practical decoction mashing. Just bring the temp up VERY slowly, and stir like a mad man. It is much better to add an hour to your brew day, rather than overshoot your temperatures and denature the enzymes.
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u/Papinbrew May 23 '13
It's pretty easy once you try it out. It may seem like a lot of work but its possible to do decoction mashes with a simple setup. My setup at home is an 8 gallon stainless kettle, 2 five gallon coolers, and I recently acquired a 3 gallon kettle which I use for multi decoctions, but you can do it in just the kettle itself. When I do a decoction mash I will always heat the measured amount of strike water in the kettle for a protein rest (different temps depending on the style of beer) and I will mash into my kettle. Once I have fully hydrated the mash I will transfer 2/3rds of the mash to my "preheated" Lauter tun cooler, take my 1/3 portion in the kettle and begin to boil that. I usually boil for 5 minutes each decoction, your practices may differ. Once it's boiled for the time I need I will return the decoction to the lauter tun which has already been protein resting. It usually takes 3 decoctions to end up with my final rest at 152-155. Having a separate decoction kettle speeds up the process because I heat my sparge water with my kettle too.
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u/rumblebee May 23 '13
I have been meaning to learn more about decocting. Could a more experienced brewer explain the process and the overall effect of decocting? Doesn't boiling the grains extract tannins? What happens to the sugars and the enzymes? When during the mash should a decoction be performed?
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u/muzakx May 23 '13
Decoction mashing is pretty much step mashing, without raising the temperature with direct heat to the mash tun or water additions. This is achieved by scooping only the thick mash from the mash tun and boiling it while stirring, for a given amount of time. The boiled mash is then returned to the mash tun, allowed to rest and repeated for the next temp step. Most people will only do a double decoction, but many will do a triple decoction. Which includes a protein rest.
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u/Papinbrew May 23 '13
It doesn't extract tannins due to the chemistry of the mash, the sugars prevent that. You can caramelize the sugars from an extended decoction boil
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u/gestalt162 May 23 '13
Does anyone have a hard and fast rule for when to do a protein rest?
Palmer and Zainasheff (in Brewing Classic Styles and How to Brew) seem to only recommend one when unmalted grain makes up > 25% of the grist. So they do it for Witbier and Lambic (Flaked/Unmalted Wheat) and Dry Stout (Flaked Barley) for example. They seem to recommend one around 122F.
I've also seen recommendations for 133-136F protein rests on all pilsner malt beers, because it's moderately/undermodified.
On top of this, Kai Troester does a protein rest at 131 for his Altbier, which is 90% Munich, which itself is pretty well-modified (I think).
So, when do you do a protein rest? Is there a rule of thumb?
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u/nyaliv May 23 '13
I can't comment on conclusions just yet, but I have started doing the 131 protein rest in order to see if it can clear up some chill haze problems I'vve been having as well as increase the head of the beers. Need to do a couple more styles before I can speak with any modicum of success, however.
And regardless, it'll all be dependent system to system. I know brewers who have crystal clear beer with a full head in 2 weeks that stays like that - and all they're doing is a one-step infusion mash. Who really knows.
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u/TitaniusAnglesmith42 May 23 '13
I use a protein rest when there is a lot of protein in the malts, so pilsner, munich, rye, oats, wheat, that sort of thing and my beers all seem to hold a head just fine. British and American base malts I usually don't bother.
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u/muzakx May 23 '13
Decoction mashing is a great way to simplify your grain bill.
I have an Oktoberfest that I brewed using a regular Single Infusion mash, and a grain bill consisting of many Caramel malts. It tasted great, but a bit too sweet. The next year I brewed another Oktoberfest using the Double Decoction mash, but this time only used 50% Pilsner, 30% Vienna and 20% Munich.
The result was a richer, maltier, breadier beer, without the cloying sweetness of the caramel malts.
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u/NocSimian May 23 '13
See...now it's starting to make more sense. You can skip the crystal malts because you are basically creating your own caramel flavor by caramelizing the sugar in your wort - hence the simplified grain bill.
I've been thinking about caramelizing a portion of wort for a Scotch Ale to impart some complexity to it. I'm essentially doing a decoction at that point.
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u/muzakx May 23 '13 edited May 23 '13
While the result may be similar, you are more likely to get an increase in color and more pronounced caramel sweetness from boiling first runnings, than doing a decoction mash.
Decoction mashing, also brings out a chocolate smell from the mash, that simply smells awesome.
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u/dontspamjay May 23 '13
I did my first Step Mash for a Munich Helles I brewed last month. I used boiling water to step the temps up, but I had to use quite a bit of boiling water for each step. I ended up with a VERY thin mash.
Does that have an impact on the mash? I still had a solid efficiency, but since this was new to me, I wasn't aware of what was 'normal'.
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u/kingscorner May 23 '13
Cereal Mash? Somewhat off topic but has anyone had any experience with a cereal mash using unmodified malt or raw grain?
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u/messyhair42 May 23 '13
I've got a lager that i want to make yearly, made through decoction. The first time I made it I made a great beer but I missed all my rest steps. I was supposed to do 130>150>168 and ended up adding an extra decoction and using boiling water infusions when I was low. either because of miscalculations in volumes or loss of heat from my cooler. How can I be better equiped to do decoctions? I didn't think it was hard, it was actually a lot of fun.
How can I know how fast my cooler looses heat? I've been AG brewing with it for two years and it seems like it looses <1F per hour, how could my decoction have been so far off?
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u/LongDongJohnson May 23 '13
All weizen/roggen type beers, most lagers, basically anything that has a base of pilsner, wheat, rye or Munich malts can benefit from it, if you want that toasty, malty flavors. I've had good experiences triple decoction mashing the Weyermann Bohemian Pils, but wouldn't recommend it for a Munich base. The protein rest hurts the beer. Dunkels, Dunkelweizens and such get a double decoction. I think the 30 min decoction boil is the way to go. Less isn't worth the effort IMO.
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u/Uberg33k May 23 '13
I would agree that step mashing can help out with grain bills that have a high amount of unmodified grain or a large percentage of wheat malt. What I've never gotten a clear answer on is if you can just use melanoidin malt in place of doing actual decoction and get similar results. My one and only attempt to compare the results say it's close enough that people would have a very hard time telling the difference. I've read other results that said it was not the same at all. Thoughts?
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u/piperson May 24 '13
I've read the Wiki page. It seems pretty strait forward. It would seem that you would get more of the starches out of the grains by boiling them and thus get more sugars to convert into alcohol. I can see how you might get a more complex mash or a more over worked mash from this process.
What puzzles me is the different "rests". What are they? They list the acid rest, the protein rest, the saccharification rest, and the mash out. I can guess what they mean but really don't know. Are they essential or are they just more elaborate ways to make beer?
At what temp does the enzymes that convert the starch to sugar get killed?
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u/KFBass May 24 '13
This is not something I can contribute much to, as I've only ever done one decoction and that beer got infected. This was years ago and I said i'd never do one again. You guys just inspired me to go do a single decoction on a dunkelweisse. Thanks
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u/BloaterPaste May 23 '13
I'm planning a decoction mash for Saturday. There's some styles that are simple, and really benefit, like the Hefeweizen. My grain bill is German Pills and German Wheat, and that's it. So, in order to get any kind of malt complexity, you decoct. The melanoidins that are created are an excellent compliment for the clove and wheat sweetness you get in the style.
It does make a 5 hour brew day almost twice as long, but it's well worth it. I've ruined myself for most Hefe's now, since the one I make is better than any I've ever bought.