1st Succesfull Decoction

[gibbocore]

Yay!!

triple decoction, hit all my temps bang on, my house smells like malt and biscuits.

One thing i did notice though was the massive improvement in wort clarity, anyone else notice this with decoctions?

I was also surprised with how dark some of the grains go from being boiled, melanoidens for me!

 

[Fourstar]

Yay!!
triple decoction, hit all my temps bang on, my house smells like malt and biscuits.
One thing i did notice though was the massive improvement in wort clarity, anyone else notice this with decoctions?
I was also surprised with how dark some of the grains go from being boiled, melanoidens for me!

Wow, how long did that take?!? i did a decoction for mashout on my Munich Dunkel last week. The grain does get quite dark and the wort it leeches is very thin... here's hoping it was worth the effort!

 

[gibbocore]

started at about 1pm its on the boil now, one thing i didn't account for was an efficiency increase, i factored 70%, and i measured the preboil gravity and hit 1058, i'll wait and see how much ends up in the fermenter but i might be adding some water to this one.

 

[jayse]

Yay!!

triple decoction, hit all my temps bang on, my house smells like malt and biscuits.

One thing i did notice though was the massive improvement in wort clarity, anyone else notice this with decoctions?

I was also surprised with how dark some of the grains go from being boiled, melanoidens for me!

Cool, yeap the wort clarity is as i found, the break in the kettle is also different. And yeap the decocted malt does get a hell of a lot of colour.
everyone has to do this at least once.
perfect way to spend a sunday

 

[gibbocore]

Cool, yeap the wort clarity is as i found, the break in the kettle is also different. And yeap the decocted malt does get a hell of a lot of colour.
everyone has to do this at least once.
perfect way to spend a sunday

yeah the hot break is smaller or finer.

 

[Pumpy]

Yep just doing a 50C protein step mash and its well worth doing

Pumpy

 

[Jazzafish]

Awesome work mate,

My first decoction was around 5*C off in temps and had to pull it again! But I learnt a lot from it. If I get some bohemian pilsner malt again I'll decoct it again for sure.

Happy Brewing

 

[gibbocore]

cheers guys.

I ended up with only 17L into the fermenter somehow, but i had a FG of 1075, have to fiddle with the evap rates on beersmith, i had a pretty low heat on as well. Had to add 6 liters of water to get it back to 1053.

 

[matti]

Good stuff.
I still got 1/2 bag of bohemian I will have a go again with.
I stepped mashed my last attempt and found the wort clarity improved immensely and skimmed of all the hot break quite easily.

I hope you clean up goes well LOL

 

[gibbocore]

ha, i reckon i'll be cleaning up tomorrow some how. Just got the fermenter into the fridge, should be pitching my yeast starter tomorrow arv.

After fiddling round and tooling with beersmith, turns out after adding water to get back to 22L, i got 83% efficiency, pretty stoked with that for the old 55l esky and brew pot. attenuation will be the next hurdle but so far my lager experience is going well, second lager ever, i made one years ago, it sucked and i never went back lol. Made over 100 ales though, lazy brewer.

 

[raven19]

83% if pretty darn good!
May have to give this decoction thing a go at some stage.
What recipe did you use?

 

[Bribie G]

Guys, set me right on this.

Am I right in thinking that triple decoction is raising the mash temperature in steps by actually boiling some runnings and returning to the tun to effect:

• Protein rest at a lower temp
• Saccharification rest (ie 'normal' mash for most people)
• Mashout

I'm keen to do that with BIAB in electric urn as it's not too hard to heat n hoist n dunk n stir n heat n hoist....... however stepping the mash up in a BIAB using the urn element would not actually involve boiling anything. So in the case of BIAB would this be more of a case of drawing off some wort and boiling it in a stockpot then stirring back into the urn for each stage?

I'm currently getting into American beers and note that even Budweiser still do decoction mashes so there's clearly some advantages here.

 

[jayse]

you basicaly boil the grain not the wort.

 

[Bribie G]

you basicaly boil the grain not the wort.

:huh: :huh: :huh:

Now that's turned my world on its head..... tutorial anyone ?

 

[clean brewer]

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Decoction_mash

Now that's turned my world on its head..... tutorial anyone ?http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Decoction_mash

Wikipedia

 

[jayse]

pretty sure theres a basic how to in the palmer book

 

[Bribie G]

Wikipedia

Excellent. I might try a double decoction.. the triple decoction includes an acid rest but with modern highly modified malts of the sort we use now like BB or Maris Otter would an acid rest be of any use?

The other thing that puzzles me is that if you are taking a huge scoop of grain and wort and boiling it, aren't you killing the enzymes in that portion? I assume that there will still be enough enzymes left in the bulk of the mash to effect saccharification of all the starches?

 

[jayse]

basically you are leaving the enzymes in the tun with the liquid portion, but every step you sit at mash temp for a little bit before you ramp it up to boil.

 

[Kai]

The other thing that puzzles me is that if you are taking a huge scoop of grain and wort and boiling it, aren't you killing the enzymes in that portion? I assume that there will still be enough enzymes left in the bulk of the mash to effect saccharification of all the starches?

Yes and yes. You're boiling a chunk of the mash with each step but relying on the other chunks to keep things going. The steps are your choice with a triple decoction. Pick from acid rest, protein, beta-glucan, 4VG, alpha amylase, beta amylase and mash out. Plus any I've forgotten or overlapped....

 

[jayse]

snipped>
Yes and yes. You're boiling a chunk of the mash with each step but relying on the other chunks to keep things going.

Also each chunk that is pulled at each step is brought too and rested at sacc temp for at least a little while before being boiled