I can now say I feel your pain. 6 of us decided to do a big batch on the weekend - first runnings for doppelbock, second for bock. We brought in an expert triple decoction lager fiend for his multiaward winning experience, a brewer to whom 12 hour brewdays are no stranger. He warned us to expect 10-12 hours, and we were OK with that, assorted SWMBO's blessed the leave passes.
So I prepared for it. Packed the gear in the car the night before, just the RO water to collect. Set the alarm for the arranged 5:30am start. I get to bed about 1:30, after spending 2.5 hours collecting the RO water; I've discovered too late that we only have a 12L reservoir for the RO under the sink, and it takes considerably longer to recharge than I was expecting.
The alarm goes off at 4:30, and I nearly cry. The thought of doing my first triple decoction is enough to get me out of bed. I fill my prepared coffee plunger with hot water and head off. Ridiculously for 5am on a Saturday morning I run into traffic (ie a jam) on the highway, and have to take several detours through back streets I am only aware of because some dude got shot there last week. I make it in one piece, and we start crushing. 52kg of grain. The NASA burners are fired up, the neighbours turn on lights in fear of something landing in the street and the HLTs are put into action. We mash in to the 160L tun by just after 6. The sun comes up over our glorious array of equipment some time later, and I am excited. We pull our first decoction - about 30L of thick mash, and stir in the 100L kettle. We are celebrating with a keg of Double Imperial Oatmeal Stout. For this, we have purchased an oar from the outdoor store, as the paddles just don't cut the mustard and we are really scared about scorching on the base of the kettle. We reach our rest temps and bring it to the boil. It's now 13:00.
We are all looking nervous. We've just stirred back the first of our three decoctions, and it's 1pm. I'm thinking to myself... maybe we started celebrating too early... But the reassuring sight of the resident expert nodding sagely makes me feel it's all OK. Pull off the second decoction, this time splitting it into 3 kettles. 15:30. Add back in... more beer... third decoction. I have to say, the mash is looking beautiful. It's darkening well, holding consistency and smells great - no scorching. 17:00 and we're done. Our resident expert reckons we can just head straight to sparge given the multi, multi hour rests this mash has had. We all agree.
Sparge into another 160L tun. At the blistering rate of about 0.2L/min. Someone does the maths and now we all want to cry. We persevere with the pump, throttling back, pumping water back through the slotted copper manifold; to no avail. We empty the mash into the kettles, pull out the manifold to check for blockages. There aren't any, it's just the superbly stirred and broken down thick mash. We thin as much as we can (ie limit of tun). About 20:00 we pull 150L of 1.110 wort off and start boiling the doppel. 10:30 and we've got 58L at 1.045. We boil.
Midnight. We're cleaning up, somewhat half-arsed. Everyone has been stone cold sober since about 8 cos they just want to get the hell home. Expert declares this a fantastic day, noting that in all 50 odd of his triple decoctions, using similar grain bills, he hadn't ever had a mash schedule quite like that. I arrive home at 1:30, unpack the fermenters into the fridge (20L doppel at 1.127, 20L bock at 1.055), empty the car and crash back into bed. 2:00am.
I swear, this had better be the best beer I've ever had. Next time I think about a big batch triple decoction, I'm hoping someone slaps me upside my head.
