Step Mash Theory - A Technical Question

[matti]

You spurred me on as I have read a post previously regarding just adding water.

My main concern using a cooler is hot side aeration while I am stirring.

I am leaning towards:
Batch 23L 5-6 kgs grains

Protein rest at 55 degrees.20 min
Pull a decoction out
Add water for rest 64 degrees 30 min
add decoction to raise to 68 degrees.20 min
Add water to Mash out 77

All in a 55 litre esky with false bottom.

A think the temperature will have to be estimates as I expect being 2 degrees off target.

Am I dreaming?
(I have done small mashes about 3 kgs and sucessfully in the past)
matti

 

[MHB]

Matti
Thats the sort of process I have been playing with, just a small suggestion.

I would try mashing in at 55 C, 10 minutes would be more than enough
Add hot water to take you to 64 - let it stabilise at 64 for 10 min or so.
Draw off the decoction
Use the decoction to step to 68
Then hot water to mash out.

I just think you might find the 55 C mash too heavy and it might burn as you are heating it. You dont want to spend too long around 50C or the beer can have head retention problems and it should take half an hour or so to heat the decoction properly.

Look forward to the outcomes.

MHB

 

[matti]

Valid point and will keep that in mind.

matti

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Is anyone direct heating their mash tun, can't use my immersion heater to raise from protien rest because it burns the sticky mash. Is there a problem direct heating a SS mash tun, I want to try a small gas burner for stepping instead. Have a spare HLT but no pump for recirc yet.

I direct fire my mash with a 4 ring burner (80 liter vessel)but usually only need 3 rings on to achieve 1c raise per minute in a 50 liter batch which is ideal.Never ever looked like burning the mash.And its real nice on those cold morning starts in the shed.Just remember to keep stirring until you reach desired temp.Most important.But Im getting a geared motor to do the stirring job soon.anyone got a good stirring blade design?
Gryphon Brewing

 

[tangent]

look at Zwickels setup for direct heat stepping as well as his stirrer.

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

look at Zwickels setup for direct heat stepping as well as his stirrer.

Forum ignorant.How do I view his step up?
Gryphon Brewing

 

[Adamt]

Forum ignorant.How do I view his step up?
Gryphon Brewing

I'm pretty sure it is in this topic.

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

I'm pretty sure it is in this topic.

Chite ive got to make one.Just need a few German lessons.

 

[Zwickel]

gday mates,

sorry for beeing off topic, Ive just done a hard days work.
Someone has time to come over for cleaning?

poooohh...Ive made a fine Hefeweizen, of course without a protein rest

the harvest, almost 70l fine Weizen:

the yeast is pitched already

here a pic of my setup after the work is done:

Cheers

 

[blackbock]

Zwickel I think you have reached your 200L limit now and it's time to pay some govt taxes on your Hefeweizen! If you send some to me I won't tell them.

P.S I tried your mash schedule with a Pilsener recipe out of interest this morning. Obviously the final results aren't known yet, but it resulted in a very good efficiency and one of the clearest worts I have ever seen.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Just to pull this back to the original question asked, here's my 2 cents worth. This is my understanding of how things work, but then again I aint jeebuz so dont take it as gospel.

The Lab mashes that "convert in 20 minutes" might well show a complete conversion of starch... but they dont show what the starches have been converted to.

In 20 minutes worth of single infusion mash, between them the Alpha and Beta enzymes could well have converted all the starches. But they will have converted only some of them to short chained fermentable sugars, the others will be longer chained unfermetables. The betas will keep on snipping fermentables off the ends of these, in fact they will do so more rapidly, because there are more ends to snip from every time an alpha knocks a long chain into two short chains.

So if you leave it at the low rest temp for say a full hour, the betas will have time to chew through much more and the wort will be very fermentable. If however you rais the temperature up to the "alpha" range, the betas will be de-natured much more quickly and wont be able to make the wort as fermentable.

The Betas Will Not... all be killed off at the higher temperatures, their half life merely reduces. The ones that are left actually work better because of the increased energy available inthe hotter system. So a step mash works well for creating a really fermentable wort. Betas get a long time to play and lots of stuff to play with. But when you raise the temp, you thin them out a bit so that they dont get too out of hand and make your beer thin and nasty.

So there is a point to step mashing. Its not necessary in most cases, but its far from pointless in all cases.

 

[goatherder]

Well, when we stayed on topic there was some really good discussion. Your post especially Thirsty Boy - I think your explanation has solved my conundrum. Thanks to everyone who contributed, I consider myself more enlightened as a result. Cheers.

 

[matti]

Since this step mash conversation began,
a though have been processed through my head and I see why not.

IF one could extract a enough of the Beta enzyme and draw the wort
out before raising the temperature.
Add brewing liqour of similar character and simultaneous raise the temp and then draw out the apha enzymes.
Providing you have left enough of beta in the grains, you could manipulate the style of beer to your commercial needs.
I.e. make a cheap dexterious brew with a lot of head.
Sorry I just had to put that in h34r:

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Its a bit simpler than that... they just use a short (by homebrewer standards) mash at a medium temp, then push up to sparge temp and lauter for a very long time at that temp.

basically its just mashing high for dextrines... nothing quite as complex as drawing off worts at different temps and re-mixing etc etc.

It helps if you can have malt designed to your specifications.

 

[bugwan]

Bugwan,

How quickly can you raise the temps? Actually, what are your temps?

Myself, I can't see anything more convenient than allowing the maltster to define your single-infusion-mash schedule for you. Pilsner style mash low (61-64), ale style, mash a bit higher (65-72)

Nothing worse to your ales than think you ned a protein rest

cheers

Darren

Sorry Darren, just spotted your post.

99% of the time, I brew ales and use a single step mash, between 64 and 67 degrees, depending on the recipe.
This time I was brewing a weizen and it was recommended I do a rest at 50 degrees to help prevent a stuck sparge (my recipe was about 55% wheat malt, from memory). I then infused to hit 66, which is when I used the immersion heater. It took a few minutes to raise the mash temp from 62 to 66 with this method. As I mentioned, it's rare I actually do a multi-step mash.

Sorry for the semi off-topic post, just wanted to make sure I answered Darren's queries.

Cheers!
Dave.

 

[Zwickel]

Referring to the topic, Id like to know if anyone is doing a ferula-acid rest at 42C when a Weizen is produced?

for example my mash schedule for a Weizen looks like that:

mash in at 35 heat up to 42 and rest for 30-40 min. (ferula-acid rest)
step up to 63 for 30min.,
then go to 72 for 30min.
go to 78 and mash out.

the ferula-acid rest produces a beautiful banana aroma yum

So any comments to that?

Prost

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Hey Zwickel,

I did a Ferulic acid rest on the first Weizen I ever made. I was advised by a German brewer that it would give a good Clove characteristic. I did it... and the beer was lovely with nice balanced banana and cloves and I liked it a lot. But it was my first wheat beer, so who knows what would have happened if I hadn't done the Ferulic acid rest ??

My understanding is (and I could well be wrong) that the Banana flavour/odour comes from the ester Isoamyl-acetate, the clove smell comes from the phenol 4-Vinyl-Guaiacol.

The ferulic acid rest produces, well... ferulic acid which is a precursor in the yeast cycle to 4-Vinyl-Guaiacol and therefore it should be enhancing the clove aspect of your weizen. I seem to recall getting most of this info (in the first place at least) from the Schneider website (or perhaps one that was about them) because Schneider aims for a Clove rather than a banana balance in their weizen.

I have given the ferulic acid rest a miss since then because I prefer my Wheats with a banana balance (Franziskaner, Schoefferhofer etc) BUT... Depending on how much wheat I am using and what form it is in, I might well do a Beta-Glucan rest, which is pretty much in the ferulic acid range anyway. So I suppose I have a foot in a couple of different camps.

If I'm right (and I might not be) then it seems that your lovely banana aroma is just coming from you own personal brewing skill Zwickel Sounds like your beer is great.

Someone please correct me if I have this all arse about. I'd hate to be passing on miss-information; and of course, I'd rather be doing the right thing for my beer too.

Thirsty

 

[MHB]

One other important point, other than those mentioned by Thirsty Boy above.

Lab tests are often reported on a fine grind; that is a sample reduced to something the consistency of talcum powder.

This means that the time taken for water to migrate into the granules is very short, as is the time required to transport the sugars out of the grain partial.

We have relatively massive grain fragments, even if the conversion has occurred, the sugars still need to migrate out to get into solution to do us any good.

MHB

 

[Screwtop]

Referring to the topic, Id like to know if anyone is doing a ferula-acid rest at 42C when a Weizen is produced?

for example my mash schedule for a Weizen looks like that:

mash in at 35 heat up to 42 and rest for 30-40 min. (ferula-acid rest)
step up to 63 for 30min.,
then go to 72 for 30min.
go to 78 and mash out.

the ferula-acid rest produces a beautiful banana aroma yum

So any comments to that?

Prost

Thanks Zwickel,

I'll be using that mash schedule for my next Hefe.

Is 35C the temp of your strike water or the temp of the mash after adding strike water? What water to grain ratio?

 

[Lukes]

Referring to the topic, Id like to know if anyone is doing a ferula-acid rest at 42C when a Weizen is produced?

Yes I do it and agree on that 4 step mash schedule for a wheat beer.
With step mashing it is horses for courses.
My wheat mash is the same just based on the one listed on the Weyermann site and just pass thru the 55 as I ramp the temp.
Here is a pic of a nice cloudy recent acid break.

The other end of the colour scale a stout with the 1 step being only a mash out.

Luke