Step Mash Theory - A Technical Question

[therook]

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

hey Luke, did you do all this on your Rims/herms/Hermit

Rook

I gotta see it in action

 

[Lukes]

Rook sure do.
This type of mash (4 steps) is one that it is fully utilized.
I keep a 2 ltr kettle of boiling water handy too.

- Luke

 

[tangent]

i step mash for wheat beers and dry pilsners
single infuse for the rest.
i never bother with a protein rest unless I'm making a Belgian Wit and have added a heap of raw protein (wheat).

 

[Zwickel]

wow...so many experts here.....Im ashamed a little, starting a seemingly simple question and get so many highly qualified responses

The ferulic acid rest we call the "Herman methode" means a rest at around 42-44C where many flavours are built.
As Thirsty Boy beautifully has explained, I was wrong in saying the banana flavour comes from ferulic-acid, its just as Thirsty Boy has explained, BUT at the same time and temperature works the Maltase that cuts the Maltose into Glucose that is responsible for the banana aroma.
So in the end that means as well the clove aroma as the banana aroma is built.

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

I fill in the water at 35C and then add the malt.
I hope its not against the board rules if I post my complete recipes, Ive just written in a response to a PM, so I can copy and paste it.
So you may see the relations of quantities:

Pils:
take 11kg (100%) Pilsener malt and mash in at 35C into 42l of water (will be ~50l altogether)
heat up to 52C and rest for 20min
go further to 63C and rest for 45-60min (say 50min)
go to 72C and rest for 20min
heat up to 78 (5min) and mash out

whilst the mash schedule is on the run, Im heating up the sparge water already to 78C, an amount of 45-48liters.

the first run of lautering will bring you around 30l of wort, wait until almost all of the water has run through.
then add the sparge water, stirr well and start lautering again.
in the end youll get around 75-78 liters of wort (before boiling).
Start boiling the wort, let it boil for around 90min., after 10min add 85g of Magnum or Northern Brewer hops with 12-13% alpha acid.
After 75min (from point when the boil began) add 35g aroma hops such as Saaz.
Cool down as fast as you can do to around 10C and pitch an amount of 1% of the total batch size viscous yeast.
the OG should be around 1048 in the end.
Thats all about Pils

Weizen:

the same amount of water and the same procedure.
take 8kg wheat malt and 4kg Pilsener malt
mash in at 35C and heat up to 42C rest for 40-45min (ferulic-acid rest)
go further to 63C and rest for 30min
go to 72 and rest for 30min
heat up to 78C and mash out.
Start boiling and add 80g Hallertauer Perle with 6% AA, just at begin of boiling.
Let it boil for about 60min.
Cool down to 20C and pitch the yeast.
In the end youll get around 65-68 litres of wort (after boiling) at an OG of ~1052
If youd like the weizen a little darker, you may exchange 2 kilo of Pilsener malt into 2 kilo of Munich malt.
Thats all.

You see, its quite simple, but very tasty

Apologies if its a little off-topic

Cheers mates :beer:

 

[AndrewQLD]

Hi Zwickel,
The confusion we have here is that, for us in Aus at least, "mash in" temperature refers to the temp of the mash After the water is added, not the temp of the water you are adding.

Thanks for clearing that up, basically what your saying is you heat your strike water to 35c, then add your grain and raise the temp to 42c for the Ferulic rest.

Thanks again for the Pm, I will be giving your recipe and method a try for the Qld case swap.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Zwickel]

thank you for the hint Andrew

I gotta say that I dont care so much about the mash in temp, sometimes its only 30, sometimes its about 40, I dont think thats that important.
Am I too careless about that?

 

[AndrewQLD]

thank you for the hint Andrew

I gotta say that I dont care so much about the mash in temp, sometimes its only 30, sometimes its about 40, I dont think thats that important.
Am I too careless about that?

Not at all, just different ways of doing things in different places. All is clear now .

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Darren]

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.

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.

Nice post Thirsty,

Thought that I would add this data from Brewing, Lewis and Young 1998. I think it shows quite clearly that B amylase is almost completely inactivated instantly at 66-70C (any residual enzyme activity would obviously retarded not sped-up) It also shows that if you are to "rest" the mash at 50-55C for 20 or more minutes there will be alot of B-amylase activity (and you will thin the beer to its detriment)

The second graph shows how low the fermentabilty will be with no B amylase and also clearly shows the effects of heat on that enzyme. (please note the 4C difference between active and inactive)
You should also note the "brewers window" on the bottom graph.

My take on all this and the other pages in the chapter from this book (and personal communication with a mega-maltster on the subject) is that the maltster spends huge amounts of resources so their customers can do single infusion mashes and get the same beer everytime.

Why is it that a few homebrewers feel that they can improve on million dollar technology?? Makes them feel they are in control?

Home malted barley or undermodified malt may need step mashing. Commercial product certainly does not.

cheers

Darren

 

[AndrewQLD]

Darren, that my be true if the brewer is trying to achieve the same results over and over again, but I am sure even the malster you spoke to would say that varying the mash regime would give different results even in highly modified malts. So isn't it possible that step mashing could change the flavor and texture of the beer your brewing and if so what's wrong with doing that?

It seems to me that some brewers are happy to brew generic beers that are going to result in what the Malster thinks is how a beer should taste, and some brewers want to vary their product by introducing step mashing.

Cheers
Not afraid to give it a go Andrew

 

[Darren]

Andrew,

The obvious thing to do would be to select your malts on the basis of the style you are attempting to make.

You want a pils, select pils malt, you want an ale, select ale malt and of course, if you want a wheat select wheat malt .

These days all the work has been done for you. All I am saying is that if you want to work harder, go for it. I doubt you will make a better beer than the malt was originally intented to make.

BTW, I have done some step mashes. Did not seem to improve the beer over any of the other numerous variances associated with homebrewing. Just took longer.

cheers

Darren

 

[AndrewQLD]

I still wonder what your maltser would have to say. After all they are only trying to produce a malt for ease of use and economy, that doesn't mean it is better.
But I still think that varying your methods will change your results as it does with all things in life.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Nice Graphs Darren. Good info in there. Mind you I disagree with some of the things you have inferred from the information, but I still appreciate seeing it.

That point where the Beta am hits the zero mark (roughly 7.5 mins) is what I thought the enzyme's half life was reduced to at 70C. Not where it was essentially reduced to zero. Live and learn.

Still, I think the statement ". . . I think it shows quite clearly that B amylase is almost completely inactivated instantly at 66-70C . . ." is a tad strong an interpretation of that data. I am actually taking heed of your admonishment to note the difference made by the 4 degrees in that range here. At the high end, we are still talking 7.5 minutes of activity before it goes belly up, this is a third of the time most people are ascribing for "full conversion" in a mash of modern grains. I don't think that that period of activity can even be described as insignificant let alone instantly gone. And at 66-69 well its even more so.. right to the point where significant activity is maintained for longer than that lovely 20 minute figure that people like so much.

As for " . . .It also shows that if you are to "rest" the mash at 50-55C for 20 or more minutes there will be a lot of B-amylase activity (and you will thin the beer to its detriment) . . " Well, the graph shows that there will be lots of B-amylase activity at that temp and that it wont be significantly reduced over a period of 20 minutes, BUT, the graph says nothing at all about how this will effect the fermentability of the wort. That is wholly an inference on your part. One that I tend to only partially agree with. In fact a clue to one of the reasons why is contained in the text directly below those lovely graphs. Where it says that while the extract recovered at the lower temperatures is highly fermentable... in fact not a lot of the extract is actually recovered at that temperature because the starch substrate dissolves poorly. Therefore my inference is that there will be plenty of starch left over for the A-amylase to convert into longer chain dextrines at a higher rest temperature; and so your beer wont necessarily be detrimentally thinned.

Sorry, but you did it again ". . . The second graph shows how low the fermentabilty will be with no B amylase and also clearly shows the effects of heat on that enzyme. . . " Yes the graph shows the effect of the heat on the enzyme, but once again, it shows absolutely no information whatsoever about the fermentability of a wort. All your inference again. Of course, in this instance I completely agree with you. The wort would be unfermentable with no Beta activity. But the graph also shows that you have to be at pretty high temperatures for a reasonable time in order to actually achieve this state.

So... you see how its hardly cut and dried. Same data available to both of us, and yet we interpret it in different ways. Of course, thats why we have these little debates, so that other people can see the argument, weigh up the facts and decide for themselves.

As far as homebrewers believing that they can improve on the results of million dollar technology... thats because they can. In the same way that my mothers chicken soup beats the hell out of the stuff produced on Campbells' million dollar equipment. So can homebrew easily outstrip megabrewed beer. Along with that million dollar equipment comes million dollar sales targets, procurement agreements, energy restraints, time restraints and a whole lot of restrictions that a homebrewer does not face nor have to account for. This is where they gain back against the technology and resources.

By the way, you will also find that while the big brewers are similar to the homebrewer in the fact that they can almost always achieve their results with a single infusion mash. You are wrong to suggest that they do so in every case.

Last week I helped to conduct 5 separate 100,000+ liter step mash brews, each with a total rest time of more than 2 hours at the different stages. And (within an admittedly quite small range) each of those mashes produced wort of different volumes, different Gravities and different fermentability profiles. At least one of them was far enough out of whack so that the recipe had to be changed on a subsequent batch to bring the total into the fermentor into spec. Oh, and we regularly change stand times to account for differences in malt and other ingredients.

You are of course fundamentally right though, in most cases, a homebrewer doesn't need to do a step mash. But they are not pointless, they can definitely create a different fermentability profile on the wort and that might be just what you are looking for in your beer. Or not.

Thirsty

 

[matti]

I think we waste time on convincing you Darren.
You are partially right in the todays modified malts the use of step mashing is maybe overdoing it at times.

Though I am not a BEER GOD in any way, I must say that step mashing will assist you with many parts of the brewing.

Doughing in grain for example at lower temps helps to reduce balling without starting the enzymatic activities too early and later assist in lowering the ph as well.

Modified malts is recommended to be doughed in at 55C providing the brewing water is adjusted correctly, then brought up to the saccharification rest temp unless you make a decoction and a higher dextrination rest before sparging.

Of cause you can instead used acidulated malt in the beginning and through in some Crystal to try to achieve the similar result.

We are simply talking about Pilsner here and not your average tasteless lager.
I like my pilsner with a bit of colour and that slight sweetness and extra body you can achieve with just a little bit of 2-3 step mashing seems to me be worth the trouble when time allows.

In the partial I have done this improved clarity and I have had no real problem with head retention either.

time for some work now B)

 

[AndrewQLD]

As far as homebrewers believing that they can improve on the results of million dollar technology... thats because they can. In the same way that my mothers chicken soup beats the hell out of the stuff produced on Campbells' million dollar equipment. So can homebrew easily outstrip megabrewed beer. Along with that million dollar equipment comes million dollar sales targets, procurement agreements, energy restraints, time restraints and a whole lot of restrictions that a homebrewer does not face nor have to account for. This is where they gain back against the technology and resources.

By the way, you will also find that while the big brewers are similar to the homebrewer in the fact that they can almost always achieve their results with a single infusion mash. You are wrong to suggest that they do so in every case.

Last week I helped to conduct 5 separate 100,000+ liter step mash brews, each with a total rest time of more than 2 hours at the different stages. And (within an admittedly quite small range) each of those mashes produced wort of different volumes, different Gravities and different fermentability profiles. At least one of them was far enough out of whack so that the recipe had to be changed on a subsequent batch to bring the total into the fermentor into spec. Oh, and we regularly change stand times to account for differences in malt and other ingredients.

You are of course fundamentally right though, in most cases, a homebrewer doesn't need to do a step mash. But they are not pointless, they can definitely create a different fermentability profile on the wort and that might be just what you are looking for in your beer. Or not.

Thirsty

Nice post again Thirsty, and you have said it far better than my lame attempt as well. And your comments above are enough to encourage me to try step mashing for my heffe.
Can't get any more conclusive than that me thinks.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Lukes]

Yep, Thirsty nice post at that time of the morning.

Much better than my one liner "horses for courses"

Luke

 

[Screwtop]

Hi Zwickel,

I will be giving your recipe and method a try for the Qld case swap.

Cheers
Andrew

Zwickel, I will be giving it a go too, just for me

Thanks for clarifying the 35 water for me, I like the idea of starting the mash this way. Now using the direct heated tun it will be much simpler.

 

[SJW]

I have been reading this thread and have found it especially interesting as I always do single infusion mash's.
Now I am doing a Bav. Lager next week with 4.5kg Pils, 1kg Vienna and a little Carared, (and will use Andrews hop schedule 60, 40, 20)
I was going to single infuse at 62.5 deg C with no mash out and do two equal batch sparges. Could someone explain the advantage of doing a stepped mash and suggest a suitable mash schedule.
I may have done one or two stepped mash's before but must not have noticed any advantage in the final product as I went back to infusions.

Steve

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I have been reading this thread and have found it especially interesting as I always do single infusion mash's.
Now I am doing a Bav. Lager next week with 4.5kg Pils, 1kg Vienna and a little Carared, (and will use Andrews hop schedule 60, 40, 20)
I was going to single infuse at 62.5 deg C with no mash out and do two equal batch sparges. Could someone explain the advantage of doing a stepped mash and suggest a suitable mash schedule.
I may have done one or two stepped mash's before but must not have noticed any advantage in the final product as I went back to infusions.

Steve

There might well be no advantage to a step mash at all. Was there something that you were tryig to achieve in your lagers that you aren't getting by using a single step?.

Maybe, if you dont mind that it mght actually just be a waste of your time, you could try raising it to 69-70 for a bit before you sparge. That might pull out and convert a little starch that remained un-gelatinised at the lower temps??? Possibly a little gain in efficiency and maybe a little extra body???

But unless you have a purpose in doing it... I really wouldn't bother.

TB

 

[SJW]

Was there something that you were trying too achieve in your lagers that you aren't getting by using a single step?.

I want my Lager's to be a little dryer and a little crisper, thats why I was thinking of mashing cooler at 62 or 63. I usually do a mash out but thought this time I would just do two batch sparges of equal size.

Steve

 

[Malnourished]

As for " . . .It also shows that if you are to "rest" the mash at 50-55C for 20 or more minutes there will be a lot of B-amylase activity (and you will thin the beer to its detriment) . . "
...
Therefore my inference is that there will be plenty of starch left over for the A-amylase to convert into longer chain dextrines at a higher rest temperature; and so your beer wont necessarily be detrimentally thinned.

The problem with resting in the 50-55C range and 'thinning' beer is that this is right in the optimal temperature range for peptidases. This is why it's suggested that step mashes with modern malts start ~60C, but I've banged on about this so many times on this site I'll leave it at that.

As far as homebrewers believing that they can improve on the results of million dollar technology... thats because they can. In the same way that my mothers chicken soup beats the hell out of the stuff produced on Campbells' million dollar equipment.

I agree with your point. Step mashes can be beneficial (as long as you aren't resting in the low 50s!) because you can control proteinase and beta amylase activity in the low 60s and complete conversion easily in the high 60s/low 70s. That said, your analogy is dodgy because 99.999% of homebrewers are using these modern malts but seem to want to throw in weird rests in the 40s and 50s*. To run with it, performing an old school step infusion with modern malts that are designed for a different mash regime is akin to buying the can of Campbells soup and boiling it for three hours like you would making chicken soup from scratch. Or like flash frying chicken thighs in a hot pan, or slow-cooking chicken breast in a casserole. Blech!

*Wheat/rye beers excepted