Step Mashing Methods

[steve78]

Hi all,

Its coming into Weizen season now, and I've been putting off doing a step mash for a while now as I'm worried i'm gonna thin the mash by using boiling water to step it up, and I'm not really keen on doing decoctions, as I don't have that much time to remove portions of the mash and do potential guesswork and most likely miss the step temps by a few degrees. So, I was thinking and researching on the web, and thought What about using steam for step mashing.

Well, my brew setup's probably easier than most peoples, and suits me fine. I mash in a completely sealed unaltered insulated plastic 26L esky (temp may drop 1-2C over one hour) not made as a traditional mash tun, I basically infusion mash BIAB without the sparge water, hoist the grain out and into my 50L stockpot for a dunk sparge and (sometimes) mashout, then hoist the 5+kg of grains above the kettle and suspend it there, and it drains while I boil. I generally get between 70-75% efficiency, and got 82% one day (not always a good thing may I add...).

Getting onto the point here, does anyone use steam to do step mashing? To me, this sounds like a nice and easy way to control the mash temps more accurately in a step mash without risking ending up with a thinning mash.

If anyone does this, can you share your ideas on a setup? I'm gonna speak with a mate of mine who is a sparky and see what he can make for me, but would love to hear any thoughts or current methods for this outr there? I've read about the pressure cooker method. Any others?

I was thinking a steam rod would be great (think a coffee machine steam rod, but longer), one that can be inserted into the mash for a few minutes to raise the temp to the next step, OR, raise the grain bag out of the mash, heat the water a few degrees higher, then drop the bag back in and adjust to temp.

Thoughts/opinions to share?

Stevo

 

[manticle]

Probably a great idea. I use an immersion heater to step mash (and decoction and boiling water with adjusted, calculated volume). Best to make sure you can mix/apply the steam equally around the mash I guess.

Not convinced you need to be amazingly worried about thinning the mash depending on what you start with and what you end up with. Decoctions are also actually less daunting than you think. Hope the setam works out though. Another workable method is never a bad thing.

 

[steve78]

Hey Manticle,

Yeah I've seen the immersion heaters, but a mate of mine had a bad experience on it, he said they were sh*t, but he bought a cheap ass one from China. Is this the case, what's your opinions on them?

Would be interested to hear...

Steve

 

[manticle]

I bought a cheap Chinese one too (originally) and electrocuted myself a couple of times. Got rid of it and bought one from grain and grape and have been loving the flexibility it's brought to my brewing. Mash temp 2 degrees too low? easy fixed. Want to step up without boiling water? Easy fixed. Ran out of gas? Easy fixed.

Just buy a proper certified one and you'll be right.

 

[stillscottish]

I used my steam cleaner to bring up the temp a couple of degrees once. Flushed with success, I decided to do a step mash with it and that was a bit of a failure. Although it's a fairly heavy duty cleaner it just didn't put out enough steam to bring the temp up quickly. I guess it was just one of those things you try to see if you can make beer with floor cleaning equipment.

Prost!!

 

[Bribie G]

Nothing wrong with a thinner mash, we BIABers do it all the time (e.g. 6L per Kg) and make award winning beers B) - In the related thread I started a while ago (German Hochkurz mash) I did some research and that's what the German Breweries do, as I understand it, add boiling water.

In the case of BIAB we heat the kettle beetween steps but next time I'm going to try the boiling addition method as I have 2 electric urns and can use one as boiling water source, progressively thinning the mash with each addition till I'm at full volume when mashout has happened.

Edit: the point being, to do two brews with the same recipe and see if there's any difference in the finished product.

editedit: On that Hochkurz thread the latest post links to an article about step mashing etc and here's an interesting quote:

Thinner mashes generally convert faster, have higher extract yield, and are less prone to darken. When mashing thinner cut back on sparge-water quantity to avoid over-extraction. Thicker mashes do cause more caramelization and Maillard reactions but is far less efficient than when the maltster creates it. :super:

 

[BjornJ]

II guess it was just one of those things you try to see if you can make beer with floor cleaning equipment.

Prost!!

Awesome, I like the way you think!

Bjorn

 

[steve78]

6L per kg? Gees that is thin, but I guess that includes the sparge in BIABing...

Thanks for the advice/info guys, appreciate it.

Steve

 

[berto]

My first AG was a decoction, and it was really no harder. I just had a cheapo 20L pot on the side i was heating on an old camping BBQ burner to grin gup the temp of some of the mash.

Worked out great and wasn't difficult at all. As was said earlier, I wouldn't be afraid of it at all.

 

[Tony]

i step mash all the time with boiling water.......... its really easy.

for a weissen...... i mash in at 52 deg for 10 min at 2l/kg.
I add boiling water to raise mash temp to 63
rest for 45 min then add boiling water to raise temp to 71.
rest 10 or 15 and simply mash out at this volume which will bu up close to 4l/kg by now.
sparge as normal.

Post your recipe, grain amounts ect and the temps you want to hit and i will owrk out the volumes you need to add if your keen.

Its really easy and makes a big difference to the beer......... it wont thin it out!

cheers

 

[stillscottish]

BeerSmith makes it pretty easy to work out step mashes with water additions. I'lll be doing a Hopfen-Weisse tomorrow with a 4 step mash. A few minutes fiddling with the programme and it's all worked out for me. Should be a doddle <_<

 

[manticle]

Non-beersmith users can use the calculator at the bottom of this page: http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/articles_o..._StrikeTemp.htm

It's obviously for strike/mash in temp but can be easily adapted.