Am I supposed to supply the honey and chocolate?

I have a More Beer Scottish Export 80 AG kit, which has a "Grain Bill" of:
8lb 2-Row
1lb Crystal 40L
1/2# Honey
1/4# Crystal 120L
2oz Chocolate

There is no honey or chocolate. I am now mashing the grain, and i realized i don't have the honey or chocolate. I must assume that the grain is correct. Was I supposed to go buy honey and chocolate?

I'm guessing the honey is honey malt and I'm positive the chocolate is chocolate malt.

Whew. Thanks. I can't get on the road right now, so i hope that is right.
This is my second AG, and I've been trying to get the mash to 155 deg. I added hotter water, didn't get there, so i drained some wort to heat, twice, finally got to 155. I hope i haven't "ruined" my mash.

First mash temp was about 148

I got it up to 152 deg. and stopped messing with it. I didn't want to cook too much of the mash to get the temp up.

I pulled about a gallon of the mash water and heated it, then did it again to reach 152. I wanted to avoid using my sparge water for heating up the mash. Does heating mash water hurt anything? Such as, does it kill the enzymes, and does it do anything to the reaheated portion of the mash liquid?

While I wait for a reply, I'll continue the procedure and fly sparge/drain my wort, and get this in the bucket asap. It's 16:30 and I have to get up at 0230.

It can, but you'll prolly be OK. Most of the conversion happens in the first 20 min. or so.

Next time pull out the really thick part of the mash and leave as much water behind as possible. Then you don't have to worry so much about killing the enzymes. That's how decoction mashes work and they always convert.

Thanks. My original intention was not to do a decoction mash, but that's how it turned out. I didn't want to put the grain in water that was too hot, and kill the deal before anything happened with the enzymes

What's the max temp you can heat a decoction to and add it back, without jolting the enzymes?

According to John Palmer "How to Brew"

Chapter 16 - The Methods of Mashing
16.4 Decoction Mashing

Decoction Mashing is a way to conduct multi-step mashes without adding additional water or applying heat to the Mash Tun. It involves removing about a third of the Mash to another pot where it is heated to conversion temperature, then boiled and returned to the Mash Tun. The portion removed should be pretty stiff, no free water should be showing above the top of the grain. This procedure accomplishes three things. First, the addition of boiling hot gruel to the main mash raises the temperature of the mash to the next rest. Second, the boiling process breaks up the starch molecules of the unconverted grist and produces a higher degree of extraction from moderately-modified continental malts. Lastly, it makes it possible to achieve the crisp, dry maltiness characteristic of German Oktoberfest and other continental lagers.

Not sure on your question about "jolting" the enzymes, but it seems as long as you don't pull more then 1/3 of the total mash out to boil, you should be fine.

xxMaynardxx said:

According to John Palmer "How to Brew"

Chapter 16 - The Methods of Mashing
16.4 Decoction Mashing

Decoction Mashing is a way to conduct multi-step mashes without adding additional water or applying heat to the Mash Tun. It involves removing about a third of the Mash to another pot where it is heated to conversion temperature, then boiled and returned to the Mash Tun. The portion removed should be pretty stiff, no free water should be showing above the top of the grain. This procedure accomplishes three things. First, the addition of boiling hot gruel to the main mash raises the temperature of the mash to the next rest. Second, the boiling process breaks up the starch molecules of the unconverted grist and produces a higher degree of extraction from moderately-modified continental malts. Lastly, it makes it possible to achieve the crisp, dry maltiness characteristic of German Oktoberfest and other continental lagers.

Not sure on your question about "jolting" the enzymes, but it seems as long as you don't pull more then 1/3 of the total mash out to boil, you should be fine.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I was concerned about overheating the enzymes before i was finished using them. This inadvertent step-mash may have done some good, starting at 148 and going up to the final mash temp. The sparge was done with about 160, but i had to close the valve to heat more sparge water. Also, I didn't know when to quit. I overshot my ending volume, but i'll boil it down some before adding the hops.

First, enzymes are not alive so you are not killing them...but you are denaturing them which makes them not work...so okay.

I would not sweat it too much. Yes, you did jack the enzymes that were in the portion you reheated. For all intents and purposes, heating them to any temperature that will be enough to raise the temperature of your mash is going to destroy them.

Did you do the right thing by doing this...I think so. Again, I would not worry too much. You were trying to mash high as to leave some larger sugars around that would not get fermented. By destroying a bunch of enzymes you made it harder for conversion to happen quickly...kind of accomplishes the same goal as you had before.

I would assume that a low mash temp takes longer to fully convert since the enzymes are just munching on the ends of the polysaccharides. Since you heated your mash up (I assume fairly quickly?) you got the betas calmed down and the alphas going which should leave some larger sugars behind which will give you the body you desire (no, not a Billy Blanks type body).

It is going to turn out good so don't worry, if it is a little thin you will care a little less because of the extra alcohol.