Spine

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Hello Everyone,

I am currently in the process of building some steam mashing equipment so I can start steam mashing.

I have been discovering that a lot of german brews use decoction mashing in order to produce more melanoidin flavours and I was wondering if this is due to the multiple steps or due to actual boiling of the mash that is pulled during a decoction.

I guess what I want to know is how noticable the difference will be between a 3-step steam mash vs a triple decoction mash.

If anyone has experience or ideas I would love to hear them! Thanks!

menschmaschine

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There's just no way to replace the subtle differences with melanoidin and other compounds produced in a decoction mash. Step mashes, however, can be beneficial. Keep in mind, however, that mash temps should be decided by what characteristics you want in the beer, the malt analysis (or an educated guess), and your water. Mash step temps should not necessarily be followed by what a given recipe states. Many Belgian and German brewers specifically order malt to a certain degree of modification so that the beer can better benefit from stepped temperatures. Most of the malt available to homebrewers is very well modified, so one has to be careful, for instance, not to do a Protein Rest that would reduce head formation/retention in well-modified malts.

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Spine

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Thanks for the reply! what you said was what I was fearing.

Regarding the specific temperature steps, is there some sort of guide or howto that I can look at for reference to determine these steps. For my next brew I am planning to make a Munich Helles with some Weyermann Pilsner Malt and Munich malt and I am wondering what steps to do to get the best flavour from this malt.

Thanks!

Piotr

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The benefits of decoction are not that obvious, here:

The Hop Vine :: View topic - Decoction mash and Astringent

you can read about a very interesting experiment in this area. It was done in 1989, nowadays all malts are well modified, so decoction is rather a matter of tradition.