Just got this brew into a carboy and into my fermentation chamber. This was my first time doing a decoction mash and although I hit (or slightly exceeded) the OG permo specifies, I am a bit nervous and confused about decoction technique, as I've not been doing all grain, let alone decoction, for very long.
I mashed on with 5.75 gallons of water and hit 149 and held for 45 minutes. Then I pulled 1 qt of more-or-less drained grist for each lb of grain and put into the brew kettle. I did not hold this portion at 157 for any amount of time, but rather brought the whole thing slowly but steadily to a boil. Was this a screw-up? Honestly I forgot to rest the decoction, but after I realized it, I figured conversion and other enzyme magic would have already happened during the 45 min each rest. (?)
Another odd thing I noticed is that, pulling that amount out, It appeared that almost all of the grain had gone into the brew kettle. After boiling for 15 minutes or so, I added enough back to the mash tun to bring the temp to the specified 157, and left the rest into the brew kettle to cool to that temp (or until I got impatient and frustrated and added a bit of cool water to bring it down and then put it into the MT). Problem was that it took so little of the decoction to bring the original mash to target temp that it was almost through the second rest before I got the bulk of the decoction down to temp to rest with the remainder.
So net is that my rests were totally weird and disjointed and I don't really know what happened from a mash perspective
. Wort and trub were much messier than I have ever had, but the aromas and taste were very nice and very interesting.
Any feedback? Sorry for the long post... But it's nothing compared to how long this brew day was