Question about Turbid Mash: Couldn't you just use direct heat?

I've been reading up on turbid mashes for lambics and other belgian brews. Instead using water additions to hit all of the steps after pulling off some starchy wort and heating it, couldn't you just do a Brew in a bag kind of thing and directly apply heat to raise the temps.

It seems that 5 hour boils to boil off all that excess water would be something I'd like to avoid. Just curious if anyone's tried something like this.

Boiling for 4+ hours is what helps create a dextrinous wort for for microbes/brett to slowly eat over the course of fermentation. The turbid mash is designed to do the same thing. Your pulled portions will be raised to temps that stop enzymatic activity, leaving unconverted sugars as part of your final wort composition. If you did this with BIAB you'd just be doing a step mash. I can't recall what conversion temps a turbid mash goes through off the top of my head, but you would probably end up with a more converted wort if you fired by direct heat.

Direct heating is not a replacement for turbid mash. It's not just the rest temps that are the point of turbid mashing. The denaturing of the amylase enzymes in the boiled portions is what creates the starchy wort. So if you're doing direct heat you will be missing out on the denaturation steps.

Unless of course you pull off some of the starch at the various steps. This could retain some of the starch.

In other words dough in full volume at a low rest. Draw off some wort and heat to a boil. Raise the mash to the next temp and repeat through all your rests.

Guess42 said:

Unless of course you pull off some of the starch at the various steps. This could retain some of the starch.

In other words dough in full volume at a low rest. Draw off some wort and heat to a boil. Raise the mash to the next temp and repeat through all your rests.

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Yes. This is what i was thinking.

After all the rests it might be a good idea to do your mash out at like 190f. To simulate the hot sparge.

This may not give you the exact same wort as a true turbid mash, but I think it would be better than a step infusion. Someone may chime in why this won't work or with a better idea.

It's worth a shot. I suppose I'll try it and let you guys know how it tastes in 2 years.

I just did something like this yesterday, so now we will have two batches to look at. What yeast did you use?

Guess42 said:

In other words dough in full volume at a low rest. Draw off some wort and heat to a boil. Raise the mash to the next temp and repeat through all your rests.

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Any results from doing this? I'm planning a lambic and I am thinking about doing this. I biab on an electric stove, so I'm already about maxed out on the volume of wort I can boil.

satownsend said:

Any results from doing this? I'm planning a lambic and I am thinking about doing this. I biab on an electric stove, so I'm already about maxed out on the volume of wort I can boil.

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I did something similair to this at the begining of december. I have it fermenting right now, and will post the results in a new thread once I have some more data.

Basically I used 57% belgian pils and 43% raw wheat berries.

I used a kind of modified cereal mash where all the wheat and 1# of the pils was mashed with at 122F water at a ratio of 2.5qt/lb. After mashing for 30 mins 1 gallon of the milky liquid was drawn off and boiled on the stove. Next the wheat mash was brought to a boil and cookd with constant stirring until the mash had an oatmeal like consistency.

This was then mashed in the main mash tun with the rest of the pils and more water at 122F for 20 mins. The mash was then raised using the burner to 162F for 1 hr. The mash was batch sparged using 195F water to collect about 9 gallons of pale yellow wort. This was boiled and the 1 gallon the milky wort was added about 10 minutes in along with 4oz of 2 year old cascade. The wort was boild down to 5.5gallons of beautiful yellow starchy wort with an og of 1.062 (shooting for 1.052).

It is fermenting with my native bugs, so I wont know if it worked or not for a long time!

But yes I think a modified mash is an acceptable substitute

Interesting. I'll probably be using this method as it seems ideal for my setup. Thanks for the quick and detailed response!

I think it definatly works, and I know you were trying to avoid the long boil but I think it adds a nice element to the wort.

My first runnings were like the palest lager you have ever seen. After boiling though I had a beautiful straw wort that smelled like honey! I think the long boil contributes a lot of flavor molecules.

I would follow some sort of cereal mash type regiment, good efficiency and pretty straight foward.

Yeah, I'll have to figure out just how long of a boil I'm capable of. I suppose the boil doesn't have to be as vigorous with a lambic? If that's the case I'm thinking at least 3 hours might be possible.

satownsend said:

Yeah, I'll have to figure out just how long of a boil I'm capable of. I suppose the boil doesn't have to be as vigorous with a lambic? If that's the case I'm thinking at least 3 hours might be possible.

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I just boiled like a normal beer, but for a lot longer. I think it took me just under 3 hours to reduce around 9 gallons of runnings to ~5.5gallons. The other part was trying to bring 9 gallons to a boil. Oh also I did not use any clarifying agents like whirafloc etc, I wanted all the protein in the beer.

Just as a side not I looked at some of the krausen from this beer under the scope, lots of yeast looking cells (sach? and a few elongated cells) and a decent amount of bacillus. I am hoping to plate out some for a truly local wild beer!

mnick12 said:

I just boiled like a normal beer, but for a lot longer. I think it took me just under 3 hours to reduce around 9 gallons of runnings to ~5.5gallons. The other part was trying to bring 9 gallons to a boil. Oh also I did not use any clarifying agents like whirafloc etc, I wanted all the protein in the beer.

Just as a side not I looked at some of the krausen from this beer under the scope, lots of yeast looking cells (sach? and a few elongated cells) and a decent amount of bacillus. I am hoping to plate out some for a truly local wild beer!

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I'm doing BIAB in a 10 gallon kettle. I won't have much headroom, but I think I can pull that off.

Nice! I plan on fermenting mine with East Coast Yeast Bug County...so I guess it's not a true lambic. I might set a small amount of the wort outside for a spontaneous ferment. I was thinking of just putting it in a bottle with an airlock for a year and then if it smells and tastes alright using it for next year's lambic. If all goes well I'll use portions of each towards a gueuze. I get way too excited thinking about a beer that I won't be able to enjoy until like 2019.