First decoction

I wanted to try a decoction, and overall it went fairly smooth. I did a modified one step. I mashed in at 130 for 25 min, then added boiling water to bring up to 154 where I held it for 45min. At that time I removed almost all the thick part and some thin to a boil kettle where I slowly brought to a boil and let it boil for 30 min. I then added back to the mash tun and hit 170. I hit all my temps dead on...except for one.

My main mash dropped to the low 140s during my decoction. Any ideas about how this would effect the final product???

Ps...thanks for your videos kaiser...definitely took the mystery and anxiety out of a decoction.

I've done several decoctions but I am by no means an expert. I assume you were making a lager or a pilsener? Did you use undermodified grain? My only thought on your process is why you held the docoction boil for 30 min?

arturo7 said:

I've done several decoctions but I am by no means an expert. I assume you were making a lager or a pilsener? Did you use undermodified grain? My only thought on your process is why you held the docoction boil for 30 min?

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I'm actually making a red ale...More than aything I just wanted to try the decoction technique. Most of my gran was well modified, had some munich.
I held the decoction boil because it was my understanding that it would impart some additional maltiness and mouthfeel. If I'm mistaken please correct me. I made the same recipe last week using a single step infusion. i'm looking forward to comparing the two. At first glance I did get better efficiency this time.

Still curious as to how much impact the drop in temp of the main mash will have.

It'll probably make it more fermentable, maybe 2-3 points off your FG depending on how much extract was still in your tun when it dropped. Nothing to worry about.

arturo7 said:

I've done several decoctions but I am by no means an expert. I assume you were making a lager or a pilsener? Did you use undermodified grain? My only thought on your process is why you held the docoction boil for 30 min?

Click to expand...

I do a decoction 'boil' for at least 30 minutes. The books I've read, articles on the web, and Kaiser's you-tube vids suggest at least boiling the decoction for 30 minutes. If my memory serves me (which it usually doesn't...), there was something about less than 20 minutes not doing anything for your brew. A great article on decoctions...

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Decoction_Mashing#Hochkurz_Double_Decoction