oguss0311
Well-Known Member
I just did a decoction brew- following Kaisers advice and after watching his move a few times. It was fun- a little tougher than He makes it look, etc.
I have some questions- and rather than PM him- I thought I'd post them out loud, as I'm sure that others must have the same questions- and maybe kaiser will see this- and I'm sure others who know what's up will......
1. So we don't want to introduce the grains to Too much heat for fear of extracting Tannins- But- if were Boiling a significantly large portion of the grains- do we not end up doing that quite a lot? Or do we except and celebrate their presence as part of the beer styles character? I have heard of that- like Flanders Red Ale- (Which- of course- is NOT what I was doing) and Wines do have them.... Maybe we denature or destroy the tannins? But I can't see that- because then the real boil would do the same thing and Tannins would never be an issue....
2. Kaiser is so fluent with this method, that he will do step mashes in a five gal. cooler- but ends up pulling a Really large portion of the mash for the decoction. Do people ever just do the Whole thing in SS or aluminum mash-ton and bring the Whole thing to a boil at the end?
I had a great time doing this method, and want to run the same grain bill through a more typical process (like a standard 60min 153F mash) and see if I can notice a difference in taste and of course the efficiency. I got 69%- which is disappointingly common for me recently.....
For those of you out there considering giving this a go- an issue I did run into was loosing temps in the mash cooler while the decoction was in its sarcharfication, (sp!) and 20min boil. I did follow Kai's advice and had the decoction volume 20% larger than what was needed to achieve the next step for the main mash- and I loved how he slowly added it to hit the target, let the remainder cool- and then combined everything again. But I still fell short of my target 160F even with my extra 20%. I was at 153F incidentally, and so did not think twice about it.
I have some questions- and rather than PM him- I thought I'd post them out loud, as I'm sure that others must have the same questions- and maybe kaiser will see this- and I'm sure others who know what's up will......
1. So we don't want to introduce the grains to Too much heat for fear of extracting Tannins- But- if were Boiling a significantly large portion of the grains- do we not end up doing that quite a lot? Or do we except and celebrate their presence as part of the beer styles character? I have heard of that- like Flanders Red Ale- (Which- of course- is NOT what I was doing) and Wines do have them.... Maybe we denature or destroy the tannins? But I can't see that- because then the real boil would do the same thing and Tannins would never be an issue....
2. Kaiser is so fluent with this method, that he will do step mashes in a five gal. cooler- but ends up pulling a Really large portion of the mash for the decoction. Do people ever just do the Whole thing in SS or aluminum mash-ton and bring the Whole thing to a boil at the end?
I had a great time doing this method, and want to run the same grain bill through a more typical process (like a standard 60min 153F mash) and see if I can notice a difference in taste and of course the efficiency. I got 69%- which is disappointingly common for me recently.....
For those of you out there considering giving this a go- an issue I did run into was loosing temps in the mash cooler while the decoction was in its sarcharfication, (sp!) and 20min boil. I did follow Kai's advice and had the decoction volume 20% larger than what was needed to achieve the next step for the main mash- and I loved how he slowly added it to hit the target, let the remainder cool- and then combined everything again. But I still fell short of my target 160F even with my extra 20%. I was at 153F incidentally, and so did not think twice about it.