2 step infusion epiphany....

Okay, so I use a Rubbermaid 5 gallon beverage cooler as my mash/lauter tun. Works great, gets a little tight doing a 2 step infusion mash, so here is my idea!! Since I have only enough room to get the 2 steps in and bring the mash to 154F or so... in order to mash out I want to collect some runoff, a gallon or 2 and bring that to a boil, add that back to the mash... then sparge with my 170F water. How about that?! Isnt that a great idea?! Otherwise, I cannot really mash out, and I will have over half of my runoff collected before the mash gets anywhere near 170F. No problems here right? That should work right? Ideas please


Brewpilot

Bottle Conditioning: Drowning Wasp Ale

Get to Home Depot (call first) and buy yourself a 10gal. Igloo cooler for 40 bucks.

I don't know about your above idea, but if you bring your wort much above 170 you will stop the starch conversion.

I'm sure someone knows an alternative. You could also search for "decoction".

Well, I think he's on track with doing the mashout with collected runnings that he's boiled. Conversion doesn't matter at mashout, so I think that'll work. Actually, Brewpilot, maybe you should have a look at how to do a "decoction" and you can do your two-step mashing that way. Your mashout can be thought of as a second decoction, but it'd be what some people refer to as a "thin decoction". I hope this helps.

Yeah, I am not really worried about deactivating enzymes in the collected runnings, since I am mashing out anyway, of which the point is to deactivate the enzymes and make the sugars run. I am not really a fan of decoction, it seems messy, and then I am boiling some grains and there is the issue of tannins and then the halting of enzymes in the collected grain/runnings when I dont want to. Thanks for the info though yall!

Brewpilot

Brewpilot, what you are going to do is called thin decoction. Since there won't be any grains in in your runnings - no problems with tannins. Doing thin decoction has advantage of stopping enzymes activities and boiling out all oxigen from your hot wort.

All of this I know... what I mean is that I do not want to do a thick decoction, or do a thin decoction as a way of getting my step mash completed, because #1 thick mash would boil grain, and even in a thin mash decoction, I am deactivating all of the enzymes in the runoff that I am decocting. I only really need and want to do the decoction at the very end, when I am wanting to stop conversion anyway.

Yes, you'd only really want to do the thin decoction at the end anyway for mashout. About boiling grain - the method of a regular or "thick" decoction has been done for centuries with awesome results. Someday when you're feeling adventurous and when you're using undermodified malts, you should give it a try and see how you like the results. You're a homebrewer, so ideas that are new and strange to us are what account for quite a bit of the fun of it all!