Decoction and saisions

[Sebas83]

Discuss.

I have brewed about 6 saisons this year and have been really happy with the results from different techniques. But, since I have been formulating different recipes, I have also being playing with different mashing techniques. Wort only decoction in a dark fruit saison with Brett, single infusion SMASH saison, gradual heating mash (Dupont's tech in Markowski's book), step infusion, and triple decoction.

My last saison was a triple decocted rye saison 25:75 ryeils with a mess of Saaz and it was great. Spicy, complex, great color, aroma, oddly crisp, no phenols (fermed at 88 with ECY brasserie blend!!) and smooth as silk.

But, I can't decide if the mashing technique had much of an impact. All my other brews were pretty clean and dancing around DuPont (not the dark one as that one is still chugging away) but this one is the only one containing rye and no wheat, it is slightly an odd-ball. And before I go ahead and do some side-by-sides, does anyone have any hard info on this?

 

[JacobS]

rye malt or rye berries? If berries the decoction would prob leave 'unfermentables' that otherwise wouldn't be present.

But really the only way to truly tell would be to brew this again with wheat, and again with a diff mash tech.

 

[Sebas83]

Rye malt. But rye berries could be pretty great.

I'm sure it will come to doing side-by-sides. But I was hoping for this board's vast knowledge before jumping into a labor intensive project such as this.

My thought was that decoctions are great at dealing with oddly malted grains a/o adjuncts in lagers. But, it was also a great tool for pre-thermometer brewing. This could be a ticket to "old-world" saison brewing. It also speaks to the mash schedule outlined by Markowski. He suggests a step infusion mash that is quite reminiscent of a triple decoction mash. Could this have been an easier/less-costly mash schedule for commercial breweries?

Just thoughts from a saison homebrewer.