Ryat66
Well-Known Member
I am a pretty run of the mill all grain brewer, most of my brews are single infusion with a thin decoction for mash out followed by a fly sparge. Except I use a Hochkurz decoction mash for my weissbiers exclusively. I never have an issue sparging other styles but my weissbiers aren't so kind to me. I love the extra character of a decoction and that has become a standard for me when brewing weissbiers. However, I think the decoction further breaks down the grist over standard milling and thus causing my issues.
My recipe is pretty standard...
60% Avangard wheat
40% Avangard Pilsner
1 lb. rice hulls
Process wise I am happy with the decoction but when it comes time to sparge, it's always an adventure and yesterday I reached a new low. I had a stuck sparge that I could not unstick, blowing, sucking, stirring, etcetera were all unsuccessful. I ended up pulling the mash back out of the mash tun, scooping 1/4 of it back in, starting a slow vorlauf and slowing scooping the mash back in while juggling my vorlauf containers back into the tun. Once I had all of the mash back into the tun, I vorlaufed another 8-10 minutes and sparged as normal. Anyway, it was less than ideal and I've been thinking of ways to alleviate this issue.
Here's a few things I thought of:
-line the tun with a BIAB liner (maybe the mash is plugging the false bottom...?)
-add in a protein rest
-use the process I used yesterday and call it what it is...a compromise to do a decoction mash
-my false bottom is 9" in an 11" tun and may not be ideal
Thank you in advance for any input you might have.
My recipe is pretty standard...
60% Avangard wheat
40% Avangard Pilsner
1 lb. rice hulls
Process wise I am happy with the decoction but when it comes time to sparge, it's always an adventure and yesterday I reached a new low. I had a stuck sparge that I could not unstick, blowing, sucking, stirring, etcetera were all unsuccessful. I ended up pulling the mash back out of the mash tun, scooping 1/4 of it back in, starting a slow vorlauf and slowing scooping the mash back in while juggling my vorlauf containers back into the tun. Once I had all of the mash back into the tun, I vorlaufed another 8-10 minutes and sparged as normal. Anyway, it was less than ideal and I've been thinking of ways to alleviate this issue.
Here's a few things I thought of:
-line the tun with a BIAB liner (maybe the mash is plugging the false bottom...?)
-add in a protein rest
-use the process I used yesterday and call it what it is...a compromise to do a decoction mash
-my false bottom is 9" in an 11" tun and may not be ideal
Thank you in advance for any input you might have.