Brewing a dry beer

[jasonsbeer]

I'm going to brew a German Pils soon. This beer needs something that I've never worried about before - a dry finish.

I know the general recomendations - mash low for dry beer, mash high for sweet beer. But I wanted to learn more - I came across this article from an old BYO and it's very informative.

I am intrigued with this stair step approach to making a dry beer. I have an electric RIMS system, so this shouldn't be a problem. The article doesn't really define how long to wait between the steps. I assume a short time, say a few (3-5) minutes.

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on this process?

I intend to do a double decoction mash for this beer, so should make for an interesting mash schedule.

If your objective is to make a very fermentable wort for a dry beer, things get a little more complex. For starters you really want beta-amylase to be a happy camper. Mash in cool, say around 140° F, and give your mash a good long hold. This will allow beta-amylase to chop up all the amylose and the tips of the amylopectin branches. This is a good start, but there are still a lot of glucose molecules tied up in amylopectin. The only way for beta-amylase to make more maltose is for alpha-amylase to "open-up" amylopectin molecules (the starch that has no branches) with a few random whacks.

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Another way to get alpha- and beta-amylase working together is to slowly increase the temperature from 140° F, after your initial 30- to 45-minute rest, to 155° to 158° F. This is easier said than done at home because small batches are harder to control than larger ones, but in commercial breweries using steam-heated, stirred mashes, this process is easy. The most common way of slowly increasing the temperature is to heat from 140° to 142° F and rest, then from 142° to 144° F and rest, and so on. This stair-step process is much easier to control than a continual rise from "A" to "B" because most mashing vessels are designed to heat at a constant rate and simply heating slower is not an option.