Mashing out at 212°....

[maltMonkey]

While doing a little online digging to research my altbier recipe, I came across this archived post from 1992.

.....While at Im Fuchschen I was behaving like a
typical beer geek and sticking my nose into the beer glass, holding it up to
the light, etc.. A young man sitting across the table from me pointed to my
Otter Creek Brewery t-shirt and asked if I was a brewer. I told him I'm a
homebrewer and that I'm interested in duplicating (dusselicating?) this style
of beer. He said that he was a brewer for a large commercial brewery in
Berlin, and although he brews lagers, he knows how they brew the alts as well.
Then he took a coaster from the table and diagrammed out the mash sequence for
an altbier! It was like this:
Mash in at 52 degrees C for 20 minutes; step up to 62 degrees C for 40 to 50
minutes; then to 72 degrees C for 15 minutes; mash out at 100 degrees C for 20
minutes. He recommended sparging with 78 C water

I don't put much stock into this since it's a) 17 year old information b) third hand information from unknown sources c) on the internet, but I was just curious if anyone had ever heard of anything like this before.

 

[Buford]

I'm assuming it means to add boiling water to the mash to raise the mash temp to mashout temp. It doesn't seem that odd really considering you do basically the same thing in a decoction mash with a boiling portion of mash to get the main mash temp up to conversion range.

 

[maltMonkey]

I'm assuming it means to add boiling water to the mash to raise the mash temp to mashout temp. It doesn't seem that odd really considering you do basically the same thing in a decoction mash with a boiling portion of mash to get the main mash temp up to conversion range.

That's what I thought initially too, but if you read the whole thing it sounds like he literally meant to raise the mash temperature to boiling:

It seems to me that the mashout at 100 C is as good as boiling the grist. Not
quite, because presence of dissolved sugars elevates the boiling point. The
real point is that the astringency that Sherri and I thought we tasted
could very well have been there because of that kind of mashing out
temperature.

 

[WBC]

It does seem odd to make the whole mash 212F because of tannins but all you can do is test your information on a small batch to confirm what happens.

 

[Denny]

While I agree that a boiling mashout grain temp is pretty unusual/unlikely, keep in mind that high temp alone will not necessarily cause tannin extraction. I've found a high pH is even more of a factor, and if your pH is in line you can use much hotter water than is usually recommended.

 

[FlyGuy]

While I agree that a boiling mashout grain temp is pretty unusual/unlikely, keep in mind that high temp alone will not necessarily cause tannin extraction. I've found a high pH is even more of a factor, and if your pH is in line you can use much hotter water than is usually recommended.

Yep, and that's why batch spargers can afford to perform a higher temp mash out, easily compensating for (what some perceive as) 'a less efficient sparging method'. I am a firm believer that neither method is particularly better than the other when it comes to efficiency for this reason.

Sorry -- don't mean to incite yet another batch vs. fly sparge debate. But I do think this is an overlooked difference between the two methods worth considering in one's brewing process. (Just like how using a SS braid in batch sparging allows you to crush finer and increase your efficiency -- no one ever brings that up when they make the unfounded statement that batch sparging is less efficient that fly sparging -- damn, there I go again! -- OK, somebody can swat me.).

 

[Kaiser]

This information may actually be correct. The 78C sparge seems a bit odd to me.

I have read about a mashing/lautering practice that did the lauter at boiling temperatures in oder to maximize the run-off speed as much as possible. But the problem is that you liberate starches during that process for which you don’t have any enzymes left. So you had to cool down the run-off and add a thin mash, which was kept on the side and which retained its enzymes, in order to get the wort iodine neutral again. This additional time necessary compensated for the time gain that came from the faster lauter. Nothing was mentioned about excessive tannin extraction through.

I’m not sure if that is what he was talking about as the literature in which I found this description indicated that it was never widely used to begin with.

Kai

BTW, we don’t lauter hotter than ~170F b/c of the destruction of the a-amylase and not so much b/c of suddenly increased tannin extraction. Some a-amylase activity is needed all the way into the kettle to convert any rouge starches that are liberated during lautering. This statement also conflicts with the idea that a mash-out is supposed to denature *all* enzymes, something that I don’t believe.

 

[maltMonkey]

Appreciate the input guys (Kaiser, I was hoping you would find this thread).....

My interest is almost piqued enough to try this....

 

[Kaiser]

You certainly have my support. I’d be mostly interested if there is a strong astringency in the finished beer. My current thinking is that pH is more important than temperature and that very hot sparging alone would not be enough to get astringency into the beer.

To do this mash thin (1.5 -2 qt/lb) and keep about 1-2 quart of clear and husk free wort to the side before you heat the mash to boiling. Then lauter and let it cool down to 160-170F before you add the thin mash you kept. Once the wort is iodine neutral (no reaction w/ iodine) you can start heating it to a boil. If you have a hard time to get it iodine neutral you can make more enzyme extract by steeping crushed malt in cold or warm water. The latter can happen if there are a lot of starches liberated when it is heated to boiling (e.g. you conversion was far from complete at the end of the mash)

Kai

 

[maltMonkey]

You certainly have my support. I’d be mostly interested if there is a strong astringency in the finished beer. My current thinking is that pH is more important than temperature and that very hot sparging alone would not be enough to get astringency into the beer.

To do this mash thin (1.5 -2 qt/lb) and keep about 1-2 quart of clear and husk free wort to the side before you heat the mash to boiling. Then lauter and let it cool down to 160-170F before you add the thin mash you kept. Once the wort is iodine neutral (no reaction w/ iodine) you can start heating it to a boil. If you have a hard time to get it iodine neutral you can make more enzyme extract by steeping crushed malt in cold or warm water. The latter can happen if there are a lot of starches liberated when it is heated to boiling (e.g. you conversion was far from complete at the end of the mash)

Kai

Great tips - I really appreciate that.

My only concern with this mission (should I choose to accept it) is that I would probably have to do a much smaller batch than normal, using my stove and completely different equipment instead of my normal AG setup (since I do not have a direct fire mash tun). I worry that some of the beer differences might be the result of the changed setup.

Now, I do have a HERMS system, and I have used it for 168°F mash outs, but I have no idea what my upper limit mash temperature ability might be - although it would depend on the mash size / composition, I'm sure it's considerably less than 212°F.