Weird mash schedule- would this work

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carter840

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So I brewed a beer a belgian quad about a year ago after reading brew like a monk. The beer turned out great although it was a bit too sweet, I'm going for a little drier finish this time. Anyway I look up my old recipe and can't make any sense of my mash schedule

It's about 15lbs of grain and the schedule is as follows:
Protein Rest: 135F for 15 mins
Saccharification: 145 for 15 mins
Mash out: 165 for 60 mins

Historically I have mashed at around 153 or so. 1st of all is it possible that the above schedule would produce decent efficiency. Perhaps it's why the first batch was a little too malty.

How does keeping the mash schedule the same but changing the mash out temp to 162 for 60 mins sound?

Would love some feedback on this.
Thanks
 
The 145 temperature mash should be greatly increased, and the 165 (mashout) greatly reduced. I think you have the times backwards there.

Do your protein rest at 131-133 generally, and make it very short or else the head retention will be destroyed. Do the saccrification rest until conversion- it may be longer than 60 minutes at 145. I'd go with 147/148 for 90 minutes. Then you can go to mashout at 165.
 
The 145 temperature mash should be greatly increased, and the 165 (mashout) greatly reduced. I think you have the times backwards there.

Do your protein rest at 131-133 generally, and make it very short or else the head retention will be destroyed. Do the saccrification rest until conversion- it may be longer than 60 minutes at 145. I'd go with 147/148 for 90 minutes. Then you can go to mashout at 165.

I completely hear you, but the thing is unless I just didn't follow the recipe I had in beer smith I did brew this beer using this schedule and it turned out wonderful.
 
I completely hear you, but the thing is unless I just didn't follow the recipe I had in beer smith I did brew this beer using this schedule and it turned out wonderful.

Oh, I thought you said it was too sweet. If you don't want it to attenuate more, then it should be fine. You may or may not have conversion in 15 minutes, though, at 145 (probably not) but if it takes a long time to raise up to mash out temps (longer than 15 minutes), you can repeat the same beer.
 
The thing is with that mash schedule you will end up with a relatively sweet beer and you said you want to dry it out. How do you raise your mash temperature? If you are using a HERMS/RIMS it would explain why that worked decently....you we raising the temp over an hour to 165, however if you added hot water and went straight to 165 then you would not have a very fermentable wort and the resulting beer would be pretty sweet.

My saisons, trippels, etc I mash at 145 for 75 mins then raise to 158 for 20 mins, then to mashout. This allows me to get a dry beer. The lower the mash temp the longer you need to complete conversion and 15 mins at 145 is just not long enough. At that low of a temp even 60 mins is possibly not long enough.
 
I use decoction mashing, so yes it probably did take me about 25 mins to raise the temp.

The beer was a little too sweet, but honestly amazing. I am not looking to change it dramatically.
 
I use decoction mashing, so yes it probably did take me about 25 mins to raise the temp.

The beer was a little too sweet, but honestly amazing. I am not looking to change it dramatically.

Well, if it was too sweet, mashing longer at 145 (but I"d go with 147/148) should fix it totally.

You don't need 60 minutes at 165, though. I mean, it won't hurt, but it's wasting 45 minutes of your time. Once you mash out, the enzymes are denatured and letting it sit for an hour isn't necessary at all.
 
Well, if it was too sweet, mashing longer at 145 (but I"d go with 147/148) should fix it totally.

You don't need 60 minutes at 165, though. I mean, it won't hurt, but it's wasting 45 minutes of your time. Once you mash out, the enzymes are denatured and letting it sit for an hour isn't necessary at all.


Got it this is helpful info. The only thing I'm confused about is that at 165 am I not still converting starches to sugars? Can someone explain exactly what the mash out process accomplishes- I think I need a refresher.
 
Got it this is helpful info. The only thing I'm confused about is that at 165 am I not still converting starches to sugars? Can someone explain exactly what the mash out process accomplishes- I think I need a refresher.

No, at 165 you are above the temperature when the enzymes are denatured. No starch conversion will happen there. The enzymes necessary for the starch to sugar conversion will be destroyed by the high temperature.

Mashing out, holding at 165-168, simply denatures the enzymes and halts further enzymatic action.
 
Why did it take 25 minutes to raise the main mash from the beta temp to 165F if a decoction was used? Wasn't a large enough volume pulled for the decoction? If the main mash was resting at 145F for 15 minutes and then if it took 25 minutes to bring the decoction to boiling, wouldn't the beta rest of the main mash be 40 minutes long? I'm lost on the process that was used.

Usually, the mash out process requires that most of the mash liquid is removed and boiled for a short time, before it is added back into the main mash. Mash liquid is removed after conversion, or it can be removed before final conversion to control alpha enzymatic action, as a few brewers mentioned. If mash liquid was used as the decoction and if the liquid was removed at 145F and brought to a boil, a good chunk of enzymes were denatured.

Alpha enzyme is comprised of two components, Alpha-I and Alpha-II. Both have different optimum temperatures. Alpha-I optimum temp is 158F at a certain mash pH and Alpha-II optimum is 155F, again, if the pH band is optimum for the enzyme. Thermal denaturing of Alpha-I starts to crank up at 162F. If mash is doughed in with an infusion at 2.5:1, hot enough to rapidly raise a cold mash to 165F, Alpha will survive for about 30 minutes, longer with a thicker mash. There's actually a formula to figure out the percentage of enzymes remaining active at different temps resting for various lengths of time. The thing with alpha and temperature is that alpha is active during low temps. The time from when the enzyme becomes active has to be considered into the formula.

Here's the problem with high temp mashing for 60 minutes. The wort produced will not have what it takes for yeast to reproduce. Fermentation will be shortened. Excess starch carry over occurs. The final product will be low alcohol. High temp mashing can be used to make NA beer, along with a few twists and turns.
 
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