Why Step Mash for a Dry Stout?

[KISS Brew]

In Brewing Classic Styles, Jamil recommends in his dry stout recipe to mash at 120F for 15 minutes before mashing at 150F for 60 minutes.

Why include the mash at 120F? I thought this was ingredient related, but the only malts in the recipe are British pale ale malt, flaked barley, and roasted barley.

When I end up brewing this, I'll probably follow the recipe anyway, but how much would one expect this extra step to affect the beer?

 

[DSmith]

I made that one and skipped the protien rest, turned out to be a good stout. Note the comment in the book about using a coffee grinder on the roasted barley. I drained my mash tun through a very fine boil bag into the kettle and collected a lot more fine sediment than any other brew, even with a good vorlauf.

 

[BigEd]

In Brewing Classic Styles, Jamil recommends in his dry stout recipe to mash at 120F for 15 minutes before mashing at 150F for 60 minutes.

Why include the mash at 120F? I thought this was ingredient related, but the only malts in the recipe are British pale ale malt, flaked barley, and roasted barley.

When I end up brewing this, I'll probably follow the recipe anyway, but how much would one expect this extra step to affect the beer?

There is no good reason to do that.

 

[KISS Brew]

There is no good reason to do that.

I'm leaning this way, but I always have a tough time contradicting Jamil

 

[pjj2ba]

A 20 min. rest at 120 helps to reduce the amount of body promoting proteins so the final product has a nice light dry finish and isn't as full bodied as other stout styles

 

[MC1]

I could be talking out of my butt, but aren't Euro/Brit malts less modified compared to American, meaning they need a protein rest to reduce the body?

 

[KISS Brew]

A 20 min. rest at 120 helps to reduce the amount of body promoting proteins so the final product has a nice light dry finish and isn't as full bodied as other stout styles

This is the kind of answer I was hoping for, thanks.

Can you point me toward any references for this?

 

[DSmith]

This is the kind of answer I was hoping for, thanks.

Can you point me toward any references for this?

A google search for "protein rest homebrewtalk".

 

[TimT]

It would likely decrease the flaked barley's beta glucans (they have lots). Which will thin it out as well. I am assuming the recipe has flaked barley as a quick google suggests.

 

[BigEd]

I'm leaning this way, but I always have a tough time contradicting Jamil

You know the old saying, "Don't believe everything you read"? It applies here too. Considering that stout recipe multi-step mash advice comes from some of the same crew that tells you not to do decoction steps with Continental lager beers should immediately raise a flag or at least an eyebrow. Why would you want to thin the body of an Irish stout when one of the main ingredients (flaked barley) is there to do just the opposite? No modern malts require a mash temp at that temperature and certainly the pale malt used for a stout is no exception.

There are precious few how-to books on any topic that do not contain contradictory, obsolete, incomplete, poorly edited or somehow otherwise wrong information. It isn't necessarily deliberate, it just happens.

Anyways, my advice, which you are free to ignore, is to do a single infusion for your stout. I like 153F/67C.

 

[KISS Brew]

Anyways, my advice, which you are free to ignore, is to do a single infusion for your stout. I like 153F/67C.

I'll probably go with this advice for simplicity. Thanks for your help!

 

[Brew_master86]

Personal Experience, Stout tastes better without protein rest. Brewed with a gut instinct and skipped the rest, turned out to be an excellent stout and most poured on the opening day of the brew pub. Brewed recently again and forgot to skip the step ..Not as great and somehow I have noticed the colour is much brownier than darker.

 

[mabrungard]

Dry stout recipes typically include a substantial percentage of raw or flaked barley in the grist. The low temperature rest is to help break down the large quantity of beta glucan in the wort. An important component that this rest provides is a reduction in the amount of body and foaming that will arise because of it. It can also improve clarity, but who is worrying much about that in a stout?

If you like really chewy beers and a glass full of foam, skip the low temp rest when you have a large percentage of barley. It will still produce a tasty beer.

 

[crawkraut]

You know the old saying, "Don't believe everything you read"? It applies here too. Considering that stout recipe multi-step mash advice comes from some of the same crew that tells you not to do decoction steps with Continental lager beers should immediately raise a flag or at least an eyebrow. Why would you want to thin the body of an Irish stout when one of the main ingredients (flaked barley) is there to do just the opposite? No modern malts require a mash temp at that temperature and certainly the pale malt used for a stout is no exception.

There are precious few how-to books on any topic that do not contain contradictory, obsolete, incomplete, poorly edited or somehow otherwise wrong information. It isn't necessarily deliberate, it just happens.

Anyways, my advice, which you are free to ignore, is to do a single infusion for your stout. I like 153F/67C.

+1 on single infusion (1 year later).

Note - In Jamils interview with the Deschutes brewer on their Obsidiant stout, as they talk about single infusion, never once do they mention anything about protein rest or 120 or etc. (so maybe it's just a classic recipe and stout process - stout afterall is a special brew so why not do something special why brewing it...)

 

[ArcLight]

>>You know the old saying, "Don't believe everything you read"?

Consider who published that recipe - Jamil Zainashef is a multiple Ninkasi award winner and probably has quite a bot of experience home brewing - so he probably experimented with that recipe quite a lot before using it (assuming it was one of his submissions).

Feel free to change it, but consider that he probably had a reason for why he included rests and usede (or didn't use) certain grains. He probably has more brewing experience than most of us here, and I wouldn't be so quick to discount (or mock) his directions.

 

[EarlyAmateurZymurgist]

No modern malts require a mash temp at that temperature and certainly the pale malt used for a stout is no exception.
[snip]

Anyways, my advice, which you are free to ignore, is to do a single infusion for your stout. I like 153F/67C.

+10,000

All modern malted barley is highly modified. My base malt of choice is pils malt. I reached a point where I used pils malt as the base malt for everything, even ESBs. Ninety-nine percent of the batches that I made before taking an extended leave of absence from amateur brewing were single-infusion mashes (most often @ 67C/152F). The only time that I did not perform an infusion mash was when I performed a decoction mash. My Dortmunder/Export recipe doesn't taste the same without with going through a decoction.