Decoction mashing

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Brewedout

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I want to find out how to do decoction mashing can someone point me in the right direction for some good information?
 
decoction is when you would pull about a third of your mash wort from tun then heat it up then rest it and heat it up higher then return it to mash , this is no longer needed (im told) as the grain we have today is modified and a decoction is no longer needed , i have tried this and it doesn't seem to make any improvement , maybe others will have more info as ive only brewed wheat beers :cheers:
 
pittsy said:
decoction is when you would pull about a third of your mash wort from tun then heat it up then rest it and heat it up higher then return it to mash , this is no longer needed (im told) as the grain we have today is modified and a decoction is no longer needed , i have tried this and it doesn't seem to make any improvement , maybe others will have more info as ive only brewed wheat beers :cheers:

I hope your right, :thumb: as this will make life easier!
 
Modern day malts are well modified so you dont need to do decoctions in order to get full conversion. BUT another reason to do a decoction is because of the caramalisation you get when boiling the decoction.

I've only done one brew with a decoction - a dunkelweiss which was a double decoction. I cant remember what temp rests I used. All I can remember is that it took ages, but was bloody good fun! I'd recomend anyone gives it a go at least once.
 
Brewedout said:
pittsy said:
decoction is when you would pull about a third of your mash wort from tun then heat it up then rest it and heat it up higher then return it to mash , this is no longer needed (im told) as the grain we have today is modified and a decoction is no longer needed , i have tried this and it doesn't seem to make any improvement , maybe others will have more info as ive only brewed wheat beers :cheers:

I hope your right, :thumb: as this will make life easier!
Pittsy is NOT right!!! You pull about a third of the GRAIN from the tun and then heat that up through the decoction steps temps before heating to boiling and then returning it to the main mash.

The reason you use a thick decoction (The grain) rather than a thin decoction ( the wort), is because the enzymes are in the wort (liquid) and you don't destroy the enzymes by boiling them!!

While a decoction mash is not essential as most malts are fully modified, it does add certain melanoidins to the final wort.
 
mark1964 said:
Thats one of the reasons why were upgrading to a herms system. Decoction mashing for our pilsners etc :thumb:

HERMS is NOT the same as decoction mashing! while both HERMS and decoction mashes are Stepped Temperature processes, the HERMS process misses out the Boiling stage of the decoction process, which is where the melanoidins are formed, and trapped starch is released.

There is a very good description of decoction mashing here and Infusion and HERMS is discussed later in the thread.
 
Sparge Pervert said:
Another reason to do a decoction is because of the caramalisation you get when boiling the decoction.
If you get caramelisation then you are doing something wrong ;) what you really want to get happening is the formation of Melanoidins, which is similar to caramelisation, but different.
 
Brewedout said:
I want to find out how to do decoction mashing can someone point me in the right direction for some good information?
Here You Go The BrauKaiser link that Bru posted is pretty good as well.
 
I've done several decoctions and they are a indeed a pain. I used Kai's instructions and he is a frequent poster on one of my local forums so there were plenty of forum threads on it as well. I found that it took a bit more than 1/3 of the thick mash to get the remainder of the mash up to the next rest temp. The second decoction brew I did, I pulled about 40% and that worked better.

I did these simply because I wanted to try decoction. I haven't done a side by side with the same beer (one decocted and one not) to say if it makes a difference. But it was fun to try. I don't really feel the need to do any more though. :)

Baz
 
fair enough sorry for misinformation guys i thought thick decoction was the wort i see where i was going wrong on this (that would explain why i didn't notice a difference ) i may try this again in that case pulling some grain from the mash tun , :oops: :shock:
 
Aleman said:
Sparge Pervert said:
Another reason to do a decoction is because of the caramalisation you get when boiling the decoction.
If you get caramelisation then you are doing something wrong ;) what you really want to get happening is the formation of Melanoidins, which is similar to caramelisation, but different.

:wha:

Hang on whilst I google melanoidins...
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:thumb:

That makes sense, but wont there be a bit of caramalisation as well though?
 
He does it American way - for me it's too thick, I usually draw much thinner decoct mash. This way, you don't need to stir it all the time after the rest at 72*c, there's much less danger of scorching. It's gonna be boiled for at least 15 minutes after all.
 
Thanks for everyone's input on this, quite a comprehensive reply! I think it may take a while to read through all of this information :ugeek:

I suspect that I will have a few more questions yet...
 
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