I just gave it a crack and failed so badly, will definitely give it a go again one day, but maybe I should learn to step mash first as I'm still a beginner. Great video!!!
Excellent! BTW to eliminate the stress of possibly scorching, I use an induction plate. To burn the grain, one must really REALLY try with this heater. It is so reliable that I do not even stir, which makes the brew day not as stressful and tiring. Cheers, Steve, awesome content as always.
@@Pingwinho I honestly put on sear and once the mash starts boiling I adjust to lower setting to only maintain the boil. The reason it does not burn is because the whole bottom of the pot is heated, whereas the electric or gas heats "spots" of the bottom. Use a double thick bottom pot and you will never burn the grain.... or at least you have to try very hard to do so.
Every homebrewer should try a decoction mash at least once! The first one I did was the most delicious Oktoberfest lager I ever made. I still dream of this beer to this day, it was THAT good! Haven't done one in forever, maybe I'll wait until my homebrew anniversary this year. cheers mate!
Your one of my favourite brew channels. Been watching for years. I sometimes am on and off with the hobby myself but your videos are always helpful and informative. Easy to watch.
I recently did a decoction mash after watching another of your videos where you did one and the flavor of the resulting beer was excellent. Thank you for outlining the process in detail.
Love your video as usual and agree with everything you said in particular how it puts you in touch with the past, the feeling of brewing as well as the smells and texture changes with each step. I decoct at least 50% of my brews including most lagers and wheat beers. Something I read was that in the past was that decoction mashing was also necessary as they used smaller copper kettles to directly heat the mash and larger wooden tuns for the main mash. These smaller copper kettles were very expensive compared to the much larger wooden mash tuns that could not be directly heated. Keep up the great work!
"Impressing people who think they're important"🤣. Yep, there's a few of them around. Fortunately not too many in homebrewing circles. I did a decoction once for a Pilsner Urquell clone. It was gorgeously malty, toffeeish and moreish. I should revisit it again one day when I can be bothered.
I have been planning to brew a Czech Dark for awhile and waiting for this video to drop for the recipe and "tips and tricks". Great video and now more excited to get brewing! Now to buy the ingredients and get the brew date scheduled. Thanks.
Thanks for this. I’ve been reading the brew bibles and watching other videos on YT, but yours is the most straightforward tutorial I’ve found so far. Getting ready to get my feet wet with a witbier recipe that calls for a single decoction. I’m still using an Igloo cooler as my mash tun, so I was like, “How do I get from from the first rest to the next?” I know some brewers build a heat stick for this, but that seemed a bit too much for me. Seeing the steps done gives me the brass to give it a go. Salúd!
Ahhh you almost got me mentioning the pH factor of tannin extraction, snuck it in there later in the video. Glad you got it in there, that's the bit that at least puts me at ease knowing a thick enough decoction won't make an astringent mess. Also thanks for the video, this is one of those things that you can't really explain very well without just showing someone the process. How much you stir and how dark you expect it to get are something you kinda have to feel and it's very different depending on setup. Seeing it on video is a great start to know you're in the ballpark when you try it yourself!
With some smooth jazz on the background as I write this. Well, I went and did it. Three brews back-to-back-to-back and while I didn't quite hit my targets for OG or FG, it was still a lot of fun and a lot of work. I woke up, brewed the beers and went to bed pretty much as soon as clean up was done :D The beers I made are Belgian Abbey Ale, Irish Red Ale and a Smoke beer (first time using this kind of malt and ended being way too careful with it, no smokiness detected). It was good experience and now that I have that experience, I know that I'll limit myself for 2 beer next time.
I routinely do a variation on this, a quasi-decoction step-mash. I mash BIAB in an Igloo cooler, starting in the mid-140s (~145) and boil some water separately on the stove. After about 15-20 minutes, I drain a small percentage of my mash liquid [no grain!] through the tap, into a small pot of already boiling water, return that combined [small] volume to the stove until it reaches boiling again, and then return it back into the Igloo, thereby raising the mash up to about 149F. Repeat every 10-15 [-20] minutes until I've step-mashed it up to about 160F. So it hardly ever really boils, thus not a true decoction (but I just don't want to work that hard). I guess what I do is only a semi-quasi-decoction? It does give me highly fermentable worts (I like all my beers to finish fairly dry or with low FG) and more malty. So it's less work than true decoction, but more than if I did just single-infusion. It's a reasonable tradeoff for me. Love the efficiency, love the melanoidins, love the FG. (Love the higher ABV!)
When I made my last Czech lager I did the full triple decoction but I never adjusted my efficiency to account for the decoction bump. My OG was supposed to be 1.055 and it ended up being 1.069! I diluted 5 gallons to what I wanted and then took the excess and diluted it to 1.032 to make a leichtbier and they both turned out great!
if you have an overefficient mash due to these decoction steps why not just add clean water post boil? more beer and then closer to OG you wanted right ?
You wouldn't want to do that until the end of the mash if you did it that way, but the real issue would be you would start to extract tannins that way with the different grist to liquor ratio affecting the pH and the slow speed at which you would pass through to a boil.
Great video. This is a better video then your first one. I did a decoction a few months ago using your first video. I really enjoy doing the decoction mash on beers. It definitely lets me feel more involved in brewing a beer and not just steeping a giant batch of tea.
@@TheApartmentBrewer I agree. Its also not as complicated as most think it is. For me once I did it I was shocked that it only added a little time to my brew day, but I feel the flavor I got from it was well worth it.
Yeah, I have a question, Steve. Why do you hate yourself so much that you would do a decoction? 😂 Great video, though! It might be a placebo, but I too am convinced that decoction really does improve my pilsners. That being said, I tend to just live with the results of step mashing and longer boils, like you pointed out. Also, Notch is freaking awesome! They’re a must stop for me when I visit Boston.
Hahaha its not that punishing! It really is quite the process but soon I'll be trying it out with a Czech Pils! Notch has some of the best lagers in the Northeast!
When you do the decoctions, do you only use the base malt portion of the grist, or are the specialty grains included also? Are there any specialty grains to NOT add when doing a decoction?
With the increase in efficiency, is there a reason this isn’t standard for imperials or other types of beer where efficiency seems to drop drastically due to high amounts of adjuncts?
What do you recommend for an initial mash thickness when starting out a decoction mash? I typically do a 1.3 quarts / lb of grains. Would you recommend closer to a 1 or 1.2 quarts / lb?
100degC is a bit low for optimum Mallaird Reactions to take place. Typically Mallaird reactions are suited in the temperature range 140-165 degC. You will get some reactivity at 100 degC but it will be minimal. Other reactions not related to the Malliard process are taking place Are you sure you’re not using the elements or heating surface at the base of your kettle (if you’re using propane) to reach elevated temperatures above 100 degC that semi-scorch your decoction giving you the colour and caramalisation effect! (Heating element surfaces can reach temperatures above 220 degC at full power)
100C is boiling temp, but the grain in direct contact with the heated portion of the kettle exceeds that, otherwise scorching would never happen. Maltose caramelization happens around 180 so that's not happening either if you're going to get stuck on the boiling temp. Both are likely to happen depending on the heating rate, but maillard will objectively occur first.
I imagine these maillard reactions happen at a much slower rate at lower temps as well considering the boil is going on for 15-30 minutes. But I wouldn't be surprised if the surface temp of the bottom of the kettle with the flame on it is well above 100 C. The problem with immersed electric elements is that you can't easily get the grain off the extremely hot parts and that will lead to scorching/burning very fast
so, the risk of heating your mash above 168 degrees is you pull out tannins.... so if you take some of the mash (and I assume grains) and boil them.... how are you not getting those tannins that make for an astringent beer?
If you're asking if you can do a single decoction between a one hour mash and the boil, the answer is yes, but I wouldn't use the entire grain bill as a decoction.
Hi Steve, I once set my Brewzilla up to go from Mashout to a boil and then went out. I got back later than I planned and my mash had just started to boil. It was the best lager I’ve made. Do you think the boiling of the grains had anything to do with it?
Wow, thats very interesting. I would be hesitant to pin that as the reason since it only just started to boil. I would be concerned about tannin extraction if it was the entire mash that was boiling
I have tried everything I can think of to cheat and get that melanoiden flavor while avoiding a decoction mash and nothing works. Melanoiden malt gives it -- for lack of a better way to describe it -- 'sour milk' vibe that ruins it for me. I do BIAB and haven't made the additional equipment purchase needed to do a proper decoction. Anyone else have any luck avoiding a decoction?
I just gave it a crack and failed so badly, will definitely give it a go again one day, but maybe I should learn to step mash first as I'm still a beginner. Great video!!!
Keep at it and you'll get the hang of it!
Best homebrew channel. No BS
I appreciate that!
Excellent! BTW to eliminate the stress of possibly scorching, I use an induction plate. To burn the grain, one must really REALLY try with this heater. It is so reliable that I do not even stir, which makes the brew day not as stressful and tiring. Cheers, Steve, awesome content as always.
So you're just using a lower power output? Because induction has nothing to do with scorching.
Would a false bottom work?
@@Pingwinho I honestly put on sear and once the mash starts boiling I adjust to lower setting to only maintain the boil. The reason it does not burn is because the whole bottom of the pot is heated, whereas the electric or gas heats "spots" of the bottom. Use a double thick bottom pot and you will never burn the grain.... or at least you have to try very hard to do so.
@@anthonysamuel4790 a fellow homebrewer here uses induction heating for mashing, and yes, it works great because of the responsiveness.
That's a great idea!
Never brewed a decoction beer, nor really wanted to but you bring up some good points so maybe some day I will revisit this and give it a go!
I still stand by that it is worth doing at least once!
Every homebrewer should try a decoction mash at least once! The first one I did was the most delicious Oktoberfest lager I ever made. I still dream of this beer to this day, it was THAT good! Haven't done one in forever, maybe I'll wait until my homebrew anniversary this year. cheers mate!
Agreed! It makes a profound impact on the beer!
Your one of my favourite brew channels. Been watching for years. I sometimes am on and off with the hobby myself but your videos are always helpful and informative. Easy to watch.
That is awesome! Thank you!
I recently did a decoction mash after watching another of your videos where you did one and the flavor of the resulting beer was excellent. Thank you for outlining the process in detail.
That is awesome! Glad it worked out so great for you!
Love your video as usual and agree with everything you said in particular how it puts you in touch with the past, the feeling of brewing as well as the smells and texture changes with each step.
I decoct at least 50% of my brews including most lagers and wheat beers.
Something I read was that in the past was that decoction mashing was also necessary as they used smaller copper kettles to directly heat the mash and larger wooden tuns for the main mash. These smaller copper kettles were very expensive compared to the much larger wooden mash tuns that could not be directly heated.
Keep up the great work!
Thats true! It really does change the way you connect with the beer.
I’ve done it once, and really enjoyed the process! The only reason I don’t do it more often is it takes a whole lot of time, cheers, Steve !
Its a lot of work for sure, but worth it in different ways. Cheers!
I am going to make a Czech Amber. And, now I guess I will be doing a decoction mash. Thanks Steve!
Sounds like you're well on your way to enjoying some amazing beer!
"Impressing people who think they're important"🤣. Yep, there's a few of them around. Fortunately not too many in homebrewing circles. I did a decoction once for a Pilsner Urquell clone. It was gorgeously malty, toffeeish and moreish. I should revisit it again one day when I can be bothered.
Pilsner Urquell is very famously triple decoction mashed and its a huge part of its flavor! It is an amazing thing!
@@TheApartmentBrewer indeed!
I have been planning to brew a Czech Dark for awhile and waiting for this video to drop for the recipe and "tips and tricks". Great video and now more excited to get brewing! Now to buy the ingredients and get the brew date scheduled. Thanks.
Best of luck!
Thanks for this. I’ve been reading the brew bibles and watching other videos on YT, but yours is the most straightforward tutorial I’ve found so far. Getting ready to get my feet wet with a witbier recipe that calls for a single decoction. I’m still using an Igloo cooler as my mash tun, so I was like, “How do I get from from the first rest to the next?” I know some brewers build a heat stick for this, but that seemed a bit too much for me. Seeing the steps done gives me the brass to give it a go.
Salúd!
Glad it is so helpful, thats the goal! Best of luck with the decoction, it is a decent amount of work but well worth it.
Ahhh you almost got me mentioning the pH factor of tannin extraction, snuck it in there later in the video. Glad you got it in there, that's the bit that at least puts me at ease knowing a thick enough decoction won't make an astringent mess. Also thanks for the video, this is one of those things that you can't really explain very well without just showing someone the process. How much you stir and how dark you expect it to get are something you kinda have to feel and it's very different depending on setup. Seeing it on video is a great start to know you're in the ballpark when you try it yourself!
Yup, its one of those things that doesn't quite logically make sense, but clearly is observable in reality. Glad this was so helpful!
Notch is a top 3 brewery ever for me. Though many of their beers are world class, their 12 Plato Standard is one of my favorite beers I've ever tried.
Fully agreed!
never thought I'd hear Maillard reaction in a beer brewing vid... but then again... why wouldn't I? great vid as usual
It's a huge part of getting great malt flavor!
With some smooth jazz on the background as I write this. Well, I went and did it. Three brews back-to-back-to-back and while I didn't quite hit my targets for OG or FG, it was still a lot of fun and a lot of work. I woke up, brewed the beers and went to bed pretty much as soon as clean up was done :D The beers I made are Belgian Abbey Ale, Irish Red Ale and a Smoke beer (first time using this kind of malt and ended being way too careful with it, no smokiness detected). It was good experience and now that I have that experience, I know that I'll limit myself for 2 beer next time.
Sounds like an exhausting but productive weekend, well done!
Im going to give it a go my next brew day. I have always wanted to try it.
Its well worth trying, I wish you the best of luck!
Standard handheld colander is amazing for decoction since you'll leave most of your liquid wort behind.
I just bought some melanoidin malt to try for the first time. Maybe I will try a decoction mash later on to see the difference. Cheers!
It's worth a shot!
I routinely do a variation on this, a quasi-decoction step-mash. I mash BIAB in an Igloo cooler, starting in the mid-140s (~145) and boil some water separately on the stove. After about 15-20 minutes, I drain a small percentage of my mash liquid [no grain!] through the tap, into a small pot of already boiling water, return that combined [small] volume to the stove until it reaches boiling again, and then return it back into the Igloo, thereby raising the mash up to about 149F. Repeat every 10-15 [-20] minutes until I've step-mashed it up to about 160F. So it hardly ever really boils, thus not a true decoction (but I just don't want to work that hard).
I guess what I do is only a semi-quasi-decoction? It does give me highly fermentable worts (I like all my beers to finish fairly dry or with low FG) and more malty. So it's less work than true decoction, but more than if I did just single-infusion. It's a reasonable tradeoff for me. Love the efficiency, love the melanoidins, love the FG. (Love the higher ABV!)
Sounds very interesting and thank you for sharing!
I'm giving this a shot next time I'm brewing my dark saison 😏
Great idea!
Excited for the brew day vid next
I have a single decocted dunkles bock + single decocted helles lagering now
Very nice! Yeah the brew day video will come out in a few weeks
Great video as usual. On my brewing bucket list to do...
Go for it!
Can't wait to see the tasting video
That will be a few weeks in the future but coming off the fermenter its tasting awesome
Definitely keen to give this a shot! I am a glutton for punishment 😂 Cheers for the video Mr Apartment B!
Haha sounds right up your alley!
Great educational video! Decoction is now on my brew list! Thank you for the great content, you're awesome!
I'm glad you enjoy the channel so much! This process is absolutely worth trying at least once!
When I made my last Czech lager I did the full triple decoction but I never adjusted my efficiency to account for the decoction bump. My OG was supposed to be 1.055 and it ended up being 1.069! I diluted 5 gallons to what I wanted and then took the excess and diluted it to 1.032 to make a leichtbier and they both turned out great!
It definitely bumps things up a lot!
Enjoyed the video. I love and hate it. Lol. But it adds what I call love to the beer.
That is why I still do it. Its time and effort invested directly into the beer and that still makes it taste different to me haha
Thank you, I’ll give it a go.
Best of luck and enjoy!
Awesome, tons of knowledge as usual!!!!
😎👍🏻👍🏻🍺🍺🍺🍺
Glad you enjoyed it! Cheers!
Very enjoyable vid man, thx.
Another great vid.
Great video
if you have an overefficient mash due to these decoction steps why not just add clean water post boil? more beer and then closer to OG you wanted right ?
Thats an approach of course, but then you may exceed target volumes.
I got two lagers coming up.And I'm planning on doing decoction for both.
Excellent, best of luck!
Hi, maybe a stupid question: why not boil the hole mash In one time? Thanx for your channel! Realy like it.
You wouldn't want to do that until the end of the mash if you did it that way, but the real issue would be you would start to extract tannins that way with the different grist to liquor ratio affecting the pH and the slow speed at which you would pass through to a boil.
I find that a tripple decoction adds Carmel flavors and gives my beer better head retention!
Triple decoction is quite an undertaking but it definitely adds flavor. I've seen a lot of claims that it helps with head retention as well.
Great video. This is a better video then your first one. I did a decoction a few months ago using your first video. I really enjoy doing the decoction mash on beers. It definitely lets me feel more involved in brewing a beer and not just steeping a giant batch of tea.
Yeah I really needed an updated tutorial on it. It is a very special process!
@@TheApartmentBrewer I agree. Its also not as complicated as most think it is. For me once I did it I was shocked that it only added a little time to my brew day, but I feel the flavor I got from it was well worth it.
Yeah, I have a question, Steve. Why do you hate yourself so much that you would do a decoction? 😂
Great video, though! It might be a placebo, but I too am convinced that decoction really does improve my pilsners. That being said, I tend to just live with the results of step mashing and longer boils, like you pointed out.
Also, Notch is freaking awesome! They’re a must stop for me when I visit Boston.
Hahaha its not that punishing! It really is quite the process but soon I'll be trying it out with a Czech Pils! Notch has some of the best lagers in the Northeast!
When you do the decoctions, do you only use the base malt portion of the grist, or are the specialty grains included also? Are there any specialty grains to NOT add when doing a decoction?
You can, but you shouldn't have any issues decoction mashing anything except for very dark crystal malts and roasted malts.
Great explanation as always! What are your thoughts about a decoction mash for a Vienna lager?
Do it
Also thought you were making Czech dark / Tmave. No carafa in the mash? Did you cap it at the sparge?
Traditionally for dark lagers the carafa is added at the mashout or sparge, it will be harsh if it goes through the decoction.
With the increase in efficiency, is there a reason this isn’t standard for imperials or other types of beer where efficiency seems to drop drastically due to high amounts of adjuncts?
Great question! I knows it's been done for imperial stouts, Belgians and Baltic porters but I couldn't see it doing well in imperial IPAs
Very good video. Too much potential mess for me, I will never try that 🤣
I suppose that is a risk haha but you should give it go sometime at least once!
What do you recommend for an initial mash thickness when starting out a decoction mash? I typically do a 1.3 quarts / lb of grains. Would you recommend closer to a 1 or 1.2 quarts / lb?
Usually decoction mashes start out way thinner, around 2 qt/lb or even thinner. The decoction itself will still be quite thick, closer to 1 qt/lb
100degC is a bit low for optimum Mallaird Reactions to take place.
Typically Mallaird reactions are suited in the temperature range 140-165 degC.
You will get some reactivity at 100 degC but it will be minimal. Other reactions not related to the Malliard process are taking place
Are you sure you’re not using the elements or heating surface at the base of your kettle (if you’re using propane) to reach elevated temperatures above 100 degC that semi-scorch your decoction giving you the colour and caramalisation effect!
(Heating element surfaces can reach temperatures above 220 degC at full power)
100C is boiling temp, but the grain in direct contact with the heated portion of the kettle exceeds that, otherwise scorching would never happen. Maltose caramelization happens around 180 so that's not happening either if you're going to get stuck on the boiling temp. Both are likely to happen depending on the heating rate, but maillard will objectively occur first.
I imagine these maillard reactions happen at a much slower rate at lower temps as well considering the boil is going on for 15-30 minutes. But I wouldn't be surprised if the surface temp of the bottom of the kettle with the flame on it is well above 100 C. The problem with immersed electric elements is that you can't easily get the grain off the extremely hot parts and that will lead to scorching/burning very fast
so, the risk of heating your mash above 168 degrees is you pull out tannins.... so if you take some of the mash (and I assume grains) and boil them.... how are you not getting those tannins that make for an astringent beer?
14:03 explains it
Is decoction mash a bad idea in a Belgian triple instead of adding melanoidin or aromatic malt? What about Belgian dubbel/quad?
Not at all, it will definitely broaden the character of any strong Belgian style beer.
Ja fiz mil vezes .obrigado... cerveja farol
Stick around and find out in a few weeks! Samples coming off the fermenter are awesome
Question: I pull the grain after the one hour mash to boil?
If you're asking if you can do a single decoction between a one hour mash and the boil, the answer is yes, but I wouldn't use the entire grain bill as a decoction.
But but but.. How was the beer?
Stay tuned to find out in a few weeks! Samples coming off the fermenter taste awesome
Hi Steve,
I once set my Brewzilla up to go from Mashout to a boil and then went out. I got back later than I planned and my mash had just started to boil.
It was the best lager I’ve made. Do you think the boiling of the grains had anything to do with it?
Wow, thats very interesting. I would be hesitant to pin that as the reason since it only just started to boil. I would be concerned about tannin extraction if it was the entire mash that was boiling
I have tried everything I can think of to cheat and get that melanoiden flavor while avoiding a decoction mash and nothing works. Melanoiden malt gives it -- for lack of a better way to describe it -- 'sour milk' vibe that ruins it for me. I do BIAB and haven't made the additional equipment purchase needed to do a proper decoction. Anyone else have any luck avoiding a decoction?
Having made it further along in the video now -- I supposed i should try the melanoiden malt with a 90m boil... maybe that'll make a difference. Hmm.
That may actually be indicative of using too much melanoidin malt. Maybe try less and see if that makes a difference?
Interesting idea I honestly should have considered hah. I used 1 lb or 5.3% of the grist in a dopplebock. Thanks for the idea, ill do more research. 😊
Finally I can tell my girlfriend that its not a waste of space for me to have 2 propane burns and 2 kettles lol
There we go!
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