Mash

Improving Efficiency

Podcast: Improving Brewhouse Efficiency by Adjusting Mash Thickness and Lauter and Sparge Volumes "Our friends from Saint Arnold Brewing Company in Houston describe how they reduced lauter times, decreased their grain bills by 5%, and increased average brewhouse efficiency from 89.3% to 95.5%." [1]

Temps

Usually we mash in at about 60-63 C. We can start as low as we need for different mashes though. For stuff with raw wheat, flaked ingredients, oats etc. we may start at 55C and hold for 15-30 minutes for a protein rest. For most beers, we deal with:

63 “simple sugar” rest. Up to 1 hour to get as much mono and disaccharide as possible in the wort.
68 theoretically fastest time to conversion. Balances alpha and beta amylase timing. For us, this rest is 30 min max.
73 saccharification rest convert anything remaining to fermentables, 15- 25 minutes or until iodine check.
78 mash out, destroys enzymes.

Use these points as levers to adjust your FG. If you want dry, you stay lower (63-68) for longer. If you want some more residual sugar, you go to the higher end (73) quicker so you don’t get as much simple sugars. Our water to malt ratio is from 2.75:1- 4:1 depending on the recipe. This will also affect how quickly you convert your sugars. Thicker mash goes slower than thinner.

Mash in at 62-65 depending on the current gelatinization temperature Rest for 45 minutes. Step up to 72. Rest for 15 minutes. Step up to 76 because I want to keep some residual enzymes active to take care of residual starch but still reduce viscosity and then pump over to lauter tun.

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Steps

Protein Rest: If the malt has too much protein or not enough FAN, I'll throw in a protein rest. If the beta glucans are too high, I'll mash in at 40 and rest there for 20 minutes.

Wayfinder: He like multi infusion. If you do single infusion you are breaking into sugars but you are leaving longer chain b-dextrins that could be broken down into more maltose. The more maltose you make the better the yeast health. Maltose is healthy food, glucose and fructose are like desserts. If you give yeasts lots of the desserts they won't eat the healthy food and they’ll pass out early. CBB Podacast # 175 Kevin Davey– Wayfinder

Decoction

Firestone Walker

Direct Fire: Decoctions & Adjuncts: CBB Firestone Walker

we actually mash in [for] a protein rest at 122°F (50°C). One, you get to take advantage of proteolytic enzyme activity. There may be some other enzyme activity that’s at work there, but it also allows you the ability to get all in below [saccharification] temperature, and then ramp up and control your complete conversion program—whatever that might be.

Most of the lager we brew these days—even our Oaktoberfest—we want to be pretty dry. And often we’re mashing for maximum fermentability or attenuation. So, we would then ramp up to 145°F (63°C) in our program, and we would adjust the timing there. For Pivo, [for example,] we’re standing at about 45 minutes. And then I like to ramp up to some place north of 155°F (68°C), so that we can finish conversion. What we find with some of the European pilsner malts is that they like an even higher temperature—something closer to 162°F (72°C).

…

So, we always do step mashes. We’ve integrated this protein [rest] in just about every one of the lagers we do. I think you could legitimately argue that there isn’t a lot of need for a protein rest, especially with modern malts, and that quite possibly you’re doing a little bit of damage to foam-positive proteins. However, it’s always worked for us, and we’ve been able to make these really lean and elegant lager beers that way.

Human Robot Hallertrau pils decocotion

Mash in at 62, hold for about 20 minutes (sometimes as low as 5 minutes)
Pull half to the kettle and raise to 72, hold for 15 minutes
Boil that for 20 minutes. Take half of that and add it to the lauter, that will raise it to 70-72
Boil the rest for another 20 minutes. It will bring the lauter up to 76-78
The longer decoction will add more aroma (some beers they decocot for a lot shorter if they are looking only for mouthfeel)

Dovetail? Alagast? I forgot the podcast

Kolsch - step mash (little wheat)
Helles - single decoction - thin mash
Pilsner - triple decoction