Wheat beer 2 Decoction mash

[pittsy]

Right my wheat beers of late ain't been as good as they should of , so i'm going back to step mash temps and going for a 2 decoctions too .

I'll be using 5kg of grains (3kg pale wheat ,2 kg pale malt)

Staring off with 10l of water at 42c to hit target of 37c ,rest for 10 mins
2.5l added at 95c slowly over 2 mins target is 47c, rest for 10 mins
1l added at 90c slowly over 2 mins target is 50c, rest for 15 mins
1.5l added at 87c slowly over 4 mins target is 53c rest for 15 mins

!st Decoction of 7L (thick) heated 1 c per minute till at 72c then hold here for 15mins
Then heat up 1st deco over 15 mins to 100c and hold here for 15 mins ,
Slowly over 2 mins add 1st deco to rest of mash target of 64c , add hot/cold water to reach target,(shouldn't be much)
rest at 64c for 15mins

2nd decoction of 3L (thinner) heat slowly to 72c (3 mins)and rest/hold it here for 15mins
raise temp slowly (5 min)to 100c and hold here for 10 mins
mix 2nd deco with mash slowly (2mins) target mash temp is 72c rest here for 15 mins
raise temp to 77c rest for 10 mins , sparge .

And i'll also be doing a 2hr boil with 15 bhu of hops , take 1/2 of hops at 120 mins then 1/4 at 60 mins then 1/4 at the last 15 mins .

wlp300 ferment at 20c for 12 to 14 days .

At some point i'm gonna be brave enough to prime by saving 1.7 l of wort (not fermented)and adding 10% of the pitched yeast used to ferment .

Should giving this a go soon.

 

[EskiBrew]

What are you trying to achieve with the stepped mash :hmm:
I've only done one wheat beer - a hefe - and I was really rather pleased with it :thumb:

 

[pittsy]

The more I read into brewing German wheat beers the more important it stands out to do , many do 3 decotions with modified grains but I've gone for 2

 

[Vossy1]

p, something I don't understand, why would you increase the steps with modified malt, surely the point of the modification is to make the brewing process easier not more complicated :wha:

 

[pittsy]

All i can say to that is i've been a busy un since starting brewing , mostly reading about weizen bier and even with modified malts most of the main breweries in southern Germany use a two decoction mash while they used to do three and only a couple of breweries use step temp mashes with no decoction , so all (as far as my info goes) do have different temp rests . I did do most of my brews with step mashes until my last two which to be honest just ain't right and both of those i just mashed in at 1 temp .I often buy wheat beer from the shop (so i know the taste i should be aiming for ) and i even brewed a wheat that was very very close to weihenstephan (blue bottle) using step mashes .But whats got me thinking of trying full decoction mash is at the weekend talking to Rob (malt miller) he likes his wheats too and he was chatting to a german (Lives here in uk) who was shocked when Rob said he doesn't do decoction mashes and they German uses Rob's wheat and does three decoctions .
So i'm gonna try this out and see the difference , in some ways i hope i'm wrong (so it'll make brewing easier ) , but many German brewers must do it for a reason , it would cost lots so why would they bother if it wasn't needed.

 

[Vossy1]

I had a good read up on decoction mashing this am, semi prompted by one of Beersmiths news letters. I can see the point, it extracts a much maltier taste/aroma apparently. I'll be interested to know what you think when you try it

 

[EskiBrew]

My friend Dan (you met him at the hot break) has done decoction mashes in the past - you should of had a chat with him. I've never done one myself. I imagine it is much easier for those with HERMS systems :thumb:

 

[pittsy]

looks like i need to look into herms :)

 

[EskiBrew]

looks like i need to look into herms :)

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it's essential :)
I'm just saying that by using the PID in a HERMS system it would be relatively easy to do stepped mashes.

Sadly I don't have a HERMS system (yet) - I have a collection of bits that could go into one one day

 

[pittsy]

just an update my last brew that has been bottle was mashed with 4 diff temps and is right on the mark for tasting right unlike my last other 2 with 1 temp mash , with this much of a wheat bill its needed. Shall be going for the full decoction mash in a week

 

[EskiBrew]

4 steps - ouch - that is dedication
Keep us posted pittsy :thumb:

 

[Cononthebarber]

Wow that looks like a lot of work but if the taste comes through and its much better then I guess its worth it? Im not a big fan of wheat beer but perhaps I've just drunk the wrong ones?

 

[pittsy]

will be going for this lot the week end , 3 and a half mash time approx lol , but my wheat that was bottled 2 ish weeks ago is tasting right on the mark (unlike my last 2 before wheats with same recipe + yeast but mashed at 66c only .) if anything heating then boiling some mash should give it more body and mouth feel and darken it nicely to a light red ish gold . Ive been reading about many germans lager the wheat for a month after fermenting (quickly) for 4 weeks before bottling , but not sure i can be bothered with that as i'd need a larger brewing shed etc

 

[Vossy1]

Great to hear it's working for you p

many germans lager the wheat for a month after fermenting (quickly) for 4 weeks before bottling

Interesting :hmm: I did something similar myself a while back to create a clear pale ale/wheat beer with Cascade...twas a great pint, looks were deceptive :drink: Personally, I like the freshness of cloudy wheat straight out of the fv or near as dammit, as to me given time the flavour dull. this didn't happen with the clear wheat so I can only assume it's to do with dying yeast :hmm:

 

[adomant]

This is a style I have really worked on this year and I have used many of the points on this thread which do contribute to a good end result. Here are my notes on the things I thought mostly contributed to my current recipe which won the Club style competition in June.

1) Yeast, 300 is too incipid, 3068 is more like it but laking in bananna. Schneider house yeast is a variant on 3068 and has the right flavour without being a bannana bomb. I plated a culture from a bottle of Schneider tap 7 and isolated colonies which I brewed individually to verify I had the strain, which I have brewed with several times and have produced slants from - for me this was the differentiating factor between my hefeweizen recipes.

2) Do only a ferule rest at 50C or thereabouts for 30 minutes, with modified malt it is unneccessary to do any other rest before sacharification, the only benefit is to break down proteins to make sparging easier (not needed if you have a decent mash tun) and it will negatively impact head / foam amongst other things.

3) At least one decoction is essential to produce small amounts of melanoidins which add to the flavour and that lovely red/orange colour that you get with Paulaner and Schneider - too much boiling can overly darken the colour.

4) Strain the yeast a bit by underpitching at a low temperature 12-14 and raise to 18 over 3 days. Day 6 or 7 gradually chill to 10C.

5) Transfer to cold conditioning to drop out most (not all) yeast, should take 1-2 days max, transfer to corny and batch prime using a wort or wheat spraymalt starter (100g / 500ml) at high Kreusen (use lager yeast if you want to bottle, it doesn't autolyse over time). Bottle from corny and condition, IMO it seems better draft out of the keg than the bottle.

 

[borischarlton]

Hi Mark

Sorry I have yet to be in contact, I am on holiday, back Tuesday. The chap you need to speak to is called Nico, he is from the Manchester area. Actually it would be great to have him as a member here as he seems really clued up. I will contact him on my return.

Cheers

Rob

 

[pittsy]

Thanks for some good tips there. :thumb:
And cheers rob :

 

[pittsy]

Right my long mash day is here , I've started up reach first mash in temp of 37c then 47c now on 50c rest and getting strike water to temp .
4th target temp reached , target of 53c wanted , got 53.8c i'm happy with that , 25min rest . Time for a cuppa :)
Well first decoction pulled heated slowly 15 mins to 72 c and held for 15 mins ,
Then slowly heated to boiling and held for 15 mins .

 

[pittsy]

Decoction done plus rest at 64c 15 mins ,
2nd decoction done heated to 72 held 15 mins then boiled 15 mins , returned to mash rest at 72 c for 15 mins .
Raised temp to 76 c rest for 10 mins , sparged at 76 c .
A 2 hour boil , 35 litres collected
Boil 5 mins then added 16 g of hops
At 60 mins added 8 g of hops
15 mins left add 8 g of hops

 

[jimp2003]

One of the thing that you get with decoctions is a lot more tannin extraction. In some beers you might want a bit of this bite in flavour but in others it might be undesirable. Of course if you are brewing something like a pilsner then these tannins will drop out during lagering..