Franconian Beer Message Board
Homebrewing |
| Posted by Nick B. on 2013-02-07 00:48:04 |
| Decoction is taking some of the mash out, heating it to a boil, and returning it to the mash in order to raise the temperature of the mash from x° to y°. Multi-temperature mashing used to be necessary in order to make sure the sugars and what-not were properly extracted from the malt during the mash. Nowadays, maltsters have improved their techniques, so that the average malt, say, from Weyermann, does not need to go through a multi-temp mash process in order to extract the sugars and stuff. But geeks do it anyway, because the act of boiling a bit of the mash supposedly gives a richer malt component to the wort. A simpler method of raising the temperature is to start with a thicker mash (less water per kg malt) at the lower temperature, and then add an amount of boiling water to raise the temp to the next step. This is what "infusion" mashing is: giving an infusion of boiling water. Or if you have a mash tun that you can heat directly, just turn on the heat! I've decocted, but only to raise the temperature of my mash by a few degrees, not to enhance maltiness or anything. I personally do a sparge-free mash, which supposedly enhances maltiness to begin with. And the lack of a sparging process eliminates the risks (and hassle!!!) associated with sparging: oversparging, PH problems, etc. It requires a larger mash tun though, which I have in the form of a 10-gallon (again, not proper imperial gallons, sorry) cylindrical cooler. Since I can't heat the mash directly, I have to use either infusion or decoction to raise the temp...if I want or need to. (Which I don't.) |