Beer Forum

After doing a good bit of reading this weekend on decoction mashing, I am a bit confused as to how to determine what malts are highly modified and which are not. Apparently this is important in regards to doing a protein rest and if you have highly modified malts, you want to avoid this step as it can be detrimental to the malts and the end result.

From what I have read, most malts offered today are highly modified and do not need protein rests. With maybe the exception of Moravian pilsner malt which is tough to find. Although, I could be wrong here...

I have read the same.........malt production has come a long way.

I recently did my first decoction, and I purposely looked for undermodified malt to use. And I couldn't find anyone selling it, anywhere. At least, not in the USA. Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I looked a lot of places.

Oh... and the beer turned out great even using well-modified malts. It was a triple decoction, so yes, I did do a protein rest, etc. And it turned out great.

I recently had a seminar here given by a PHD bichemist/brewer who used a slide with three frames. One depicted a jolly fat guy with a long white beard in a red suit, the second a cute little rabbit with a basket of gaily decorated eggs and the third simply contained the words "protein rest". That adequately represents the opinion of most of the brewing world with respect to the necessity for protein rests given today's malt. That said I, and others, have had problems with protein hazes when a protein rest is omitted particularly when using Maris Otter malt.

But in most cases protein rests do not seem to be necessary and in fact a decoction mash is not necessary for 7 and out of the 8 or so reasons that it was traditionally done with undermodified malt. The remaining reason is that mealanoidins are produced during the boiling and these are definitely positive flavor contributors. There is no denying that decoction mashing improves beer through these melanoidins but there are other ways to get melanoidins such as by pressure cooking a portion of the mash or simply using melanoidin malt.

Personally, I triple decoct all lager beers and double decoct wheats and the results are good. Could they be as good if I used less intensive processing? Perhaps but I don't know.

ajdelange wrote:I recently had a seminar here given by a PHD bichemist/brewer who used a slide with three frames. One depicted a jolly fat guy with a long white beard in a red suit, the second a cute little rabbit with a basket of gaily decorated eggs and the third simply contained the words "protein rest". That adequately represents the opinion of most of the brewing world with respect to the necessity for protein rests given today's malt. That said I, and others, have had problems with protein hazes when a protein rest is omitted particularly when using Maris Otter malt.

But in most cases protein rests do not seem to be necessary and in fact a decoction mash is not necessary for 7 and out of the 8 or so reasons that it was traditionally done with undermodified malt. The remaining reason is that mealanoidins are produced during the boiling and these are definitely positive flavor contributors. There is no denying that decoction mashing improves beer through these melanoidins but there are other ways to get melanoidins such as by pressure cooking a portion of the mash or simply using melanoidin malt.

Personally, I triple decoct all lager beers and double decoct wheats and the results are good. Could they be as good if I used less intensive processing? Perhaps but I don't know.

Good stuff AJ!

ajdelange wrote:I recently had a seminar here given by a PHD bichemist/brewer who used a slide with three frames. One depicted a jolly fat guy with a long white beard in a red suit, the second a cute little rabbit with a basket of gaily decorated eggs and the third simply contained the words "protein rest". That adequately represents the opinion of most of the brewing world with respect to the necessity for protein rests given today's malt. That said I, and others, have had problems with protein hazes when a protein rest is omitted particularly when using Maris Otter malt.

But in most cases protein rests do not seem to be necessary and in fact a decoction mash is not necessary for 7 and out of the 8 or so reasons that it was traditionally done with undermodified malt. The remaining reason is that mealanoidins are produced during the boiling and these are definitely positive flavor contributors. There is no denying that decoction mashing improves beer through these melanoidins but there are other ways to get melanoidins such as by pressure cooking a portion of the mash or simply using melanoidin malt.

Personally, I triple decoct all lager beers and double decoct wheats and the results are good. Could they be as good if I used less intensive processing? Perhaps but I don't know.

Thanks for the info! What steps do you do on your decoctions and for how long? I have been reading Brewing With Wheat and it seems that most of the Germany brewers still do decoction but their times at each step vary greatly.

For Pils I use the first decoction to get to protein rest temperature (122 - 128 °F), the second to saccharification (148 - 149 °F) and the third to mashout (167 °F). In the first two decoctions I'll pause at protein rest and sachharification rest temperatures or at least go slowly from about 145 up to 167 before heading for the boil. For wheat beers the first decoction takes me from protein rest temperature to 147 °F and the second to 158 °F. In both the first and second I do rests at 159 °F before going to the boil. Thus in this profile (from Eric Warner's monograph on wheat beer) the intent is clearly to have plenty of dextines in the wort and the beer does.

Boils are all 15 - 20 minutes.

I can't say that these profiles are optimum relative to any particular criterion but I have tweaked them over the years to the point where they produce pretty good beer on my system.