 |
| Mmmm, Celebrator. |
|
THE PLAN:
My friend and brewing co-hort Matt and I have many things in common, but one of them is that we are suckers for Bavarian
Doppelbocks. We have been talking about doing a batch of beer together, and simultaneously, we have been talking about experimenting with a historical brewing style called
decoction. Doppelbock happens to be one of those styles that was traditionally a decoction mash, so we decided to not only do a decoction mash for a batch of doppelbock, but we would do two mashes, one as a double decoction and one as a single infusion batch sparge. The main idea is to brew both identically in every way except the mash styles, and then compare the final results.
THE RECIPE: (this is for a 3 gallon batch, we'll be using this for each), basically taken from Brewing Classic Styles.
7# Munich
2# German Pils
1# CaraMunich III
3/4 oz Hallertau (60)
1/4 oz Hallertau (30)
2 Activator packs of Wyeast Hella Bock 2487, 2L starter on stir plate, stepped up to 1gal, refridgerated and decanted. Had about 1&1/2 cups of yeast for each 3 gallon batch.
2/13 BREWDAY:
What a freakin day it was. The infusion mash went smooth, the decoction mash... not so much, but they both ended up fine.
Infusion Mash
Decided, after much debate, to do a single infusion mash rather than a double infusion for sake of time and effort. 12.5 qts to 10# grain, strike @ 155 for 60 minutes. After an hour, we only lost about 2 degrees. Collected ~3.5 gallons first runnings @ 16 Brix/1.065, collected another gallon or so at 9 Brix/1.036. Total pre-boil volume was about 5 gallons (1/2 gallon more than what we were shooting for) and our pre-boil gravity was 13.8/1.056. We boiled down to 4 gallons, then threw in our first hop addition and proceeded through to knock out. Chilled down to 48F, pitched the yeast, and let sit outside for about a 1/2 hour to chill down a little more. Only went down about 2 degrees. It's now sitting on the floor of my basement (ambient temp is 53F +/-) and seems pretty steady at 52F. 2.75 total gallons, OG Brix 19.4/ hydrometer 1.084. Doughed in at 11AM, pitched yeast at 5PM.
Decoction Mash
Good gravy, this was labor intensive and not completely rewarding, but we managed to get through it, and it was a great learning experience. We planned out a double decoction, and the basic gist is to put all of your grain and all of your water (minus sparge water) in at a low temp, take out a 1/3, raise it to a sacch rest, then raise to boiling, then repitch into the whole batch raising it's complete temp up to a sacch rest. That's one step. You then take another 1/3 out after the rest is completed, raise it to a higher sacch rest, then to boil, then repitch raising the whole batch to a mashout temp. Sounds easy, right?! Well, we got 2 out of 3 right. When decocting, you typically (depending on who you talk to) use a thinner water:grain ratio, like 2:1 rather than 1.25:1. We doughed in with 20qts water @ 122 for our first rest. After some time we were ready to take out the first 1/3. We ran into our first problem here... how do we determine how much to take out AND do we strain the grain or take out the whole mash? There was a BrewStrong podcast about decoction, hosted by Jamil, John Palmer, and Denny Conn... and they said you strain it and just heat the grain. We had also read and talked to some people that said you take everything. We kind of went middle of the road and took the grain plus some of the mash water. But, apparently we didn't take enough because when we pitched it back in, it only rose about 15 degrees, where we needed 30 more. Before that though, during out first decoction step, we learned how labor intensive decocting really is. You have to stir continuously, and that shit was thick. The temps were all over the damn place, and when we finally hit out sacch rest temp, it didn't stay there long unfortunately. We finally got it up to boiling, and like I said earlier, when we pitched the boiling heap back in, the mash temp in the cooler was at 116 and only rose to about 130, we needed to raise to 149 or so. We pulled out a bunch right away and started heating our second decoction step, same as the first - 158 then boiling. If this was done correctly, then the mash in the cooler should have been resting the whole time at 149, instead it was sitting at 130. Not much we could do, so we continued and tried to get this one (a much bigger chunk of the mash) up to temp and pitched back in. It still took a long while, can't recall exactly how much longer, but we finally got it up to temp, pitched it back in and still fell a little short, so we added a few quarts of boiling water and had the whole heap up at 160-ish. Our first collection was roughly 3.5 gallons @ 14.8 Brix/1.060. We ran a small sparge amount through and collected another 2 gallons when it was all said and done, second runnings were 10.2/1.041. Total pre-boil volume was 5 gallons and pre-boil gravity was 13.4/1.054. 2 points lower than our infusion mash. We followed the same boil & hop schedule as the infusion mash, throwing in first addition at 60 minutes left (when it hit 4 gallons), and then 2nd addition at 30 minutes left. Ended up collecting between 2.5 & 2.75 gallons, chilled down to about 49/50, pitched the yeast, set outside for about 15 minutes, then down to the basement. Last I checked it was sitting pretty at 52F. Close to 2.75 total gallons, OG Brix 22/1.092 (a bit of a surprise). My hydrometer broke, so I had to rely on my refractometer for the reading, but should be about right, and I ended up checking three different times throughout the collection to make sure it was right. Time: doughed in about 11:30/11:45, pitched yeast at 8:30PM.
Brewday thoughts:
What a long day, we started milling grains and measuring/heating water at 9:30 AM, and I pitched the 2nd yeast at 8:30PM and still had an hour or more of clean up to do. So easily 12 hours. Matt projected a 10 hour day, and I was like "no waaaayyyyy, we got this in 6 or 8 easy!" Errrr, big swing and a miss, B. There are a lot of numbers up there in those two mash schedules, but not much description of what was going on. The infusion mash seemed like any other mash, sweet, bready malt aromas and typically colors. The decoction was pretty interesting to watch, smell, and taste. The wort got really dark and cloudy. Lots of caramel aromas, chocolate, etc. It looked & felt thick, even though it was a 2:1 ratio. The starting gravities were about 10 points different which is a little disappointing, but that's fine. Our biggest frustration was how to figure out what exactly 1/3 of the total mash looks like, and in turn not hitting getting our first step to raise the overall temp up to where we needed it to be. I think if we could figure that out, I'd be interested in doing this style again... I think. We may be perfectly happy with the results we get with the simple single infusion batch sparge method too that took 4 hours less time. If the decoction produces a far superior beer (which I'm doubting), then I would probably opt to do it for the styles that lend themselves to it - bocks, hefs, etc. We shall see! But honestly, I'm thinking about what to do next with this style.
2/21 CHECK-IN:
Activity has slowed way down, but still some churning going on. Temps are about 50. I took a small sample of each out this morning to test gravity. My hydrometer broke during the last brew, so this is just a refractometer reading that's been adjusted using one of these
worksheets I have.
Infusion - Brix 13.6 = 1.039
Decoction - Brix 13.6 = 1.032
I retested them twice since I got the same reading for both, which is pretty crazy. The infusion one smelled great, just like Celebrator. The decoction one really didn't. I have a bit of a cold still so my smells are a bit off anyways, so I wouldn't put too much stock in my sense of smell right now.
3/27 RACK TO KEG (LAGERING)
Many moons passed due, I finally got around to racking these two to kegs in order to lager them a bit. I pulled a few samples for hydrometer readings, and for some taste evaluation as well. The infusion one was fairly nice - clear, dark ruby, smelled and tasted to style. The decoction... not so much. Not sure how to describe it, but it didn't taste great. It was much hazier too... and there was a lot of junk floating around in there too... grain & hop trub, proteins, etc. Gravities of each were kind of surprising: Decoction = 1.020; Infusion = 1.031. The decoction's was right one (even though it tasted awful), but the infusion batch's (which looked, smelled, and tasted great), was pretty high. It should be around 1.025 or 1.020. Matt and I will have to put our heads together and think about this a bit.
More later...
