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If your goal is to make homebrew that has the same, unique flavor that German/Euro light lagers have, the key truly is to hold to the principles of LoDO - low oxygen exposure on the hot and cold sides, low heat stress during processing (think of boiling like cooking a steak - you want to hit the perfect medium rare, undercooked and overcooked both aren't good), and an otherwise flawless process in terms of quality ingredients, pure water, proper pH via biological acidification, healthy fermentation, balanced recipe, etc. These are the same aspects of quality control that are emphasized in the professional textbooks used in the German brewing schools, and they're what German brewmasters worry about. I won't go so far as to say that American brewers brew bad beer, but the American craft/home brewing mentality/process is descended from British brewing, which is completely different from the German approach. The two approaches make two dramatically different kinds of beer. Noonan got lager brewing completely wrong in his book, and Bamforth is British (he also happens to have a very obvious bias against German beer and brewing techniques...if only Bass Ale could hold a candle to Munich lager
).As far as your malt milling and boiling go, I think milling your own malt is a good thing, and I'd also recommend getting a bigger boil kettle.
Statistics: Posted by Techbrau — Sat May 20, 2017 4:09 pm
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I'm glad I've spurred some interesting conversation, at the very least
I now have no intention of decocting. Except for my wonderfully damaged, boiled to death PU clone 
Off topic, whilst I have your attention(s). I've been stuck with brewing with pre-milled malt. This grain is shipped to me, and can take days to arrive. Not vacuum sealed, or protected by inert gas. I'm wondering how much malt freshness I'm losing straight up from grain oxidation ? I'm getting a twin roller mill very soon, so I can do the whole grain conditioning deal etc.
Also....another segue. I've noticed what I suspect is DMS in my finished brews that are predominantly pils malt. I boil in two pots simultaneously, but have only one immersion chiller. At flameout the larger pot (12.5 L wort) gets the IC, the smaller (9 L wort) goes in the laundry sink with a tap water bath. When the larger pot has come to the temp of the tap water, I switch the IC into the smaller pot. I'm beginning to wonder if the smaller pot is giving me DMS bombs by staying above the 'danger' zone (60C) too long. Occasionally I've forgone the water bath altogether, and just left the hot pot waiting for its turn to have the IC. Is this scenario possibly responsible ?
Statistics: Posted by Nick_D — Sat May 20, 2017 3:27 pm
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Decoctions are indeed a very good way of damaging your wort. For Czech brews, this seems ironically important though
. For some of their flagship stuff, you want that 'authentic' damaged taste. Oh dear.Nowadays many breweries who still use this method, actually did away with the boil step all together and are keeping it hot at 95C instead. Others (see Ayinger) successfully managed to switch most of their production to infusion and nobody noticed.
The markedly extra tannins extracted via decoction, aren't that nice a taste either...
Statistics: Posted by Weizenberg — Sat May 20, 2017 4:12 am
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My own opinion is that decoction mashing with modern malt is beyond worthless. The only upside is a few extra percentage points worth of conversion efficiency, at the cost of worse tasting and less stable beer. Not to mention the extra time and effort required.
There is no magical, elusive flavor imparted to the beer from decoction mashing. The "beguiling maltiness" of euro pale lagers that most people think is the result of decoction mashing is in reality the result of Pilsner malt accented with caramel malt brewed with a low oxygen, low heat stress process. Decoction mashing as a homebrewer is a great way to guarantee that your beer won't have those flavors.
Brew up a German Pilsner from 90% Pilsner malt + 10% carahell at about 30 IBUs using the Narziss hopping schedule and the LoDO process (including biological acidification) and I guarantee you'll leave decoction mashing in the rear view window.
Statistics: Posted by Techbrau — Sat May 20, 2017 3:36 am
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