German Brewing

So we've talked about Victory Brewing Company a bit before and the consensus seemed to be that the Prima Pils was too hoppy for everyone's taste (and surprisingly, given that I love hop forward APA, I agree). But, despite that, given that they've studied at Weihenstephan, decoct, step mash, use German grains etc it's safe to say they probably know a lot about German brewing methods.

I came across a few things on their website:

1) They brew only with whole flower hops (and apparently 45 different yeast strains...) anyone ever tried whole flower and noticed a different character?

2) But what really caught me was following malt statements on their site -

"German malts naturally tend to contain less tannins, which can impart an unappealing dry and bitter-like astringency in the brew."

"Both our Downingtown and Parkesburg mills employ a technology that softens and removes most, if not all, of the intact barley husk before the kernel inside is ground. Limiting the amount of husk in the ground malt produces a sweeter and less tannic wort and allows our brewmasters to introduce more pleasing bitter qualities through hop additions later in the brew."

I seem to remember Bryan mentioning this before, makes sense given how much smoother Carafa Special, Black Prinz, & Midnight Wheat are than normal dark malts... but haven't heard much about this being used on base malt.

It's called Endosperm mashing. However you must also have a mash filter to squeeze the mash since you don't have husks for lautering.

Or BIAB and squeeze you bag. I'm talking about home brewers of course.

"mills employ a technology that softens and removes most, if not all, of the intact barley husk before the kernel inside is ground."

Malt conditioning, wet milling, or multiple sets of rollers and sieves to prevent the husk from getting shredded in the tight rollers. Or all of the above.

If you've never milled conditioned grain, it's shocking how much of a difference it makes. Here's a half-assed analysis I did - http://www.roachbrau.com/crush-analysis/

Sounds like a bunch of marketing fluff to me.

Sounded to me like it's referencing how they are removing the husk (leaving just the bran, endosperm & germ) - malt conditioning being a different process they do too.

Right. I was just responding to Roachbrau about it. It's an amazingly easy thing to do.

Yea, definitely on my to-do list when I get a mill.

I'm telling ya, go back and read the quote I pulled again. Nowhere does it mention anywhere that the husks are mashed separately, nor do they have a mash filter. Their mills have multiple roller sets to prevent the husks from being ground up, that's all.