German Brewing

Thanks, looks like a strong Dunkel at 16P. Interesting take on steeping your roast malz. My last Dunkel I tried Sinimar for the first time instead of my usual carafa.

Abbey,

Bruehmalz has a slightly higher protein content, so a rest in the lower temps helps adjust that a bit (assuming this schedule is for the Dunkel)

I do protein rests for almost all malts as above, 52'for 10 min. Only for Weyermann regular or Barke pils I do not do it. For W Bohemian and for Sekado Moravian malt, I do it or otherwise, I do not get good clarity. Rationale is per what Nico stated.
What I do adjust is that I do 60 min at 63 instead of 30 min for most malts. For my recirculation system, 30 min is not sufficient. Most German systems have mash mixers that speed up conversion quite a bit. I am pretty sure Nico only needs 30 min
For low long do you need to stay at beta assuming you want full attenuation, Abbey?

One should only mash as long as necessary. I found that spending more than 40 minutes in beta range is pointless for me (agitated system). Spending substantial time in the higher ranges also didn't seem necessary.

You may notice that sometimes the malts don't quite hit the minimum spec for a Hochkurz dough-in. In those cases I often dough-in slightly lower (advice from Narziss) at 58C.

Often, a straight forward Helles mash looks like this for me

Dough-in 58-62C, max 15 minutes, usually in 3 milled batches with agitator running at ~20 RPM (slow)

62C / 20"
65C / 20"
70C / 20"
72C / 20"
75C out

As you can see, the time intervals aren't very laborious to set

For wheat beers this is the same but with the exception that more work is done in the ferulic and proteolytic ranges and the pH a bit higher, usually around 5.6-5.8 for wheat beer.

Dough-in 38C
38C / 15"
50C / 10"
52C / 10"
55C / 10"
Then proceed like for Helles

Hope this helps.

What about FAN? Wouldn't a short time in a lower dough in temp say around 55c be beneficial for FAN?

No, not if the malt is sufficiently modified to already have enough FAN.

There's no reason to dough in any lower than 62c if your Kolbach index is above 38 or so.

Doing so is more likely to decrease wort quality than increase it for the following reasons:

1. Excess FAN is actually going to increase wort darkening during the boil and contribute to reduced flavor stability

2. Well-modified malt already has enough FAN for the yeast, and providing them with more than they need will increase fusel alcohol production

3. The additional FAN produced from a low dough in has to come from somewhere, namely from breaking down medium chain, foam positive proteins.

4. Pretty much all oxidative enzymes in the mash (LOX, PPO, peroxidase) are much more active at protein rest temperatures than saccharification temperatures. Actually they're also far more active at beta rest temperatures than alpha, but doughing in high enough to denature them would also denature beta amylase so in a sense a Hochkurz mash is a compromise between fermentabilty and flavor stability

I rarely deviate from this mash:

30 min 64c
30 min 72c
5 min 76c

With this past year's barley crop I get a consistent 37-38 PPG extraction rate, and a 1.048 OG wort will have an attenuation limit of 1.008

If I had some malt and the above mash didn't work well with it, then I would get some better malt