Bryan's Quasi HERMs/Decoction/Cold Sparge Madness

[Bryan R]

I did my first ever decoction run with my setup. My setup is a 2 vessel HERMS system.I utilize a bag(and false bottom) as a mash filter system. It worked out pretty good, but I think I will tweak the process a bit for the next time, anyway here is what I did.

Doughed in at 100f for 30 minutes at 2.0qts/lb


Recirculated and stepped at 1.8f/min to 133f.

Rested at 133f for 10minutes.

Recirculated and stepped at 1.8f/min to 143f.

Once the mash hit 143f I then lifted out my mash filter bag and placed it into a separate decoction pot. Leaving the wort to recirculate though the HERMS


I then took and added 2qts of wort to the decoction pot to get the consistency of oatmeal.



While the main mash was recirculating and resting


I then rested the decoction pot at 143f as well for 10 minutes, I then stepped that to 162f for 15 minutes.


After that I then brought it to a boil and boiled it decently hard for ~25 minutes(until the 60 minute timer went off for the main mash).


I then added the decoction pot back to the main mash, which made me hit about 160. The controller then brought it to 162 and held that for 60 minutes.



Recirculated and stepped at 1.8f/min to 172f.

Held 172 for 10 minutes then sparged.

I was left with this ooey gooey goodness after the sparge:





All in all it was a good(I think) successful attempt at my first decoction, and has me itching to try more. No more boiling in the bag though!

[Beersk]

Nice setup and photos. What's that gooey stuff called, taige? Not sure how it's spelled. It's always fun to see a bunch of that on top of the mash. I don't general do decoctions just because I don't see much benefit from it other than a higher efficiency. I do one or two a year, that's about it.

[Bryan R]

Yea, I boiled this one pretty hard to see if I could coax something out. I did the exact same batch, back to back. One stepped at 100/133/143/162/172, and this one hybrid stepped 100/133/143, then seperated and decocted as mentioned. The beers are similar, but the decocted batch has a beautiful toasty pleasant lingering graininess to it, that is not in the stepped batch... so there is certainly a difference, however I think the main difference is from how hard you boil the grain. I do think a stepped decoction approach(holding decoction for conversion, then boiling) matters as well.