After 20 years of homebrewing, did a triple decoction on a Bo-Pils. Not sure I will ever do it again. The taste of the finished beer will decide that. It was a long day!
protein–>sacc–>mashout or beta–>alpha—>mashout?
good stuff. for your sake, i hope you don’t notice a difference.
how many decoctions did the pils you took silver with have?
Decoction isn’t hard… if you brew in small 2-3 gallon batches, and you only boil each decoction for 10 minutes. I’m still able to get done in less than 5 hours this way, so I am able to decoct all my lagers if I wish. I do it about half the time now.
Gee Dave, If I only brewed 2-3 gallon batches, I’d be brewing constantly. 
I brew mostly 3 gallon batches w/ the occasional 5 gal thrown in. The great thing about this is getting to brew more often!
As for a triple decoction, I may do as Jeff did and wait 20 years!
Brewing more often is pretty much the whole point! Anyway, I am currently down to 1.7-gallon batches, or 1.66666666 gallons, to be precise. One-third of a standard 5-gallon recipe. But anyway… sorry for the tangential discussion…
I’m now brewing 16oz batches. It makes one 12oz bottle at a time.
I don’t feel like decoction works very well for my smaller batches (4 gallons). I always miss my next step temp. The main mash loses too much heat and 1qt per pound of grist isn’t enough thermal mass to bring it to the next step after boiling it for a bit. After having that happen a few times, I’m tired of it. I might stick with a Hochkurz step infusion instead. Much easier to get to the next step temp. Weather it makes a flavor difference…that’s highly debatable. I’ve never done a triple decoction and have zero desire to.
I had not done a decoction so far this year, so this made up for it. The German Pils that got NHC Bronze was a Hochkurz double.
Yesterday was protein 95F, first decoction got me to 133F, ramped that up with direct fire to 144F, decoction to 158F, decocted the thin part to 168F. The garage had a very rich malty smell when coming into it from the house.
This one used a 2 hour boil. Chilled with tap water, then pumped ice water until the ice ran out at 49F. Decanted starters, pumped the wort into the starter flasks, filled the carboys. Put carboys and starters into the keezer to get to 44F overnight. Yeast was active the next morning, and was pitched into the carboys after wort was hit with O2.
This was a 10 gallon batch. I have enough other stuff to make a 5 gallon or smaller system. Might finally do that.
I had recently thought of adding some run-off from my tun into my decanted starter to get the yeasties accustomed to their next meal - your method looks intriguing - I must try this…
Not so much a method, but something due to expediency. The starters were big, but due to various factors had been crashed for too long. After an arduous day, it was the thing to do!
That must have been a grueling day…My hat’s off to you, I’ve only managed two double decoctions and I did like the taste of those beers a lot. The second one I did a Hochkurz double and I hit my numbers dead on.
(kidney bean lodged in my sinuses now)
I heart sarcasm
+1. The last time I did a triple it was a 12 hour brew day. I decided to stick with Hochkurz infusions after that.
Hope the beer turns out great Jeff!
Dave
I have done decoctions in the past and have not noticed much difference versus a single or multistep mash on my direct fired RIMS system. However, I did a nice lazy man’s mash out decoction on a helles recently using a stainless bowl inside my 20 qt pressure cooker. May have added about 45 minutes to the brew day and helped me get to mash out more quickly. We’ll see if I notice a flavor difference.
This is mostly continental Pilsner malt (post decocation).
