I would answer that with a maybe, and it depends.
I still have the opinion that it was used before well modified malts and accurate thermometers. Completely unnecessary today.
Not only unnecessary, but my repeated tests don’t indicate that it makes a beer that I prefer.
Decoction is not only about flavor, its about extract potential and other things as well. Take for instance wheat, it benefits from a decoction.
what about the taste of a decocted beer did you not like Denny?
you would be better served asking why he didnt prefer the beer. he never said he did not like it. Decoction is alot of time and energy (literally) so why go through the trouble for results that are obtained with less effort. I am not likely to use the method if I can produce great beer without it. Many say it doesnt do much with todays malts, though I will probably break down one day and decoct a batch to see for myself.
This sums it up, but doesn’t adress the oxygen issue In Defense Of Decoction | A Purist’s Perspective On An Age-Old Method | Brülosophy
Very good article. Few things smell better than a boiling decoction mash.
This got me though, laugh out loud. “With an infusion mash (a most extreme case being the Anglo-American single infusion mash), specialty malts are often the only option for increasing a beer’s complexity. Just look at the high percentage of caramel malts included in so many single infusion mashing recipes…”
;D
Does anyone else besides me just enjoy the process of doing a decoction mash? I’m planning a Dunkel brew day of some sort soon…should be fun outside on a wintry day.
I’ll agree, it’s fun! As for taste, jury is still out… I ran an experiment decoction vs. not where folks could taste a difference, but I’m left wondering if I messed up the experiment somehow, so I need to run it again.
Before I knew what I know now. I built an automated Decoction vessel, that I could add in addition to my 3 vessel. I called it a MDU(mobile decoction unit). Automated induction plate, with an automated stirrer(copper even!). It was glorious. Now it just sits in the corner giving me the stink eye.
I am particular about the style that benefits from it. Your ‘standard’ brews do not need it or benefit from it. I enjoy a decoction brew day. That is generally when I geek out with friends and have a few brewing assistants. So it’s more of the memory of making the beer than it is a quest of making better beer.
Have you tried to sell it? And do you think a low oxygen process could be followed if you mash separately if you do a single decoction and pour it all into the regular mash tun?
Maybe if I could afford it, I’d buy one of these, and do something similar. https://www.google.no/amp/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/testing-do-it-all-kitchen-appliances-that-chop-blend-stir-and-cook-1464894620?client=safari
No, I have not. I will keep it, who knows when another project will present itself!
I could not get the levels of DO, I can with my infusion process. The scale really hurts us here.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the decocted beers (and there were a lot of tasters besides me), it’s that the tasters didn’t prefer the decocted beers. In effect, there was no reason to do a decoction of people didn’t prefer the beers made with it.
This is kind of a rhetorical question, but so what? What’s wrong with using caramel malts to get the flavor profile you want? Why should this guy dictate how everybody else should brew?
I didn’t write nor publish the article… Ask him!
I simply laughed at the wording of the snippet I posted. I myself use Infusion mashing (Albeit not Anglo-American single infusion mash… HAHA that gets me) and caramalts to achieve flavor profiles.
I’m now going to refer to myself as a anglo American brewer.
Yeah, I realize that…that’s why I said it was a rhetorical question! Sorry I didn’t make it clearer.
If you enjoy a decoction mash you might love a turbid mash.
Hours (literally) of fun.