I would drop the carahell and the dark munich…
This raises an issue that’s been rolling around in my head lately. I included dark Munich (as opposed to light, which I normally include in a hefe) before I decided to try a decoction, thinking that I could achieve a more pronounced maltiness this way. With a decoction, however, I might not need to go with the dark stuff.
I’ve been including carahell in my hefes for years and I like what it adds. But maybe for the purpose of this little decoction experiment, I should keep the grain bill very simple, such as 60% wheat / 40% pils.
Agreed. You can make a killer Hefe with just wheat malt, pale/pils, and acid malt (if necessary).
Alright gents, here is my revised recipe with the decoction schedule. I decided to go with a pretty simple grain bill. I like the idea of adding a little chocolate for just a smidge of color (I figured chocolate wheat was appropriate).
Bavarian Hefeweizen
15-A Weizen/Weissbier
Author: Matt Schwandt
Size: 5.33 gal
Efficiency: 85.0%
Attenuation: 80.0%
Calories: 167.24 kcal per 12.0 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.051 (1.044 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.010 (1.010 - 1.014)
Color: 5.1 (2.0 - 8.0)
Alcohol: 5.31% (4.3% - 5.6%)
Bitterness: 12.0 (8.0 - 15.0)
Ingredients:
5.5 lb Wheat Malt Pale
3.2 lb Pilsner Malt
.27 lb Acidulated Malt
.03 lb Chocolate Wheat Malt
.75 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh (3.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.25 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh (3.4%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1 L White Labs WLP380 Hefeweizen IV Ale
Hochkurz Double Decoction
- 9.1 qts @ 121 ==> ferulic acid rest @ 111-113 [15 min]
- 10.7 qts @ 190 ==> maltose saccharification @ 144 [20 min]
- Pull thick 5.6 qt decoction; raise temp to 158 (2-4 degrees per minute increase); rest for 15 minutes; bring to boil and boil for 15 minutes, stirring often
- Remix thick decoction a little at a time to hit dextrine saccharification @ 158 [45 min]
- Pull thin 5.05 qt decoction and gradually bring to a boil; boil for 10 min
- Remix thin decoction a little at a time to hit mashout temp @ 168 [10 min]
- 15 qts @ 183 ==> Sparge @ 170 [10 min]
- 1.5g CaSO4, 1.5g CaCl added to kettle
Fermentation notes:
- Pitch yeast when wort is cooled to the mid 50s. Aerate well. Let temp rise to 62 and hold for about a week. Then raise temp to mid 60s for a few days to finish. Transfer to keg or bottle.
Looks pretty good… I kind of feel like any additional comments I make are a double edged sword… I think it is important that you explore decoction, find your own way, etc. but I also think it would be a shame if there were some less than optimal outcome and you blamed that on the decoction… not that what I am suggesting below is optimal… it just works on my system for these sorts of beers… so just a couple of more comments:
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Hefe IV is already really clovey. I don’t think you will need the 4VG rest, unless you really like clove in your hefeweizens (and later vanilla… one of the reasons I like 4VG rest + Hefe IV in Weizenbock)
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I would change the rests a little bit to make the first pull bigger in volume. The more grain you boil, the more those decoction flavors are going to be emphasized. To that end, if it were me, I’d dough in lower, at acid rest range (95-97) with what will seem like a ton of liquid (2.5qts per pound), do a pull around 10 quarts, on the way to boiling, stop for a alpha rest at 155F for 10-15 minutes, then boil for ~15 minutes… then return to bring the mash up to beta at 144 for 25-30 minutes… then pull a smaller decoction, skip the alpha rest in the pull, boil for ~10 minutes, return to mash to take the entire mash up to alpha, rest for 30-40 minutes, and then sparge (skip mash out). I guess this is more like an ‘Enhanced Double Decoction’ if you’re following parlance on Kai’s page. I think overall, this schedule will be faster than your proposed schedule while still delivering on the flavor side of things.
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The chocolate wheat is fine; many German recipes use a Carafa for color adjustment… but if you follow the more intensive decoction schedule I posted above, I would be surprised if you didn’t end up with a beer with a more golden hue than the calculated SRM would suggest.
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On the pulls themselves, don’t take the words ‘thick mash’ too literally… you can save yourself a lot of headaches, scorching and sore stir arms by pulling a little thinner so that the pull can boil without scorching (this is another one of the advantages of doughing in at 2.5qts per pound, you have extra liquid to boil off)… you don’t want something so thin it looks like chicken noodle soup but you don’t want it so thick that it looks like a steaming pot of granola either.
Just my 2c… above all, enjoy the process, if after all of this you find out that it didn’t make a difference for you or you figure out a way to replicate or exceed the flavor by using a tweaked grain bill with more specialty malts… awesome, move on to the next new thing 
Thanks for your comments/suggestions, Anthony! It sounds like you’ve got a fair amount of experience with decoction mashing and weizen brewing.
Since this will be my first decoction mash (and first step mash ever!), my goal is to design a fairly simple mash schedule. In light of that, maybe the best course of action as far as the 4VG rest is simply to eliminate it but still use the Hefe IV yeast (which I’ve used several times for hefes with single infusion mash programs). Alternatively, I could do the 4VG rest but switch the yeast to something with less clove character, like 3068.
I calculated my decoction pulls using the equation on Kai’s site; I think I’ll stick with those volumes for now. My intention in doing a decoction is not to do it once and then make a determination on the merits. I’ll likely play around with decoction mashing for a while before I throw in the towel (which may not even happen based on my results!).
A couple more suggestions (speaking from experience) have a couple gallons of boiling water handy so if you miss your step after adding the boiling the decoction back into the mash you can use it to adjust the mash up. Just remember how much you use so you can deduct that from the mash out.
Also, if you find while adding the boiling decoction back into your mash and you hit your step before adding it all, stop adding it and just stir the decoction to cool it to the temp of the step & then add it. Or have some ice on hand to adjust it down.
When your done you going to say “Wow that was a long brew day but it wasn’t that difficult either.” Cheers!!!
You might also want to read the “Intensive Banana Aroma” article from Zymurgy a couple of issues back. Some interesting information and rationale that would help you in designing your steps.
Ah, my suggested pull amounts came out of Promash. I’m sure whichever yeast you choose the beer will be tasty.
Good luck… and post your results/impressions.
Like infusion amounts for a step mash, I haven’t yet found any calculations that are accurate for pull amounts for decoctions in a cooler. I pull a lot more than Promash recommends just to be on the safe side.
+1 to that. It was mentioned here before, but it’s easier to heat more than you need and cool it down before you add it, than it is to dump your whole decoction in the mash, miss your temp, say “oh crap” and scramble to heat up water. Not that that has ever happened to me. . .
That sounds familiar. My first decoction I blindly followed the amounts that Promash suggested and my temps were off…still made tasty beer though.
Today was brew day. All in all, the decoction went pretty well. I hit my temps really well, except for mashout, which I’m not too concerned with anyway. I ended up getting an efficiency bump (BHE = 87.5%) which resulted in a higher than anticipated O.G. of 1.055 (I was shooting for 1.051). It was a LONG brew day, but it was fun to finally delve into the world of decoction mashing. It will be interesting to compare this beer to a regular step mash version to see if it’s worth the extra effort.
Some takeaway points from the experience:
- Pull a bigger decoction volume than you think you need and have boiling water at the ready in case you undershoot a step. A lot of people in this thread suggested as much, and I took this advice seriously today. If I hadn’t, this session could have turned out to be a disaster.
- Decoction mashing seemed to give me an efficiency bump, which is fairly common from what I understand. Next time I brew a decocted beer, I’ll factor this in when designing the recipe.
- Decoction mashing doesn’t seem to be very exact. I felt like I was relying much more on instinct and my ability to problem solve on the fly than on calculations/predictions/etc. I think it definitely helped to be a pretty seasoned AG brewer.
- I need to learn more about how alpha- and beta-rest temps/duration affect wort fermentability. I formulated my recipe based on rests I’ve seen in other brewers’ recipes (such as Kai’s). But I really don’t know what to expect as far as how fermentable the resulting wort will actually be.
- The wort color is definitely a little darker than I anticipated. Next time, I probably won’t use any color malt at all. I think it will be a nice golden color with that slightly orange hue characteristic of hefeweizens with just wheat/pils.
My efficiencies with barley-based beers are about 10-15% higher when using decoctions. My wheat beers take a 10-15% hit with efficiency anyway for some reason (probably my grind), so they tend to pretty much balance out.
I actually like that about decoction mashing. It’s kind of like cooking without a recipe. I think you get a better feel for your ingredients and how the mash works.
I agree. It was fun to feel like I was letting experience and instinct guide my brew day.
Going forward, I’m not going to just do a regular (read: non-decocted) step mash version of this recipe for comparison. I want to really dial in my hefeweizen recipe and decoction procedure first. So, my next brew will be a slightly revised hefe recipe with a slightly different decoction program (more like what anthony suggested earlier in this thread). I will start with a ferulic acid rest and decoct up to beta- and alpha-rest temps. I’ll likely skip mashout.
When you decoct, the small starch granules get gelantinized. These will then convert. The small granules are talked about in Kai’s site.
The boil will develope malanoidins, which have brown color, and you also get flavor from the Maillard reactions. Enough flavor to convince everyone it is worth the work - no.
From Brewing With Wheat (Awesome book, btw, you should pick up a copy if you haven’t already):
Schneider’s mash schedule for Aventinus and Original:
95* for 10min
113* for 10min (ferulic acid rest, important for 4-vinyl guaiacol)
122* for 10min
147* for 5min
Pull 1/3 of mash for decoction
Decoction rests:
152* for 10min
158* for 20min
203* for 5min
Transfer back to mash to hit:
167*
They also acidify the wort during the boil. It doesn’t specify how much, but it says the pH going into the boil kettle is 3.0. Seems low to me, so I’m not sure if 3.0 is the pH of total wort, or if that’s the pH of the acidified wort they add to the rest of the wort, in the kettle.
Something I’ve noticed about a lot of the wheat beer decoction schedules I’ve found is they have relatively short rests. If you try to hit the temps and times exactly, you’ll be very busy and have a hard time hitting them exactly, and some of the steps will go a little long.
I usually use the Boulevard mash schedule, just because it’s a little easier to handle:
104* for 6.5min
122* for 25min
145* for 12min
163* for 15min
169* knockout
Worth the WORK? Making beer isn’t work. It’s fun.
That’s actually what inspired me to try decoction mashing. 8)
Because I mash in a cooler, step/decoction mashing is a little limited. I’m most inclined to do the enhanced and hochkurz double decoction programs due to these limitations.
Sometimes I get worn out from all of the fun.