Step Mashing a Hefe...Why?

Brewing Processes
1

In Jamil/Palmer’s Classic Styles book, there is a hefe recipe that uses a single infusion mash. Is this the best way to go for a hefe? I’m not looking for the easiest way, but the best. I wonder if there have been any triangle tests comparing hefes brewed with single infusion, step mashes, and decoction…

In reality, I think I would consider a step mash if I was convinced that it would produce a better hefe.  Not ready for decoction, yet…I did a search and found this below.  Are all these steps of equal importance?  And, how long for each step?

“…The flavor benefits from ferulic acid formation at the 95-113F temp range, which promotes the banana/clove characteristic in the yeast profile (and it also helps lower pH for the mash as well as providing a tartness in the finish).  A 122F-131F step helps break proteins down to shorter chains for better head formation and retention. A beta rest (140s) helps develop fermentables and a 154F rest will provide dextrins and mouth feel…”

2

IME a ferulic acid rest may help help pronounce some clove characteristic. It’s hard to say exactly since it is nothing I have ever done side by side, but it seems to give me more clove-like phenols. Some breweries also do a protease rest to help break down the beta glucans and help the lauter go easier. I don’t bother with it, personally. I have brewed some great weissbiers employing a double decoction. But it is a hell of a lot of work. I’m lazy now and the last few I have brewed have all been single infusion, with satisfactory results.

3

My last was fermented at 60-62 instead of my normal 65F. The phenols were significantly more pronounced and I wasn’t very impressed with the beer.

Didn’t employ a step mash so can’t comment as to the effectiveness, but if Jamil suggests it should be done then it might be worth investigating. FWIW I’ve only done single infusions with decoctions and feel this gives satisfactory results.

4

Well, the recipe in Jamil’s book employs a single infusion-no step mash or decoction.  But, it seems like the guys who brew hefes on a regular basis, seem to use a combo of step mashes and decoctions.

5

I heard Jamil once say that he couldn’t really tell a big difference between decoction mashing and single infusion, so he goes with the easier method of single infusion. Opinions vary on this topic, so experiment and see if you can tell a difference, and in turn find out which method you prefer.
Most guys I know do step mashes on Hefe’s FWIW…

6

I’ve done both a triple decoction and a 2-step mash (111 and 152) and although I didn’t taste them side by side both were excellent.

7

I’ve done several Hefe brews with batch sparge/single infusion method and they have all turned out great.  My brew set up doesn’t allow me to do step mash easily, so I’ve never attempted to do so.  Interested to hear if a step mash does make a significant difference in a Hefe.

8

http://braukaiser.com/lifetype2/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=130&blogId=1

"Conclusion: For the chosen yeast holding the ferulic acid rest didn’t make any noticeable difference in the clove flavor that was produced during fermentation. While additional experiments should be made to confirm these findings it is very much possible that this rest is not worth the additional work. "

9

Yeah, I remember Kai posting those findings. I’m not sure that his findings match my experience. Ferulic acid rest does seem to increase the clove-like phenols to me. I do agreee that yeast selection and fermentation temp is more important. I certainly do enjoy my single infusion weissbiers but the double decoction, step mash with ferulic acid rest always just seemed to be better.

10

I think with a beer this dependent on yeast character, the fermentation schedule is more important than the mash schedule.

As with Belgian strains, the beer’s character can be dialed in with fermentation temp, pitch rate, and O2 concentration.

11

Here’s an interesting thread to read through, in case any of your missed it: http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=9206.15

I’m going to copy and paste what Ron said, because I thought it was really interesting:

12

I wonder how much ferulic acid as actually generated during the ferulic acid rest. If barley generally has more ferulic acid, would a ferulic rest with a 70/30 wheat/barley split have more or less ferulic acid than a single infusion with a 50/50 split?

The pitching rate is interesting. “Common knowledge” seems to be that underpitching increases ester formation. For a 1.050 hefe I’d bet most people would pitch around 9m/ml, so Narziss’ recomendation is quite a lot higher than most people would pitch. I’m sure Narziss is assuming a high level of yeast health, too, so in a homebrew setting you might want even more yeast.

Bottling with lager yeast is something Eric Warner mentioned in his book. Dried lager yeast is kind of pricey for bottle conditioning, so I haven’t tried it, but that might be something to look into.

13

I also remember watching a Northern Brewer video with Wyeast who said that your pitching rate will affect the flavor of the beer. If you underpitch you get banana, overpitch and get clove…

14

Man, I didn’t realize how prolific Nietzsche was…Philosopher, poet, brewer…

F. Nitzsche

Investigations into Optimizing Wheat Beer QualityBrauwelt, Vol32, 8 Aug 1991
•The taste and smell threshold is 0.8 mg of 4VG/L
•4VG levels over 2 mg/L bring a strong/severe character to the beer
•The fact that the levels of ferulicacid can fluctuate widely in malt can effect the levels of 4VG in beer
•As a rule, wheat malt has less ferulicthan barley malt
•The highest levels of 4VG occur after the final limit of attenuation is reached
•More 4VG is present when the final limit of attenuation is reached in 4 days as opposed to 2 days
•The levels of 4VG don’t decrease significantly with the age of the beer, although other staling by-products may cover up the taste of 4VG
Here’s an intersting paper on German Wheat Beers.

Pitching rate and ferm temp are critical for producing that classic German profile in this beer:

15

I was planning on making another batch of weizen soon. Over on the HBD board I saw Chris White recommends 5-7m/ml for a weizen. I’ve never tried pitching one that low, or as high as what Narziss recommends. It sounds like an experiment is in order. It wouldn’t be too hard to do a split batch and see which one turns out better.

16

I swear in the bavarian hefe podcast of the Jamil show he said ferulic acid is the precurser to the banana character not the clove.

17

If he did he misspoke. but that’s no biggie. it happens.

18

It would be interesting to further split things out and ferment each of them at different temps. It would be nice to see what makes a bigger difference - temperature or pitching rate, and also whether the two are additive or whether you max out on phenols or esters at a certain point.

FWIW - I typically pitch 1 smackpack of 3638 with no starter for a 5-gallon batch of a 1.050ish weizen, which is right at the lower end of the range Chris White gives. Fermenting at 64-65 gives some real nice phenols (clove with a bit of cinnamon/vanilla) but the banana is still there. I couldn’t keep the temp down as well as I wanted on my last batch and it ended up fermenting at 68F. I lost most of the phenols, but didn’t get as much banana as I would have liked either. These have all been extract batches, so YMMV.

19

+1 - the ferulic acid is the precursor to the 4 vinyl guaiacol which is the clove-like phenol predominant in hefeweizens.

20

What I’ve always thought was weird is that Dan Gordon has said he pitches at 6E6/mL in a hefe AND his original doctoral project was to translate Narziss into English. Why would someone who studied directly under Narziss, who still follows the Rheinhisgibot, go against tradition/teachings like that? I really think the presentation that is quoting Narziss is MISquoting him.

Also, the Eric Warner book quotes many modern German breweries pitching roughly 7E6/mL.

I brewed 2 hefes back-to-back both 1.048—one at 20E6/mL one at 6E6/mL. The idea was that since there would be less Acetyl Co-A used in cell sterol production (in the 20E6/mL) there would be more available for the production of esters (in conjunction with alcohol)—basically, I thought that under pitching was a bad idea and I wanted to prove it to myself.

I ended up proving the exact opposite. The 20E6/mL hef was initially sulfury and then just insipid—boring, some clove, nothing much as far as yeast character really. The 6E6/mL was beautiful—great balance, really nice.

I saw some slides from Neva Parker recently that showed a very wide range of pitching rates that all resulted in the same terminal gravity. Frankly, I think that homebrewers ought to play with pitching rate a bit more. Pitching rate has become a bit too dogmatic recently.