"Traditional" Belgian Step Mash?

You may be right about that. Even here in the States, I love love LOVE Gordon Biersch's stuff, and I know they do decoctions in traditional fashion. But do they need to? Is this alone what sets their beers apart for me? I really don't know.

 

This assumes that the only impact step mashing has is on undermodified malts. Also, this reasoning goes both ways. Conversely, I’ve spoken to several brewers who specialize German styles who preach the irreplaceability of the step mash. Are they less expert?

I don’t buy the economy angle. At the large scale, there are many ways to increase wort production profitability, and implementing a step mash, or even worse, a decoction, is not a great method. Start with a wet mill and then move to altering the kettle.

Grain is cheap; utilities and personal are not. AB certainly isn't doing a proper step mash...

Is that less valuable than ‘what I read in Papazian’s book’?

Hey, it’s all personal opinion; no sources. Like I said, this is just my philosophy - it’s their tradition, they get to write the rules. If some German brewmaster starts telling me how to brew American IPAs, I’d tell him to go to hell. We make them best, it’s our tradition, we write the rules.
They make the best German beers, so if they tell me ‘this is how we mash’, I’m not going to say, ‘prove to me why my version isn’t just as good!’
Also, it seems odd that an industry that years has lived on he forefront of brewing scientific inquiry and innovation would stubbornly cling to this one practice for no reason beyond nostalgia...

 

You are disinterested in brewing science? New information is 'discovered' every day.

Cheers!

 

No, I’m just aware of my own limitations in time and expertise. As much as I’d like to be 100% knowledgeable in every single decision I make, if the doctor says, ‘take this antibiotic twice a day and the infection will go away’, I’m not going to go to medical school just to make sure he’s right.

I’m learning. We all are. We brewers are all on knowledge quests; that’s the beauty of this hobby. I just think it’s arrogant to assume that reading a couple of books or brewing a couple dozen beers of a certain style, makes one an expert over people who have dedicated their lives to perfecting a skill.

 

Lots of information available via podcasts. I have learned quite a bit from Dr. Charlie Bamforth on a variety of topics including single (simple) infusion mashing vs. step mashing.

I would encourage you to learn for yourself. Or you can just 'take your pills'. Entirely your choice here.

Cheers!

 

Cheers to that times a million!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hey, who’s taking pills? You’re the one going to ‘the Dr.’!
I have the upmost respect for Bamforth. I’ve listened to his podcasts, read his works, even attended some of his seminars.
I’ve heard him say things like ‘decoction mashing is probably not vital on the BeerSmith podcast. Or that HSA shouldn’t be your primary concern on the brewing network. The man is a scientist. He states his opinion, but doesn’t make claims of things he or a peer hasn’t properly proven. I haven’t heard him ever say, ‘step mashing is a complete waste of time’.

As brilliant as the man is, even he doesn’t have all the answers and is constantly testing hypotheses. In his most recent appearance on the beersmith podcast he mentioned his theory that long term cold conditioning had no impact on lager flavor and challenged one of his students to prove otherwise. He even admitted he didn’t know what the result would be, but felt confident he was right.

This is where I’m at. I don’t have all the answers; I’m not always right. And I have no problem with occasionally standing on the shoulders of giants if it means making good beer.

 

Malt modification makes little difference on if you should step mash or not. It makes a difference on the RESTS you should use. For instance, if using modern malt you drop the protein rest and mash in at higher temp.

You are not searching in the right spot then. All the German professional brewing books, list the numerous reasons why.

It is taught in brewing school, because it is the proper way to do it. You are targeting enzymes at their optimum. More FAN, better attenuation, Gylcoproteins to name a few.
Although I have dozens, If a person is serious I always suggest Kunze Technology Brewing and Malting. It's the beer brewing bible. Although its a little dated at 2014

 

Lots of differing ways to make "good beer".

Cheers!

 

It’s only $175. I have spent double that on textbooks for 101 classes in college for subjects I had no interest in learning about. A great resource full of little tidbits of knowledge that you will constantly reference.

I’m with you there!

 

I dough in all my beers at 131 and begin heating immediately. I miss some extract if I dough in at 140 or above.

All the malts coming out of Germany are at least 40 Kolbach, Weyermann ( the only malt I use) is regularly above 42.

 

Yea, it spends a few minutes there probably. Nope no issues with foam

 

Woo-Hoo! We agree on something!!

Another source of information is Brulosophy. There was a study where a homebrewer brewed a Helles via single temperature infusion mash and via Horchkurz step mash. The results of the triangle taste testing: “While 14 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to correctly identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, only 7 (p=0.81) picked the odd-beer-out, indicating participants in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish a Helles made using a Hochkurz step mash from one made using a 150°F/66°C single infusion mash.”

http://brulosophy.com/2017/08/14/the-mash-single-infusion-vs-hochkurz-step-mash-exbeeriment-results/

In anticipation of commenting from other BA(s) it is indeed true that the efforts of the Brulosophy folks is not at the same level of vigor as something that would be published in a peer review journal the advantage of these exercises is that they are conducted at the homebrew scale which is applicable to what we do as homebrewers. A scientific study conducted on a commercial brewers scale is dissimilar to what we homebrewers do.

Let the ‘science’ continue!

Cheers!

P.S. 2014 is so yesterday!!

 

One (of many) problem with Brulosophy is that is doesn't address the quality of the beer produced. So was it a 20 point beer that was produced and evaluated or was it a 40 point beer? (Looking at the judging results from HBC it's certainly not the latter.) So how does one distinguish nuances from a beer "potentially" full of faults. Thats one of the main tainting processes to their method imo.
I see it all the time at my club. Trying to pick up nuances in medicore beer is a fools errand. Due to poor process, the beer is already gone past the stage of brewery fresh the second it was kegged, therefore picking up nuanced flavors ( 99% of what U tests) are impossible and therefore invalid.

NOW, if the beer they "tested" was then scored by a panel of BJCP national ( or higher) and base beer scored 40 or above. I might actually not deem the material as unsolicited advertising.

 

You are indeed correct that a beer score was not listed for the Helles beers brewed by Jake Huolihan. It is entirely possible those beers could have scored well with BJCP judging.