Beers made with advanced mash techniques

Ever since the 1800s, and once decoction mashing was being compared with infusion mashing, a decoction mash was viewed as producing more unfermentable sugars and dextrins as opposed to an infusion mash (commonly associated with English beer). This was an important part of Bavarian brewing up until the late 1800s and into the 1900s. Nowadays the average lager beer recipe is based on a highly fermentable wort, high attenuation and a low residual sugar content, striving for a dry beer without much sweetness (taken to the extreme by American brewers in producing light beer). High fermentability and high attenuation was not a virtue to Bavarian brewing, but it became a virtue once Bavarian beer was being imitated elsewhere, particularly as a means of producing a more easy drinking beer, which was more stable and suitable for bottling. A high residual extract or sugar content was no longer desired, it became a problem, both technically and flavorwise.

 

Patrik, thanks for that input. That was an aspect that I have not previously considered.

The aspect of creating more unfermentable sugars (dextrins) is also discussed here:

“Finally, because boiled mash is used to raise the temperature of the mash from one strike temperature to another, the mash is not as thin as it can become in some temperature program mashes that use boiling water to raise the temperature of the mash. This is an advantage in two ways:

A thick mash enhances the formation of unfermentable dextrins, which aid in body and head formation and retention, versus the formation of fermentable sugars with a thin infusion mash, which yields a beer with less body.”

Cheers!

 

Hi, I just thought it would be nice to clarify what we call "double mashing". I've heard it called "reiterative mashing" before but really can't stand this term. It's not describing a double brew day as that was a typical day at Pretty Things. This mashing technique uses a full charge of the mash (4,000 lbs of malt in our case). We ran off wort without raising temp to kill enzymes or even a sparge. 50 barrels normally at about 19 Plato. The idea is to keep these enzymes happy in the wort. We then mash another 4,000 lbs of barley directly into this wort (as if it were brewing liquor). Do you see what we are up to?

The requirements: very hard buffering water whereby you can have two mashes at a reasonable pH. Also you need a mash/kettle. Can't do this on an infusion based system.

The rewards: insanely malty beer, potential gravities for us up to 40 Plato with only malt.

We also did double decoction regularly and real cereal mashes. Fun.dann

P.s. I'm on the road for the next year or so and don't have access to any of my old emails or passwords to my account. Thus the new account. Just happened to come on here and see a nice post.

 

This was one of the aspects which produced the relatively low alcoholic content of "lager beer" back in the day. The newly introduced lager beer was known to be "non-intoxicating", and this was due to the lower fermentability of the wort and the lower degree of attenuation. English ale became known as strong as far as alcoholic content went. Today British ale is known as low abv, which is entirely down to taxation and reductions in OG, whereas in the mid-1800s English ale and beer would have been known as high abv for its original gravity whilst Bavarian lager beer was low abv for its OG (due to a low degree of attenuation).

 

Ah. I do see what you are up to. I am very much more interested in this now.