Pick Six -- Dedication & Decoction

She worked for Chris Lohring at Notch for years. I consider him to be one of the most renown experts in the US at least, on producing an authentic Czech beer experience. This includes the brewing and serving of Czech beer...which also includes extensive knowledge of decoction mashing.

She's going to be starting her own "Tankova" Pub in Biddeford, ME this summer, the first of its kind in the US.

While I couldn't pin down a world ranking of her knowledge of decoction mashing, I trust what she knows. I think the likely culprit of any misunderstanding in this article is due to editing, as @herrburgess points out.

 

First off, most of the brewers that are utilizing 20+% corn are now using HFCS instead. There's really no advantage to the brewer to adding the cereal cooker step to the process, it ties up real estate and labor, and you have yet one more ingredient's variablity to deal with. With HFCS, you really have a standardized commodity. But, a cereal cooker is simply there to make the starches of corn or rice available to amylase enzymes prior to adding it to the mash. By boiling rice or corn with a small proportion of malt, you gelatinize the cereal so that when it is added to the mash the carbohydrates are more soluble.

Decoction mashing is different altogether. Prior to modern malting, the vast majority of breweries had malteries on sight. Where one ended and the other began was blurred and the understanding of the malting process was not yet the science it is today. What decoction mashing did and does is (in a 5 step process as practiced in Pilsen) is gives the glucanase, protease, beta amylase, and alpha amylase each an opportunity to do their work at an ideal temperature for each individual enzyme, and this can be accomplished with a step-infusion process as well. This helped to deal with the less modified malt that they were working with at the time. The mash-out temperature helps to keep the mash bed loose during lautering. And the boiling of the mash at every stage causes the release of phosphorous from the malt (in the form of phosphoric acid) which keeps the pH from climbing to a level that will result in tannins being extracted from the malt.

There are also unique maillard reactions occurring during the boiling of the mash that, with the unique chemical and physical conditions, cannot be created during the boiling of wort.

Many brewmasters will argue that it is entirely unnecessary to decoct to make world-class lagers, and I by and large agree with that sentiment. They will point to studies that show that proteases are degraded during the malting process, so that step was always worthless. They will also point to studies that the increased FAN, and the maillard reactions will cause shortened shelf-stability of the beers.

I have spoken with zoigl brewres in the Oberpfaltz about decoction. I have spoken with PhD'd brewmasters from Weihenstephen about decoction. I was lucky enough to have Bill and Ashley from Bierstadt spend the night at my home a little while back and we have spoken at length about decoction. Kevin Davey, from Wayfinder, and Lisa, from Heater Allen, Will Kemper from Chuckanut, Josh Pfriem, Andres Richter, Eric Toft... and so many others that I am sure I have missed. All of them, far greater experts than I about the subject, and I am here to report that not a single one of them agree 100% with each other about the merits or lack thereof decoction mashing.

What I would argue may not be so scientific... But the very best malt-forward lagers I have had in my life were by and large produced by decoction mashing. I have made some incredible malt-forward lagers by infusion and multi-step infusion. And I have had plenty of bad ones made with decoction mashing, but the best I have had were made by decoction. There are many styles in which I feel that it makes absolutely no difference, but Helles, Marzen, Dunkel, Bock and the like... I KNOW that it makes a difference. Is it a difference that everyone will notice? Absolutely not. But enough brewers will.

 

Jeff, firstly thank you so much for taking the time to compose this thoughtful post!

At the Pilsner Urquell brewery they still conduct their own malting using Moravian grown barley. Do you happen to know if they purposefully produce under-modified malt to be 'consistent' with their three step decoction mash? Are under-modified malts 'better' for conducting decoction mashing?

I wonder if this issue of "shortened shelf-stability" is the rationale for Pilsner Urquell using a 9 month best by duration?

I have listened to Will Kemper (Chuckanut) discuss how the boiling of malt during decoction has destructive/negative consequences. He did not specifically discuss the details but he did state that he chooses to not conduct a decoction because of the 'bad stuff' that occurs during boiling of the malt.

I have had excellent lagers that were brewed using decoction and I have had excellent lagers that were brewed not using decoction. FWIW I am in agreement with you here.

As you are well aware brewing involves a lot of brewing process choices/decisions and all of these in totality will impact the resulting beers. And even if you 'concentrate' on just one part of the overall brewing process like decoction mashing, each brewery will choose differing methods (e.g., number of decoction steps, temperatures per step, duration of rest time per step,...) and consequently the beers will differ accordingly. I suspect the most significant aspect is how the malt is transferred to the boiling vessel and then reintroduced to the main mash. I heard Tobias Zollo (Weihenstephaner) discuss how even though their brewery is purpose built to conduct decoction mashing (e.g., Weihenstephaner Original Helles) oxidation of certain compounds occur during this process.

Cheers!

 

Both AB and MC in the US have denied using HFCS as a fermentable/adjunct (some of AB's FMB type products do use it as a sweetener), while both openly admit to using standard corn syrup.

AB's Tap Into Your Beer site, for example lists Busch Beer's ingredients as including both "Corn" and "Corn Syrup", while their MD 20/20 brand and the "Rita" line use both "Corn Syrup" and "High Fructose Corn Syrup".

Molson Coors' Nutritional pdf usually specifies either Dextrose or Maltose for many of their adjunct beers:

 

every commercial brewer knows that homebrewers know more than them (at least that's what I've heard)

 

Pilsner Urquell: It seems that most breweries in the EU are pretty strictly proprietary on just about everything so I would have no idea about the modification of their malt, and I doubt they would tell anyone outside of the brewery. Undermodification just makes one more argument for the practice.

Not sure about the 9 month shelf life, but that's not exactly "short". Budweiser is only giving 180 days and they utilize tunnel-pasteurization.

The oxidation of malt (HSA) is not even accepted be every brewmaster and academic. I have one more can of Weihenstephaner Helles in my fridge that's a year old... That beer has absolultely NO shelf-stability issues. Truly humbling drinking that beer right now. It's pretty flawless. I don't agree with everything Charlie Bamforth preaches, but when it comes to shelf-stability, he and I are in complete agreement. Start with the consumer and work backwards. If the consumer is going to leave it in their garage as my grandfather used to do, there's not much the brewer can do to keep that beer from staling. Then work backwards from there; retailer, wholesaler, importer, package, pasteurizer, filter/centrifuge... You get what I'm saying.

As far as the very best lagers I have had... Whether it was at Mahrs, out in Windischeschenbach, at Andechs or up at Bierstadt (or any number of other great breweries that make exceptional decocted lagers), these beers all had several things in common: Fresh beer on draft that was well brewed, well fermented, spunded, well lagered, and served appropriately. They have to get a lot of things right.

There are tons of great packaged beers out there. Why Will (who was my engineering professor) doesn't decoct for beer on draft, I can't say. To me, making the very best beer that someone is going to have on draft at the brewery and making the very best beer that the average consumer is going to have 6 months after the packaged on date are two completely different things... Unfortunately.

 

I have it on good word that the Modelo breweries and Miller are both using it. Not sure about the others as I don't know anybody currently working there or that have worked there recently. AB mainly uses rice.

 

Are you making a distinction here between fructose, glucose (dextrose) and high maltose corn syrup or treating them as one and the same? Glucose syrup and high maltose corn syrup are being used in the brewing industry globally. Never heard of fructose being used as a fermentable.

MGD label in Europe (note the maltosesirup/maltose syrup/high maltose syrup):

 

Got that pic of 2 European-marketed Corona labels handy? They listed Corn (not otherwise specified) and Rice, IIRC. Brewed in Mexico but by AB-InBev, not Constellation, which, in the US, lists only "Non-Malted Cereals" on their websites - vague, and pluralizing "cereals" is interesting, too.

 

It is here, here is a video from around 2017 of a Grupo Modelo brewery in Zacatecas Mexico, northwest of Mexico City. At 0:44 there is a shot of pipes for transporting "malta", malt, and "arroz", rice.

 

Well, OTOH my favorite "Malted (Barley) Cereal" is Post Grape-Nuts, but that product pisses people off 'cause there are no grapes and there are no nuts. (Oh, plus, the taste - a lot people don't like it).

 

It is much shorter than the best by duration of imported German brewed beers. Of late, some German breweries are using 2 year best by durations which I think is bat-shit crazy!

Tobias discussed that fatty acids get oxidized during the multiple transfer operations of decocting Weihenstephaner Original Helles. He stated that this results in a "harder" flavor to this beer; keep in mind that English is not his first language. He made no mention that this was a beer stability thing.

I agree 100% here - fresh beer is best. On a related note a week ago I started a thread asking "Do you drink local" which is related here.

I will follow-up later with a link to a podcast where Will discussed this topic.

Cheers!