Hey all, I am currently researching to brew a saison, and have seen a few recipes use a two step conversion, where you rest at ~144 for ~30min and then at ~154 for ~30min. I was just hoping to gain some insight as to why one would do this. I understand ~149 gives you a dry beer, and ~155 gives you a "maltier" beer. So why do both? would mashing in the middle (~150) give you the same results as mashing at two different temps? thanks in advance for your expertise.
As I understand it...as well as practice it...the two-step mash as described...produces a highly fermentable wort (lower 'beta' temps) and gets the best extraction (higher 'alpha' temps). Whether it's worth the trouble is debatable; altho...I have noticed higher efficiency when mashing with stepped temperature infusions.
agree with Herb, it should give you a highly fermentable wort with what should be better than normal efficiency. I will still sometimes do this for lagers i want to dry out. Depending what yeast you're using, I wouldn't bother for a saison since most saison strains will dry it out all by itself.
