Simplified Decoction

[drummstikk]

I recently brewed a Pilsner using a simplified decoction -- it had great Maillard flavors, and it was easy to brew. The simplified decoction ends up boiling grains for the same amount of time as a traditional decoction, but you don't have to to a step mash unless you want to. I doubt I'm the first to use this technique, but since it doesn't seem to be widely used, I'll describe it.

• First, the motivation:

The purpose of the traditional decoction was to hit temps in a step mash without using a thermometer, and to gelatinize starches in undermodified grains. Maillard development was a nice benefit, too. You can buy a thermometer at the grocery store, though. And you can do a step mash without the hassle of removing and boiling portions of the wort. So unless you're using undermodified malt (and you'll know if you are), the only reason to do a decoction is to develop those delicious Maillards. (Anyone who says you can't taste a decoction isn't doing it right. Decoction = yum.)

Well, to make Maillards, you don't need to be pulling and adding back decoctions. All you need to do to make Maillard products is to boil grains in a small amount of sweet wort. Just mash as normal, then boil the mash along with the grains before lautering.

• A few finer points:

It may be the case that a smaller volume of liquid promotes Maillard formation. This makes some sense: we know that Maillard chemistry is multi-step, so a smaller liquid surrounding the grains concentrates the chemical intermediates and speeds up the flavor development. You achieve this as part of pulling a thick decoction in the traditional technique, so you'll want to achieve the same result by removing some liquid from the grains before you boil.

Also, in a multi-step decoction, different fractions of the grains end up being boiled for different amounts of time. This generates flavor complexity. So if you're replacing a multi-step with a simplified decoction, you'll boil some fraction of the grains for a short time and some for a longer time.

• Here's the detailed procedure:

After saccharification, remove and reserve some wort and grains, leaving a fraction of the grains and enough wort just to cover them. Boil, stirring occasionally. If you removed too much wort, the mash will begin to resemble cooked oatmeal -- add more liquid until it looks like a slurry again, or risk scalding the grains. Remove grains at intervals if simulating a multi-step decoction. Lauter.

Now, if you're worried about some small amount of starches being released from the grains and causing a haze, (which I was), then after boiling, cool grains down to sacch temp and add back the reserved wort. Mash for an additional 15 minutes and lauter. In the future, I'm going to try skipping this step to realize the full time-savings of the simplified decoction. To put things in perspective, traditional decoctions that include a decoction for mash-out do not include a step for converting starch released from the final boil. And those beers are consistently clear, so this step is likely unnecessary for well-modified malts.

• Simulating the flavor profile of a traditional multi-step decoction:

To simulate the flavor of a multi-step decoction, you will boil some grains, remove some of those boiled grains, then boil the remaining grains for longer. You'll remove grains once in the boil to simulate a double-decoction, and you'll remove grains twice in the boil to simulate a triple decoction.

For example, let's say you're simulating a double decoction in which you would have decocted 1/3 of the grains for 30 minutes each.

First, let's find what fraction of the grains made it into both 30 minute decoctions. Assume the grains are well-mixed between decoctions. Then, 1/3*1/3 = 1/9 was boiled in both decoctions, for a total of 60 minutes.

What fraction of the grains were boiled for only 30 minutes? 2/3 of the grains weren't boiled in the first decoction, but 1/3 of those unboiled grains made it into the second decoction. Likewise, 1/3 of the total grains were boiled in the first decoction, but 2/3 of those boiled grains missed the second decoction. So 2/3*1/3 + 1/3*2/3 = 4/9 of the total grains were boiled for just 30 minutes.

And what fraction were never boiled? 2/3 of the grains missed the first decoction, and 2/3 of those grains again missed the second decoction. 2/3 * 2/3 = 4/9 of the original grains in the mash were never boiled.

Just to check, 1/9 + 4/9 + 4/9 = 1. Good, all the grains are accounted for.

Now that you've got the numbers, to reproduce the flavors of a double 30 minute decoction, you would mash as normal, then remove 4/9 of the grains. Remove enough wort so that the remaining grains are just covered. Boil for 30 minutes. Then remove another 4/9 so that 1/9 of the total grains remain in the kettle. Adjust liquid level and boil for another 30 minutes. Throw everything into the lauter tun and proceed as usual. In practice, it is difficult to weigh grains because of the variable amount of wort that comes along with them. So just estimate these fractions by removing a little less than half of the grains each time, so that about 10% remains for the final boil.

To simulate a triple decoction, just do one extra removal of grains. For example, to simulate a triple decoction of 1/3 of the mash for 15 minutes each, you'll boil 70% of your grains for 15 minutes, remove grains from the kettle until 26% of the total remains, boil for an additional 15 minutes, then remove until 4% of the total remains, then boil for the final 15 minutes.

That boil schedule produced a beer that has the same type of bready flavors found in Pilsner Urquell and is a nice burnished gold.

 

[Airborneguy]

I'm assuming you have a direct fired mash tun?

I don't, I use a cooler mash tun. The way I do it is during my normal 60 min mash, I wait until around 20 minutes in and pull a decoction. I then boil this decoction and return it to the main mash in the last 10-15 minutes. This process is completed within the normal 60 min mash, so it doesn't extend my brew day at all. If I'm doing a double decoction, I do it the same way and only end up adding around 20-30 minutes to my mash time.

 

[drummstikk]

direct fired mash tun?

You could say that! It also doubles as my boil kettle, and in a previous life, it was a 7.5 gal $19.95 aluminum tamale kettle for sale at Target! After I mash, I just move everything to my rubbermaid MLT, rinse out the kettle, and then collect my first runnings. If I'm doing a decoction, I'll use a second aluminum pot to do the grain boil. They're only $19.95 -- I've got several.

*

Nice, I knew I wasn't the only one doing a simplified decoction! I like your method because you save even more time, and mash conversion usually happens a lot faster than we think it does, anyway.

One question -- do you cool the boiled grains before you add them back to the mash, or are you using this as a mash-out step?

 

[Airborneguy]

One question -- do you cool the boiled grains before you add them back to the mash, or are you using this as a mash-out step?

It's basically my mash-out. I add it with a few minutes left, typically around 10, sometimes 15 if it boils quick. I try to keep my decoction size around 20-25% so that it doesn't raise the temperature of the main mash too much.

 

[ravenscroft]

I recently pondered this type of method, searched, and luckily found this thread.

My question is, are there any negatives to this approach if you are only looking for maillard flavor development and are not interested in the other benefits of decoction. If there aren't any negatives, why aren't more people doing this?

 

[Yooper]

I recently pondered this type of method, searched, and luckily found this thread.

My question is, are there any negatives to this approach if you are only looking for maillard flavor development and are not interested in the other benefits of decoction. If there aren't any negatives, why aren't more people doing this?

I would guess that there aren't negatives, but I don't really see the positives. One of the reasons I do decoctions is for step mashing. With a single infusion mash and no mash out, I wouldn't bother pulling a decoction. Maybe if I wanted the flavor of the decoction, I'd just add a 1/4 pound of melanoidin malt in the mash. If I'm doing a single infusion, for simplicity's sake I wouldn't do a decoction. If I'm doing a decoction, then I might as well do it as part of a step mash.

 

[ravenscroft]

After reading a lot of posts on a few sites on the benefits of decoctions to flavor development and the comparison to just adding melanoidin malt it doesn't seem like a settled issue. If your in the camp that swears by decoction for that purpose then this method seems like the way to go. I'll definitely try the melanoidin malt method at least once to make sure. Thanks for the input!

 

[Airborneguy]

I've never tried melonnoiden malt, but I'm also of the 'whatever works for you' camp, so since I never push my ideas on other people, I don't see the need to experiment 20 ways before I decide how I want to do things. I like how my decoctions work, and definitely see a difference from my non-decocted beers, so I'll probably keep doing it this way for awhile.

 

[drummstikk]

Decoction vs. melanoidin: Man, if I could get the same flavors from a malt, I would definitely stop decocting.

I don't think we have malts that mimic all the various flavors you can produce through decoction. To explain, I want to draw an analogy with crystal malt. Before crystal malts were invented, people produced caramel flavors by simply boiling the hell out of first runnings. It wasn't a common technique, but it existed, and you still see the technique used in beers like Traquair House ale. For darker caramel flavors, you just boil the wort longer. And if you want a mixture of caramel flavors, you boil some wort a short time, and some a long time.

Crystal malts copy these caramel flavors to some degree, and they come in several different lovibonds, so you can simulate a complex boil of first runnings by simply tossing in a mixture of C15, C60, and C120. Because crystal malts are so versatile, you really no longer need the more complicated technique, unless you're after those interesting toffee flavors that seem to be hard to get from malts.

When we have melanoidin malts in several different lovibond, then we might finally be able to stop decocting and still get the flavors found in a pilsner. As far as I can tell, melanoidin malt can simulate a single decoction of X minutes, where X is something like 30. Changing the amount of melanoidin in a grist is akin to changing the amount of grains you boil in the decoction.

Can you simulate longer and shorter boil times with malts? Not with melanoidin malts alone -- they seem to just come in one lovibond, 20-30L. Does Munich malt give the flavors found in shorter decoction boil times? -- I'm not sure. Perhaps a mixture of two lovibond of Munich and a small amount of melanoidin would be a good simulation of a triple decoction? This is worth trying.

It's true that people should do what works for them, always. This is definitely the way to live your life. But because everybody has different preferences, "What works for you?" is an endlessly complex question. It even allows camps of "decoctors" vs. "non-decoctors" to form. Can you imagine if there were people who believed in crystal malt and people who somehow believed it didn't impact the flavor of a beer? (To be fair on this point, the non-decoctors are heavily influenced by a survey Denny Conn conducted. No amount of surveys, though, will stop the reactions of Maillaird chemistry.)

I'm interested in the questions that have answers everyone can agree on. "Where do specific flavors in beers come from, and what are the techniques or malts available to produce those flavors?" I would never presume to tell anyone what to do with their beer. Instead, I think forums like this exist so we can make the most informed choices on brewday. It may come off as prescriptive some of the time, but I really see the purpose of HBT to be more descriptive. On brew day, nobody can tell you want to do!

 

[drummstikk]

Here's a simplified way to calculate the times you need to boil grains for to simulate any decoction. All you need is high-school math, so fear not!

let's say n is the total number of decoctions, t is the time you would boil each decoction in a traditional decoction, p is the fraction of grains involved in each decoction, and k is a number that goes from 0 to n. For a triple decoction, n = 3, and k is 0,1,2,3. p is usually 1/3, and t is usually 15 minutes.

Then, your boil times will be k*t (0, 15, 30, 45 minutes)

For boil time kt, you should boil this fraction of your total grains:

(n k) (p)^(k)*(1-p)^(n-k)

where (n k) is the binomial coefficient

For example, if k = 1, the boil time is 1*15 = 15 minutes, and the binomial coefficient is (3 1) = 3. The fraction of grains is

3 * (1/3)^(1) * (1-1/3)^(3-1) = 3 * 1/3 * (2/3)^2 = 12/27 = 45%

You get the same fractions you would get from thinking through the steps of a decoction and multiplying everything out, but it's much faster to calculate this way.

 

[helibrewer]

For a single decoction I keep my boil portion seperate, striking in the non-boil portion for a target of about 125F. After a 10-min boil I add that grist to my MLT (non-boiled portion) and direct fire if necessary to get to 152F for the remaining 50 minutes. No scooping and pouring.

 

[drummstikk]

For a single decoction I keep my boil portion seperate, striking in the non-boil portion for a target of about 125F. After a 10-min boil I add that grist to my MLT (non-boiled portion) and direct fire if necessary to get to 152F for the remaining 50 minutes. No scooping and pouring.

Do you saccharify the boiled portion before it gets boiled? If not, you can't expect to develop strong decoction flavors. Maillard chemistry requires the tail end of a sugar and the tail end of a protein.