Procedure:Treat the brewing water to achieve the desired hardness by adding distilled water and/or calcium salts to chlorine free tap water, or use a spring water with the desired hardness. The lack of hardness in the water is crucial to the flavor.
Add 7 gallons of cool water to the grist, and allow the grain to soak for 30 minutes, stirring every 8-10 minutes to ensure thorough hydration. Apply heat to your brewpot to slowly raise, and hold the temperature at 100-105 degrees. Use a large ladle to carefully remove the thickest 40% of the mash, and carefully transfer to a second pot, being careful not to splash. There should be just enough liquid in this decoction to cover the grain.
Slowly raise and hold the temperature of the decoction at 120-122 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring often to prevent scorching. Rapidly raise and hold the temperature of the decoction to 154 degrees for 20 minutes, or untill the iodine test shows complete conversion. Quickly bring the decoction to a hardboil, and boil 15 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid scorching. Carefully ladle the hot decoction into the rest of the mash, avoiding splashing, until the temperature of the mash reaches 127-128 degrees. If any of the hot dcoction is left over, put the pot in a cool water bath untill it cools to the appropriate temperature. Hold the mash at 128 degrees for 15 minutes before drawing the next decoction.
Carefully remove the thickest 50% of the mash, and transfer it to the second pot. Quickly raise and hold the temperature of the decoction at 154 degrees for 20 minutes, or until conversion is complete. Rapidly bring the decoction to a boil for 15 minutes. Add the decoction to the mash to reach a temperature of 152 degrees. Hold the mash at 152 degrees for 15 minutes, or untill conversion is complete. Raise the mash temp to 170 degrees to mash out.
Prepare 8-9 gallons of brewing water, heated to 168 degrees. Sparge, recirculating the first running untill they come out clear. Sparge slowly, untill kettle full (a little over 5.5 gallons of wort) Avoid aeration.
Bring the wort to a hard boil for 15 minutes, and add 2.25oz bittering hops, boil another 60 minutes. Add .5 oz flavoring hops during he last 15 minutes, and .25 oz during the last 5 minutes of boiling. Use a long plastic or metal spood to whirlpool the wort, taking care not to splash. When the hot trub settles into the center of the pot, slowly siphon the wort off of the hot trub.
Rapidly cool the wort down to 42 degrees (less than 3 hours). Aerate the cooled wort and pitch the yeast. Add .5 ozz hops to the secondary fermentor to dryhop.
You may have to adjust the malt and water quantities based on the efficiency of your system. You can use a step-infusion mash using rest temperatures of 30min@125, 20min@144, and 20min@154. It will not have the same character as the decoction method. |
Pasteur Brewing Louis Pasteur – Science, Health, and Brewing 