Yeah, this ones on the house regular brew list now. Good luck with it. 🍺

Cheers. Don't want to make you thirsty, but it tastes as good as it looks. Sorry.

@@brewandbuild Curse you! You could redeem yourself by showing me how to brew a barley wine...

I haven't got a barley wine planned, but I need a dopplebock soon, it's close.......

@@brewandbuild Nice!

That dark honey has got incredible richness though, a handy ingredient.... but you're right, our honey can give an almost orange luminescence at times, which looks great.

Yes, absolutely, but try to keep it in the coolest place you have. Being lager, it won't benefit from a long, warm aging, and to be honest, there are only small improvements made by long, cold lagering periods. Improvements yes, but not that noticeable on a home brew scale.

Absolutely. I've written it all in stages during the video, which will include the water profile etc, but for simplicty, here it is: 3kg Pilsner Malt 600g Honey (25 litre Mash water if it's boil in a bag) Mash 60 minutes at 67°c 30g Saaz (boil 60 mins) 25g Mandarina Bavaria (Dry hop) Mangrove Jacks M76 Bavarian Lager yeast Tastes fantastic.

I'm removing half the grains to do a decoction. What I'm performing here is really a partial decoction, where I just boil those grains for 15 minutes. A full decoction would have all of the grains removed, and they would be heated to around 70-75 degrees celcius, and held there to do an alpha-amylase rest, where that enzyme converts starches into long chain sugars. This is then boiled to release tannins, and then the whole lot is recombined into the rest of the mash. I do this for a beer that i will be releasing in a month or so. The partial decoction releases tannin's from the grains, which I feel adds body to the beer and helps with head retention. I have done a side by side test with a non-decocted beer, where I felt there was a subtle but noticeable taste difference as well. This is a much debated and slightly controversial subject in the homebrewing community, and it is debatable as to whether it's worthwhile doing with modern, well modified malts. It comes down to personal preference.

@@brewandbuild Thanks for your detailed response. So the main motivation for separating some or all of the grain from the mash is to do with tannins. The Alpha-amylase conversion and rest can still be done during a normal mash step. When you did the taste test of decocted and non-decocted beer was it a double blond test? Or did you know before hand what you were drinking/tasting?

I am no expert on this, but I'll see where I can get to. So, the answer to your question is yes and no. Tannins are a large part, but there are also maillard reactions going on during the grain boil, which will form melanoidins. (brown compounds with lots of flavour, think toast vs bread) The alpha amylase conversion happens in a normal mash at higher temperatures (70-75ish), however, the higher temperature denatures the beta-amylase. (not all, as there is quite a bit of temperature range cross-over) Alpha will split starches into more complex long chain sugars, whereas beta will tend to split one simple sugar molecule off the end of a chain. So.... in days of old, when malts were not as well malted and modified, decoction was a method to heat the grain portion into the alpha range, whilst still keeping the beta active in the left behind wort. Then when the grains were recombined, the long broken chains were easier for the beta enzymes to split into simple sugars. This then created a more fermentable wort. This process is really not required with modern malts. Therefore, the main reasons I do a decoction is for tannins, melanoidins and caramels. My simple and unscientific test was a blind (not double), and it was fairly easy to pick each time. It was enough to encourage me to keep doing it. I don't decoct everything though, I feel it actually makes some worse, but that of course is very subjective and open to debate.

@@brewandbuild Maillard reactions usually kick in at temperatures approaching 140 degC or so. Even the mash boil is less than that. The 140degC temperature is more of an optimum temperature so there are Maillard reactions at lower temperatures but occur at lower reaction rates. Mallaird reactions are thermal not enzymatic. Some even say that the Mallaird reaction cannot occur in the presence of water. The lower limit of the Mallaird reaction is not really well defined. The acidic pH of the mash also inhibits any potential for Mallaird reactions. Generally, the Mashing process conditions in the brewing process do not favour Mallaird type reactions.

Absolutely. I'm not a bio-chemist, and if you are, then I bow to your greater knowledge and maybe I can learn something. You are correct in saying "Generally, the Mashing process conditions in the brewing process do not favour Mallaird type reactions." But we are talking about a decoction, where there is actually very little water. ONE (not all) of the reasons for decoction mashing in history has been to create the darker colours and flavours that we can now get from munich malt, melanoidin malt, etc. From what I read, maillard reactions and the formation of melanoidins are not greatly understood. Yes the optimum temperature is about 135c to 145c. However, reactions occur outside those ranges as you point out and are slower. As for not occurring in the presence of water, how can the browning of bread be explained, there is always steam. The ph is an issue and maillard reactions happen faster at higher ph levels, but they still happen at lower levels, once again, slower. There are two points to consider when we are boiling the grain section for decoction. There is much less water volume, so as the grain base boils, the water is removed from the grains in contact with the pot base. This could explain your not occurring with water, as the small pieces of grain contacting the hot base will dry out until you stir it. This also means that the spot heat on the pot base can be far, far greater than 100 degrees, and easily 140c. Have you never burned a pot of soup? There are not large amounts of melanoidins or caramel produced in a decoction. If there were, then when I re-incorporate a pilsner, I would end up with a dunkel. We are talking very small amounts of these compounds.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'd never noticed. It really is annoying with headphones once you notice it. I've just gone back into my editing suite and had a look at the audio levels, and it looks like my microphone is recording the left track higher for some reason. Unfortunately I can't fix the existing videos, but I'll remedy it for all the future ones. 👍