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Kitchen Brewing Part 4: Multi-Step Mashing

Up until now, I've employed a simple single-infusion mash for my stove-top brews. It's the technique I demonstrated in Part 2 of this series. I heat the water to a set temp, add the grains, stir things up and let the mash perform a Saccharification Rest for 60-90 minutes. Outside of the occasional stir and temperature check, that's pretty much it.

For many beers, this works really well, especially with English and American Ales. However, I was getting poor extraction rates from wheat malts. My efficiency on wheat beers was dropping around 10% versus my all barley brews. What to do? Take a shot at a multi-step mash and see what happens.

The only real difference between my multi-step mash and a single-infusion one is the introduction of a Protein Rest at the beginning of the mash. For the Protein Rest, I heat my water to around 130F. I then mash in the grains, which drops the temperature to around 124F. After mashing in, I pull the pot from the stove, cover it and wrapped it in blankets for 20-25 minutes. When the Protein Rest is done, I unwrap the pot and return it to the stove.

The Saccharification Rest is up next. Since I use a pot instead of an insulated Mash Tun, I can heat up the mash using direct heat rather than by introducing additional hot water.  I do this by applying medium-high heat to the pot while constantly stirring the grains. Keeping the grains moving does two things: it prevents the scorching of the grain and helps evenly distribute the heat in the pot. When the appropriate temp is reached, the pot is again pulled from the stove, covered and wrapped in blankets or stuck in the oven on Warm for an additional 60 minutes. When the Saccharification Rest is complete, I Sparge and Boil in the same manner as I always do.

That's it for now. Up next in this series, I'll cover a stove-top Decoction Mash.

Update 8/27/13:

I've been experimenting with using an infusion mash for Multi-Step Mashing as an alternative to applying direct heat. The technique has advantages and disadvantages. With the infusion method, you don't dough in with all of your water at once. Instead, you shoot for around 1 quart of water per pound of grain. The Infusion creates a very thick Mash for the Protein Rest, which allows protease to be more effective. It also eliminates the possibility of scorched grains from direct heating. On the flip-side, a Mash that has more than two steps is harder to pull off. Unless you're extremely accurate with your infusion water temps and quantities, it's quite easy to wind up with a very thin final Rest. Controlling the rate at which the Mash temperature rises is also more difficult (I liken applying direct heat to slowly climbing a hill, while an Infusion is more like using a staircase). In the end, it's all about tradeoffs.
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