Going to make my own weldless bulkheads/valves this week

[Gil Breau]

Brew stand is gonna be made sometime this month I hope. Now that I have the three pots all fixed up its feasible to make it.

Need to find the metal to work with first, but then its just a weekend of welding it together hopefully.

[Shawn]

Yes, fly sparging increases efficiency only slightly (usually), but those who WANT to do it for the sake of trying it will need a manifold in order to do so.

Doing a double decoction may not drastically improve a beer (there have been side-by-side experiments that have shown that even for several German lagers, decoction brewing did not improve the beer quality), but people still like to do it sometimes, just for the method alone.

[Richard]

Man got point, but Shawn: can you think of any benefit to fly sparging other than efficiency. I got to side with Dave if not.

[Shawn]

I think I was misunderstood here...

I never said you SHOULD fly sparge. Dave said there was no point in building a manifold, I just gave my opinion that if you WANTED to fly sparge, you would need a manifold.

I have never fly sparged, and don't intend on it. I use a SS hose in my mashtun. And I agree that fly-sparging likely only offers a small increase in efficiency, as I noted above...

[brew]

So is double docoction used to get better efficiency in a mash that has multiple grain types? Like for example, adding unmalted grain (like maybe a wheat or rye for example) to a mash with maybe half or more malted 2-row?

I saw this chart on Homebrewtalk "Gelatinization Temperatures for different grains" - is gelatinization part of the mash process that single infusion deals with properly because all the grains are malted? Maybe I'm way off here... (I'm still reading on these topics)...

[Shawn]

I've never done a double-decoction before, but my understanding is that it is often used for certain types of beers (some German lagers, for example... Bock, Oktoberfest) to enhance the maltiness in the flavor. Some swear that it makes a difference, and others say that it doesn't.

[Gil Breau]

The only reason I'm even looking at fly sparging is simply because it lends itself to a gravity fed system so well.

Simply open the valves, fly sparge, and start heating to wort as its doing it's thing. It's not a matter of efficiency, its a matter of its integrating in my goal system, and the fact its another project that I can work on.

Well, that and the autosparges blichmann makes are just so damn cool. >.>

[Richard]

Shawn: Apologies; I missed your post at 1:06 pm.

I read that decoction mashing can lead to a maltier beer, and that the long decoction mashes are only really worth doing with bad quality grain (so not an issue)... It seems a fairly simple logic: boiling the mash (meaning the actual water + grist mix) would caramelise some of the sugars closer to the heat source... I think

Or maybe it's yet another brewing superstition/tradition.

Shawn: Do you have a link to that side-by-side article?

[Shawn]

Richard: I'll take a look for it, I'm sure I can find it. I'm actually thinking that it was done by Jamil on one of his podcasts, with some of his cronies.

I was planning on brewing an Oktoberfest in the next couple of weeks... I'd like to try decoction mashing sometime, but right now it's still a little intimidating...

[Richard]

Potentially on their clone brew show, I'm guessing.

[Shawn]

Possibly; either that, or Brew Strong.

[Gil Breau]

Finished pots:

Pot+Bulkhead



Manifold in the mash kettle



Works extremely well, efficiency went up over the cooler mash tun for sure.

[Kyle]

how is the temperature fluctuation with that pot as the mash vessel?

[Gil Breau]

It's...interesting

I kept it mostly between 147 & 151, but it's definitely a challenge

I'm going to try your insulation method to try and help

[Dave Savoie]

It looks as though Gil's obsession has begun you can thank me anytime Gil