Author: Marshall Schott

Mashing is a necessary step for all-grain brewers that involves steeping milled grain in warm water with the purpose of allowing the starch in the malt to be enzymatically converted to sugar, namely maltose, thereby producing sweet wort. Ask any typical brewer how long this process takes and the most common response will undoubtedly be the same: an hour. Interestingly, most of these brewers have likely also heard (or read) somewhere at sometime someone with some semblance of authority on the subject say that most conversion occurs within the first 15 minutes or so of this saccharification rest, a notion Kai Troester was able to demonstrably support in his 2009 experiment. And yet, perhaps out of fear or just plain inflexibility, my timer still gets set for 60 minutes every time I close my mash tun.

I recently read an inspirational brewing philosophy by a dude I’ve admired, Denny Conn, co-author of the upcoming book Experimental Homebrewing (pre-orders available): Make the best beer possible while having the most fun possible while doing the least work possible. Amen, brother Denny! As much as I enjoy the brewing process, I have this obsession with reducing the time and effort it takes while maintaining a quality finished product, something a reduced mash step would certainly contribute to.

| PURPOSE |

To investigate the differences between 2 beers mashed for different lengths of time. Two separate 5 gallon batches of wort were produced using the same grain bill, one mashed for 30 minutes and the other 60.

| METHOD |

I needed to make an Oktoberfest for an upcoming club competition and, given my adoration for this style, figured it’d be a good one for such an exBEERiment. Rather than type it out, the recipe can be found in the recipes sections of this site. Since these were both 5 gallon batches, I decided this would be a simple no sparge brew day and filled each kettle with the full volume of brewing liquor for each batch.

While I usually stagger my double-batch brew day mash-ins by about 30 minutes, I started the long-mash only about 5 minutes after closing the lid on the short-mash MLT. My target mash temp for this batch was 151°F.

I stirred the short-mash twice during the 30 minute rest then ran off the sweet wort. Roscoe always enjoys turning the valves and watching the bucket fill.

It was amazing how quick that felt! The short-mash was boiling by the time I began running off the sweet wort from the long-mash.

While the pre-boil gravity was exactly the same for both batches, there appeared to be just a tiny difference in post-boil SG, nothing really significant.

Each batch was chilled to about 80°F (groundwater was 75°F) using my King Cobra IC, racked to labelled carboys, and placed in the cool fermentation freezer to finish chilling to my target pitching temp of 56°F. Once reached, WLP029 starters were pitched and the hybrid fermentation profile I created in The Black Box was engaged. I noticed some action about 12 hours later.

Things were looking very similar at 24 hours post-pitch.

A couple days later and things were still about the same.

It wasn’t until about a week after pitching the yeast that things started to appear to be a little different with the krausen on the short-mash beer seeming to drop before the long-mash beer.

I thought it only prudent to measure the SG at this point, assuming the fallen krausen indicated a potential stall, but they were at the same spot.

After a few more days at 68°F, fermentation activity had come to a visible halt, so I took hydrometer sample a couple days apart and both beers were right at 1.015, .002 higher than expected, but I was satisfied and proceeded to packaging per my standard kegging method.

After about 10 days in the 38°F keezer, the beers were carbonated and ready for evaluation.

| RESULTS |

For the purposes of keeping the beers anonymous, they were each assigned a name. In this case, the long-mash was called Fritz and the short-mash was called Carl.

Appearance

– 50% observed Fritz to be clearer than Carl, 40% found no difference in clarity, and 1 person thought Carl was clearer

– 80% found no difference in color (darkness) and 20% thought Fritz was darker

– 60% said Carl had better head retention and 40% noticed no difference

– 60% thought the general appearance of the beers was exactly the same, while the remaining 40% said they were somewhat similar

– Overall, 60% found no difference in appearance, 30% thought Carl looked better, and 10% thought Fritz looked better

Aroma

– 50% thought Fritz had more malt aroma, 30% thought Carl was more aromatically malty, and 20% found no difference

– 80% perceived no difference in hop aroma, 10% thought Fritz had a stronger hop nose, and 10% thought Carl was more hoppy smelling

– 50% perceived no difference in ester/phenol aroma, 30% thought Fritz had more esters/phenols, and 20% thought Carl had a stronger ester/phenol aroma

– 50% found no difference in terms of off/unpleasant aromas, 40% thought Fritz had more off-aromas, and 10% thought Carl smelled less pleasant

– 70% reported the general aroma of the beers to be somewhat similar, 20% said they were exactly the same, and 10% perceived no similarities in aroma

– Overall, 50% thought Carl had better aroma, 30% perceived no difference, and 20% thought Fritz smelled better

Flavor

– 60% perceived Fritz as having more malt flavor, 30% found no difference, and 10% experienced Carl more malty

– 70% perceived no difference in hop flavor, 20% thought Fritz had more hop flavored, and 10% thought Carl was more hoppy tasting.

– 56% thought Fritz had more yeast/fermentation caused flavors, 22% thought Carl had a more unpleasant yeast character, and 22% perceived no difference

– 50% found no difference in off-flavors, 30% thought Carl had more off-flavors, and 20% thought Fritz was more off-tasting

– 80% reported the general flavor of the beers to be somewhat similar, 10% said they were exactly the same, and 10% thought they were not at all similar

– Overall, 50% thought Fritz had better flavor, 30% thought Carl tasted better, and 20% noticed no difference

Mouthfeeel

– 50% thought Fritz had more body, 30% chose Carl as being fuller bodied, and 20% experience no difference

– 50% perceived no difference in carbonation, 30% thought Carl was better carbonated, and 20% reported the carbonation in Fritz was better

– 70% found no difference in tannin character, 20% thought Carl was more tannic, and 10% said Fritz was more tannic

– Overall, 44% preferred the mouthfeel of Fritz, 33% thought Carl felt better on the tongue, and 22% perceived no difference

In terms of overall preference, 50% of the tasters reported they preferred Fritz, 40% preferred Carl, and the remaining 10% (a single participant) thought they were too similar to determine a preference.

After answering all of the questions blindly, the tasters were informed of the nature of this exBEERiment and asked to guess which of the beers they thought was mashed for 30 minutes. 50% accurately guessed Carl, 30% incorrectly guessed Fritz, and 20% thought they were too similar to tell a difference. For fun, I also ask the participants to guess what they think the nature of the exBEERiment is, prior to revealing it, and only if they feel comfortable doing so. For the first time, it appears one of the panel members, Daniel White, was correct, typing, “possibly mash time?” Nice job, Daniel!

My Impressions: I’ve had these beers on tap now for a couple weeks and have done my best to compare them as objectively as possible. While I really wanted the short-mash beer (Carl) to come out ahead or at least taste the same as the long-mash beer (Fritz), my honest opinion is that I perceived Fritz as having more of the characteristics I expect in a good Oktoberfest– it had more toasty/Munich malt charcter, slightly more body, and I just enjoyed it more than the other beer. After this exBEERiment, I have no plans to change my normal mashing routine, though I do think it would be good to redo this on lighter and darker beers.

| DISCUSSION |

While 10 people may limit generalizability, I would contend it was at least a relatively representative sample and that the results would like remain in a similar range given increased participants. As has been the case in a couple past exBEERiments, it would appear there is little in the way of differences between a beer, at least this particular Märzen, mashed for 30 minutes compared to the same beer receiving the more typical 60 minute mash treatment. My hunch, which is admittedly just a fucking hunch, is that some of differences perceived by participants can be attributed to the expectation of difference between the 2 sample beers rather than actual differences.

As a result of the apparent lack of significant differences, I would definitely recommend others who are looking to shorten up their brew day a bit consider cutting their mash time in half, despite my own decision to continue mashing for an hour. While I attempted to restrict other variables as much as possible, there’s a chance the differences I experienced, if they indeed existed, were caused by something other than the length of the mash. I’ve heard from a number of homebrewers, in fact, who mash between 15 and 30 minutes regularly and swear their beers come out just as great as when they mashed longer.

If you have any questions, comments, or recommendations, please don’t hesitate to share. Cheers!

Support Brülosophy In Style!

All designs are available in various colors and sizes on Amazon!

Follow Brülosophy on:

| Read More |

18 Ideas to Help Simplify Your Brew Day

7 Considerations for Making Better Homebrew

List of completed exBEERiments

How-to: Harvest yeast from starters

How-to: Make a lager in less than a month

| Good Deals |

Brand New 5 gallon ball lock kegs discounted to $75 at Adventures in Homebrewing

ThermoWorks Super-Fast Pocket Thermometer On Sale for $19 – $10 discount

Sale and Clearance Items at MoreBeer.com

If you enjoy this stuff and feel compelled to support Brulosophy.com, please check out the Support Us page for details on how you can very easily do so. Thanks!

Advertisements

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email



Like this: Like Loading...