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Author Topic: Modern German Brewing Practices  (Read 8356 times)

Offline majorvices

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Modern German Brewing Practices
« on: February 18, 2010, 06:18:02 am »
Does anyone know (I'm assuming Kai might) more about modern German brewing practices? I know a lot of breweries are moving  or have moved away from decoction mashing due to high energy costs. What about step mashing? We talk a lot about not needing a p-rest, etc., due to the malting techniques used in todays malts, and yet I still constantly hear about how German lagers are all step mashed, including a p-rest. I guess I would just like to know a little more about modern German brewing practices. The old Style Guide books are great, but I wonder how accurate they are today?

Aside from brushing up on my German and buying a plane ticket and touring as many breweries as possible in a 2 week period (lord how I'd love to do that!) I would like to know some answers to some of those secrets!

Offline blatz

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2010, 07:51:03 am »
keith - I am no help now, but I will try to tour as many breweries as I can this summer.
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Offline majorvices

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2010, 08:00:10 am »
keith - I am no help now, but I will try to tour as many breweries as I can this summer.

How good is your German? Mine's not so good.

Offline blatz

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2010, 08:01:58 am »
mine is terrible.  I'm crossing my fingers that they'll speak english.
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Offline Hokerer

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2010, 08:10:41 am »
How good is your German? Mine's not so good.

How good does it have to be, beer/bier is pronounced that same in both languages :)
Joe

Offline mthogan1997

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2010, 08:20:20 am »
Instead of waiting for Kai, have you checked out http://braukaiser.com/


Offline majorvices

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2010, 08:41:13 am »
Instead of waiting for Kai, have you checked out http://braukaiser.com/



Yeah, I have not investigated his wiki as much as I should (but that does give me something to do, thanks) however, I am not interested in learning about infusion mashes, step mashes and decoction mashes (since I am fairly well versed in them as is) I'm just mainly concerned with what breweries are doing what now. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see that info on his site. Mostly I am wondering why I hear that so many German brewmasters still are proponents of multi-step mashes (including p-rests) or is this really just fiction?

Offline majorvices

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2010, 08:47:08 am »
How good is your German? Mine's not so good.

How good does it have to be, beer/bier is pronounced that same in both languages :)

Das wurst in meinen hosen ist gross.

Offline babalu87

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2010, 08:47:27 am »
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Museums-_und_Traditionsbrauerei_Wippra

They do a dough in at 136 before it goes to the mash tun
Jeff

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Offline majorvices

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2010, 08:55:36 am »
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Museums-_und_Traditionsbrauerei_Wippra

They do a dough in at 136 before it goes to the mash tun

OK, so there is one brewery with a wood fired ketttle that doughs in above the protein rest. Looking for maybe just a bit more info than that.... though it is a very nice read. I want to go there!

Offline Hokerer

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2010, 09:14:54 am »
How good is your German? Mine's not so good.

How good does it have to be, beer/bier is pronounced that same in both languages :)

Das wurst in meinen hosen ist gross.

TMI
Joe

Offline majorvices

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2010, 09:17:39 am »
Actually, I think I just found what I was looking for
Quote
The Hochkurz mash has become the standard mashing schedule for beers brewed in Germany. Especially large breweries like it because it doesn’t require decoction and can be done in less than 2 hours which fits well with their desire to be able to mash a new batch every 2 hours. It uses 2 different sacharification rests; one for each group of amylase enzymes. A low temperature rest favors the beta amylase and sets the fermentbility of the wort. A high temperature rest favors the alpha amylase and completes the starch conversion.

Offline nyakavt

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2010, 05:57:32 am »
Actually, I think I just found what I was looking for
Quote
The Hochkurz mash has become the standard mashing schedule for beers brewed in Germany. Especially large breweries like it because it doesn’t require decoction and can be done in less than 2 hours which fits well with their desire to be able to mash a new batch every 2 hours. It uses 2 different sacharification rests; one for each group of amylase enzymes. A low temperature rest favors the beta amylase and sets the fermentbility of the wort. A high temperature rest favors the alpha amylase and completes the starch conversion.


So this is like a single infusion with a mashout?

Offline babalu87

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2010, 06:04:50 am »
Actually, I think I just found what I was looking for
Quote
The Hochkurz mash has become the standard mashing schedule for beers brewed in Germany. Especially large breweries like it because it doesn’t require decoction and can be done in less than 2 hours which fits well with their desire to be able to mash a new batch every 2 hours. It uses 2 different sacharification rests; one for each group of amylase enzymes. A low temperature rest favors the beta amylase and sets the fermentbility of the wort. A high temperature rest favors the alpha amylase and completes the starch conversion.


So this is like a single infusion with a mashout?

No its like direct heating.
They dough in at a certain temp and then raise the mash temp to the desired sacch rest temp.
Kai uses this method quite a bit with his brews.
Jeff

On draught:
IIPA, Stout, Hefeweizen, Hallertau Pale Ale, Bitter

Primary:
Hefeweizen,Berliner Weisse, Mead

Offline Kaiser

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Re: Modern German Brewing Practices
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2010, 07:02:40 am »
I have been busy with new responsibilities at work, hence the late response.

There is not much on my site what particular German breweries actually do.  I thought that decoctions are largely dead but I when I toured Paulaner for a second time I found out that they decoction mash most of their beers. They also hold a protein rest from which they pull the 1st decoction.  Based on their brewhouse configuration and the number of batches they run per day I’d say that they can spend up to 4 hours on a single mash.

Large non Bavarian breweries are expected to use a simple Hochkurz infusion mash where they dough in around 60 C and hold the first rest at 62-63C. There is no single infusion mashing in German brewing. Based on some statements I saw it is even frowned upon as producing beers with less character. And they don’t have to single infusion mash since the standard German brew house has a heated mash tun or the mash boil kettle also serves as mash tun.

What else do you want to know?

Most of my insight comes from text books, papers, magazines and some brewery tours. I know little how a specific brewery brews their beer, so don’t ask that. Germans brewers tend to be very secretive about their recipes and specifics of the brewing process. Even if you speak German well you’ll have a hard time getting to the details you are interested in as a brewer when you attend a public tour.

Kai