[hopfenundmalz]

Yesterday I did a Dunkel using the technique that was discussed here https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=32676.0

It went well, it does add some time to the day, The whole amount of the grist must be heated, which takes time. A 20 minute boil duration was used.

The liquid was pumped to a second vessel. About 1 gallon of strike water was added to the thick part (5 gallon batch), to make it easier to stir, and give the total wort needed for the boil kettle.

After the boil I was wondering how to best recombine the thick and thin parts. I just did it. The resultant temp was 158F. Applied a little heat to get to 160F for a rest, then more heat to 170F. Transferred the wort to the boil kettle.

I ended up with 5 gallons of wort at 1.053 OG when done, target was 1.052, so I was happy. The garage smelled nice, but I didn't taste the wort for some reason.

I will report back on the beer. There is some skepticism as to any perceived benefit in the finished beer

[kramerog]

Thanks for posting.  I am one of the skeptics.  I think it makes more sense to hold back an extra gallon of wort (possibly starting with 1 more gallon of wort) than to add 1 gallon of water after draining the mash, but I'm open to learning new things.  I do like a dunkel so keep us updated please.

[kramerog]

Jeff, can you provide more details please.  What was your intial strike volume, amount of grains and how much did you runoff before the boil?  Thanks

[hopfenundmalz]

The grains were
10 lb Best Dark Munich
1 lb Avangard Pils
0.7 lb CaraMunich II
1.75 oz. Carafa II puverized and added at vorlauf

The strike was about 7 gallons, 144F rest.
I added 1 gallon, maybe a little more to the decoctions.

If you believe batch sparges work, this will too.

Efficiency be was not high, but this is almost no Sparge.

[mdyer909]

I started drinking my kesselmaishe bock this past weekend.  I’m enjoying it and will use this method again.

[hopfenundmalz]

Mine should be ready to taste after lagering, a couple more days. Have to get back home to Winter.

[thcipriani]

Very cool!

I'm excited and I have a ton of questions

I've been curious to try this myself, but I have a fair amount of deadspace beneath my false bottom. Do you have a false bottom? Did you recirculate at all during the process of bringing it up to a boil? Did you target any intermediate rests?

My $0.02 how I'd recombine: I'd probably pump wort back through the sparge arm, I guess? Or Id use gravity to run off on top of the mash through the ball valve. Was your concern too much splashing when recombining? or too much manual labor?

[hopsindahood]

When I decoct, I use a large stainless sieve that I got from a restaurant supply store. I use a decoction calculator to determine the volume to pull out and I scoop out roughly the same liquor to grist ratio in to another pot. If you scoop quickly, plenty of wort will come with the grain. I rarely need to add additional wort to the decoction pot. I bring that to a boil and introduce the boiling decoction back to the mash tun to raise to the desired temp. I usually pull a little extra off so that I don't need to be so precise.  I add the decocted portion back and stir until the desired temp is reached, which means I usually have some left over. I let that cool and add it back to the mash once it won't raise the temp significantly. This method doesn't require pumping, so it's easy to clean up. You can even do it with as few as 3 vessels (brew kettle, mash tun, decoction pot) and 1 burner.

[ynotbrusum]

When I decoct, I use a large stainless sieve that I got from a restaurant supply store. I use a decoction calculator to determine the volume to pull out and I scoop out roughly the same liquor to grist ratio in to another pot. If you scoop quickly, plenty of wort will come with the grain. I rarely need to add additional wort to the decoction pot. I bring that to a boil and introduce the boiling decoction back to the mash tun to raise to the desired temp. I usually pull a little extra off so that I don't need to be so precise.  I add the decocted portion back and stir until the desired temp is reached, which means I usually have some left over. I let that cool and add it back to the mash once it won't raise the temp significantly. This method doesn't require pumping, so it's easy to clean up. You can even do it with as few as 3 vessels (brew kettle, mash tun, decoction pot) and 1 burner.

Yes, that is how I decocted when I went that route (a few times), but with this approach of Kesselmaische, you are draining off wort and then boiling the grain (adding some sparge water as necessary), so most likely you are doing that in a vessel with a false bottom or other screen for the mash.  I look forward to further reports from Jeff and those who are trying this approach to hear the specifics on things like false bottom or other filtering means, etc...I could see using a separate pot for boiling grains, but that may be able to be avoided in the right situation I suppose.

[hopfenundmalz]

No false bottom this time. It was a 5 gallon batch, so I used a 10 gallon kettle with an easy masher. Drained of the wort from the low rest into another kettle, filling "from the bottom" to avoid to much splashing. The grains we're not drained dry, a gallon+ was added, and the wife helped me stir when heating and boiling. When recombining I pumped from the holding kettle through the ball valve and easy masher to "fill from the bottom".

I will give it a taste on Saturday.

[mdyer909]

I use a 10 gallon water cooler with a false bottom as my mash tun.  The screen sits maybe half an inch above the bottom.  After the initial mash I just drained the wort into a bucket and dumped the grains into my kettle with an additional gallon of water so it wouldn’t scorch, and boiled that for 30 min, stirring constantly.  Quite a workout!  Then it all went back in the tun, and after a turn I sparged and boiled. 

[thcipriani]

In Modern Homebrew Reicpes the Dunkle recipe recommends this technique. In Brewing Better Beer Gordon Strong writes, "On some systems (such as mine) [...] there is considerable water under the false bottom" (p. 92). Making a bit of a logical leap: this is possible to do on a system with a large amount of deadspace under the false bottom. This has not, however, made me brave enough to try this technique just yet