The Homebrewing Guest Blogger Returns!

Welcome to another whenever-I-feel-like-writing post on home brewing! From here on out I'd like to move from general brewing procedure to more specific brewing information. Truly, you don't need this knowledge, but that's like saying that, in order to eat, all you need to know is how to make sandwiches. You'd stay alive, but the boring flavor of sandwiches and lack of creativity involved in making sandwiches would be numbing.

I hate working at Panera.

Anyway, knowing more about brewing and the science of brewing can help you create better tasting, more consistent beers. The result of a little learning is a more flavorful, more complex brewsky that you can feel proud of.

So, mashing!!

Mashing is a complex process, involving enzymes, carbon sugars, and complex by-products that ultimately affect the final flavor of your beer to a surprising degree.

To begin with, the grain used in brewing contains several different carbon sugars. Mashing itself is the process of breaking down the grain structure using enzymes present in the mash in order to more effectively extract the sugars for fermentation. Different enzymes are most effective at different temperatures and pHs so manipulating these factors during your mash can be extremely beneficial. I’ll spare you the boring chemistry and simply tell you that your mash can be manipulated to most effectively break down the grain.

The technique I’ll teach you here is called multi-rest mashing. It involves resting the mash at certain temperatures, activating specific enzymes in order to break down key parts of the grain. The procedure is simple:

1. Heat your mashing water to between 114 and 119 °F
2. Add the grain and stir constantly until the temperature drops to 104 °F.
3. Maintain that temperature (plus or minus 2-3 degrees) for 20 minutes.
4. At the end of 20 minutes, apply heat again, stirring constantly, until the temperature reaches 140 °F.
5. Turn the burner off and hold at temp for another 20 minutes.
6. Apply heat again and raise the temperature to 158 °F.
7. Turn off burner and hold for the final 20 mins.
8. Mash out as normal and continue brewing!

From experience, the resulting beer is world’s better. The difference is immediately noticeable (beer is more developed, mature, with a smoother flavor profile) and the procedure itself truly isn’t that difficult. The most frustrating part of multi-resting is maintaining the temperature, but with practice you can master it.

So that’s it! If you have questions about the science involved or the execution of the procedure, feel free to leave them in the comments section and I will promise to attempt to remember to read them and maybe give an honest effort to possibly answer them.

But seriously, if you have any questions or comments, hit me up.