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My modified decocotion of sorts experiment

Wildrover

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Well, I decided to try what we discussed the other day about removing sach rest water to mash out believing that this will take care of the mash out step but also allow for enough sparge water to really give the grains a good rinse and consequently upping my efficiency. 

I tried this on Mo's Summer Ale, I've never had this beer or made it before but I was looking for something that looked interesting and different and could act like a good summer cooler.  I got the recipe from an older issue of BYO that highlighted sumer recipes.

Anyway, the results: Surprisingly my efficiency was rather low.  I was only able to obtain 69% from this modified decocotion.  This has me a little dumbfounded given that my last two batches are where I removed protein rest water for the mash out and was able to obtain 79 and 80% percent respectively.  I have to think that this step actually hurt my efficiency since I'm guessing I removed unconverted starch from the mash tun and used it to mash out.  That starch was probably unable to be converted at all at that point but removing the sach rest water should have removed converted sugars that was then used to mash out. 

So what happened?

As I think about it I believe I've come up with some possibilities though admittedly this is just brain storming.

1.  There really isn't a lot of starch in the protein rest water so removing that and using it for the mash out isn't a bad idea since this will allow for the mash to be closer to the 1.25 qts per lb of grain convention that seems to be ideal (or at least convention).

2.  This is related to 1 but maybe that mash volume is a little more important than I originally thought.  Maybe trying to keep it as close to 1.25 vs say 2.0 qts per lb of grain actually does play a part in how much starch gets converted and consequently the amount of sugars that make it into the boil?

3.  I was thinking that at the very worst, using the sach rest water, vs. the protein rest water, to mash out would keep the efficiency the same and at best would improve it significantly.  The fact it went down might mean that using the sach rest water to mash out might actually be doing something (though I can't for the life of me think of what?) to hinder starch conversion in the mash tun?

4.  Finally, I will honestly say that I was a little suspicious of the grind even before I started my brew day.  I have to mill my own grains but the HB shop provides the mill.  This last time they even had a sign on it that said it wasn't working for the specialty grains but should be okay for the base grains.  Since the Mo recipe only classed for base grains I figured I'd be okay.  It didn't seem like it was grinding it as much as normal and when I would lift the lid of the cooler the first thought I had when looking at the grain bed was "Are those ground enough"  so I'm thinking this may be the real culprit but again I'm still speculating?

Thoughts? 
 
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