GW's European Beer Book

[crookedeyeboy]

Ive been reading this publication from 1995 whilst on holiday in Greece.
Has anyone done the stepped mashes he describes? I just wanted to clarify one point:

When doing say a single step IE from 50C to 65C how much of your initial liquor do you use?

If you are initially mashing the grist at 50C for half an hour do you use all the mash liquor or only a portion of it?

Thanks

[lancsSteve]

Start thick with a portion of the liquor and then infuse - I typically start at around 1.5l to 1 kg and then infuse at 100c ending up with nearer 2:1 - this allows 2 or three infusions.

Remember German mashes are often thin as much as 4:1 litres to kg mash.

Look at the calcs and juggle them so you're within your tun capacity.

First step is pretty tolerant between 45-55.

[crookedeyeboy]

Thanks Steve. Ill get round to trying it someday!

[Kev888]

I'm pretty ignorant of this sort of thing, but I'm interested in trying some step mashes in the future. But having prattled about from time to time with pans and kettles just to get the strike temperature right, I'm not sure i like the idea for doing stepped infusions.

Is this a case where RIMMs (or maybe even HERMS) may help? I never had much truck with such complexities for single infusion mashes, but if (say) you can do a good hefe with it then it could be worth bearing in mind for the ever present 'next' upgrade

Cheers
kev