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Decoction Temperature Compensation.

J

Jon_DeBrewman

Is there anyway when doing a decoction That the boiling temperature could be entered. I brew at 7,500ft here in Santa Fe NM and water boils at about 196F. This means that I have to pull more for the decoction and it's kindof a guess!
 
Jon,
 This has been added to the newer version of BeerSmith I'm working on.  No release date yet as I still have several major features to complete, but it will be coming in the next update.

Cheers!
Brad
 
I'm brewing in Colorado and ran into the same problem. Until the update, is there a formula or general rule we could use to estimate how much we should increase the decoction volume? Thanks!
 
Here is some stuff I have
How to Decoct
The big question in decoction mashing is how much mash do you pull out for boiling? If you don't take enough mash the temperature rise will not be as great as desired; too much will result in overshooting your desired temperature. Fortunately there is a good "rule of thumb" to follow for decoction mashing:

Dough in using 1.33 qts. of water per pound of grain and stabilize at 122°F.
Use a thick portion of the mash consisting of 40% the quantity of grain in the decoction.
Temperature gain will be approximately 28°F per decoction.
This rule of thumb is easy to remember, and fits the temperature profile for a single decoction nicely. If you want a different temperature gain, you can calculate the decoction fraction as follows:

F = ( Tf - To ) / ( 212 - Tf- K )

Where: F is the fraction of the main mash to boil. (multiply by 100 to get %), To is the starting temperature in °F, Tf is the desired final temperature in °F, K is your temperature loss constant (17°F for my system). The value for K can be adjusted ± a few degrees to fit your own results.
from http://www.strandbrewers.org/techinfo/decoct2.htm

You can ratio volumes from this
Take the faction (percent) and multiply by volume.

Fred

 
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