increasing malt flavour - the scottish boiling thing

[Karle]

I'd like to increase the malt flavour of my next brew which is going to be an ale of some sort (can't do lagers). I was thinking about doing a decoction mash, but to be honest I'm too lazy. Now, I've heard about the Scottish way of increasing melanoidins in the wort and was wondering if anybody has experience with this?

Is the way to do it just to boil the first 5 litres of wort (20 litre batch) down to about 0.5 litres sirup? If I do this, is there still a vorlauf or is it the actual vorlauf that I'm supposed to boil? Also, would this technique be superfluous if I added some Weyermann Melanoidin malt or did a long boil of say 2 hours?

I know it's not very 'to style' for ales, but I'm not fussed about that. The base malt I've been thinking about is Vienna and maybe some Munich. I also might add some Medium Crystal.

[Reviled]

Its called a reduction and imparts a toffee like flavour in the beer, it can be slightly astringent, but not by much...

its awesome, try it out, youll probably be happy with the results!!

[Karle]

Does it sound about right to boil 5 litres down to 0.5?

[denimglen]

Boiling 5L down to 0.5L will give you way more toffee/caramel melanoidens than a decoction will.

I wouldn't bother with a decoction, do one once, just to experience it, otherwise just use a handful of melanoiden malt.

I think most people doing the reductions are using their first runnings from the mash?

[Reviled]

Agree that decoction is a waste of time even tho ive never done one myself, allthough ive tasted decocted beers and reckon that melanoiden is just as good, if not better ;o)

[Mike Neilson]

Tea bag some malt at the end of boil.