How do I Batch Sparge with this mash schedule?

Can’t help you there, as I have never done a protein rest. I think the need for a protein rest depends on the S/T (soluble vs total) protein in your malt. If the ratio is very low (which I believe you’d have to search hard for these days), a protein rest might help. If it’s moderate, it’s a total don’t care, but if it’s above a certain point, I believe it actually hurts head retention, and perhaps even body if I remember correctly, to do a protein rest.

This is all based on hearsay for the most part, but I am confident in the sources (Denny Conn, among others). Again, I have never tried both ways and judged for myself, but the chemistry behind it is not that complicated, and I’m inclined to trust it.

Let’s put is this way–I’ve seen plenty of folks who’ve suggested and/or done protein rests, but I don’t remember EVER hearing a comprehensible reason WHY they did it, or a believable explanation of what the result was supposed to be…

At least in part, it comes from the maltsters. By and large, commercial brewers don’t want to put the time or effort into a step mash, and the maltsters focus on highly-modified malts in order to give the customers what they want. Weyermann, for example, actually produces a pilsner malt that they advertise as being slightly under-modified, in addition to their standard pilsner molt. Presumably because step mashes are still fairly common in German breweries.

I learned from experience. I performed a protein rest a couple of times and came to the conclusion that protein rests can hurt beers that would otherwise be pretty good without it. I once made a witbier with a protein rest that turned out nice and crisp in taste, but clear as a bell, no haze whatsoever, and had very little head. I also made a Vienna lager that tasted great and was likewise clear as a bell, but I noticed that it tasted quite thin and watered down, with poor head retention, and it wasn’t just me because they said the same thing in a couple of BJCP competitions. I attributed this in part to the protein rest, and thereafter vowed to never ever do a protein rest again.

In this day and age, a protein rest is never necessary. It will break down proteins and result in a very clear beer, but it will also kill body and head retention. So perhaps it depends what you want out of your beer. If you really want a crystal clear beer at the expense of body and head, then by all means go for it. But if body and head matter more to you, and since clarity can be dealt with in dozens of other ways, then a protein rest is never necessary.

What’s more, I have purposely tried to find undermodified malt on the market so that I could further test out the protein rest. But after quite a search (this was a couple years back), I couldn’t find one single source of undermodified malt anywhere and gave up trying to look. They just don’t seem to make it anymore, and why would they – there’s nearly zero demand for it. Now with Weyermann, maybe, but I haven’t looked for it lately.

“Fully-modified malt” means, in part, that the protein rest was performed during the malting process. Most malt available today is fully-modified, so a protein rest during a mash is redundant.

Here’s a link to Northern Brewer’s page for Weyermann’s under-modified Bohemian Pilsner Malt

, if anyone is looking for it.

Thanks – I might need to give that stuff a shot sometime.