It’s easy to take highly modified malt for granted. Today, it’s challenging to find one that’s not; even most European Pilsner malts are fairly well modified. For homebrewers, that means that a single-step infusion mash works great most of the time.
Multi-step mashing may seem like a historical curiosity, but it’s good to understand the intent because there are still some useful ideas. Stopping points during the mash process were designed to improve the quality of the beer based on the available malts, but they can also come in handy when you’re using unmalted grains, such as wheat, rye, or oats, or when you want to study traditional technique without the modern shortcuts.
Let’s look at the rest points and see what they’re all about.