Well, I guess I can't take full credit, its basically brewing in a bag that has been discussed here and on other boards before. But I figured what the hell, might as well ask for feedback, even though i'm ten minutes into the mash and three beers into my belly
Im doing a 3 gallon batch, first of all. I have a 5 gallon pot that is currently playing the part of my mash tun right now, with 4 lbs 2 row, .5 lbs flaked rye, and .5 lbs crystal 20 in an oversized grainbag cooking at 152-154 degrees. I'm planning on sparging with 1 gal of 170 degree water and collecting about 3 gal for the boil. I have a 3 gal fermentor, so the volume lost during boil will give me headroom for krauzen. Ok, after all that, here comes the question:
The pot I'm using to mash in is very wide. The normal amount of water for my grain bill is about 1.25 gal. I had to add 2 gal total to at least get the grain to float and be suspended a little. My question is how is this going to effect my efficiency? Should I simply let it sit longer during the mash to extract more sugars? Should I sparge with less water? What do you guys think?
My question is how is this going to effect my efficiency?
The ratio of sugars to solution will drop, that's for sure. Effeciency is, however, a measure of your equipment's ability more than anything else. You can counter low efficiency by using more grain (which you can't now, since you're already mashing) OR increase your boil times to hit your target gravity.
I suppose I'd rather do a longer boil and end up with less volume at the right OG, than a bunch of weak beer Oh well, almost ready to mash out, we'll see how this goes.
Anyway, good way to spend a saturday when swmbo is at work
i was gonna suggest collecting extra, and maybe doing a 90 minute boil. I figure if you end up collecting an extra half gallon that won't fit, after 30 minutes of boil you could add those runnings to the pot, resume the boil, and then start your normal hop additions.
that way you still get a good sparge, so a little better efficiency, and it still fits in your kettle and carboy.
__________________ Malkore
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I use the large grain bag mash method for when I'm making smaller amounts of wort to save in mason jars for starters . In my experience, you don't need to use that much water - it doesn't need to be floating. All you need to make sure of is that there is enough water for all the grain to be wetted. For me, this usually amounts to about 2 qts/gal. It should look more like a sludge than a bag of grain surrounded by liquid.
__________________ Fermenting:
rye farmhouse ale
Oktoberfest
flanders red Kegged:
Oktoberfest
What I have been doing is mashing in my five gallon kettle without the bag, direct heat as needed to hit my temps. But I use all the water, all of it.
After the mash out, my nylon bag is lining my bottling bucket, and I dump the whole kettle in, and then lift the bag out.
Big mixing bowl to hold the grain bag while I pour the wort back in the kettle, then mixing bowl upside down in the bucket, grain bag on top of that, wait several minutes for the grains to drain, remove the bag, remove the mixing bowl, dump the bucket into the kettle again, bang, 83% efficiency. And no scorching of the bag while direct heating the kettle/ mash tun.
Downside, I am limited to about 5# of grain per mash event.
[QUOTE=Poindexter;479327]What I have been doing is mashing in my five gallon kettle without the bag, direct heat as needed to hit my temps.../QUOTE]
I did this over the weekend, and it worked! I was watching Kaiser's decoction videos, and thought to myself, why not just heat the mash from the bottom on the stove top? So I did, and did not see any negative affect from this technique. I used the nylon paint bag in my 6.5 gal bottling bucket to lauter, and got 1.056 OG out of 10 lbs Maris Otter.
4.5 gal water in the brew pot, step mash 104-15min, 122-15 min, 155-75 min, then 170 deg. (mash in pot no bag)
3 gal water waiting in second pot for sparge water 170 deg.
I scooped all the grain first into the bagged bottling bucket, then added the first wort. Volufed a couple of times and drained the lauter half way. Then I sparged with the remaining water.
I got 6.5 gal wort return at 1.050 and hop boiled for an hour to get 5.5 gal at 1.056.
Total time from start to pitch was under 5 hours including sanitation and cleanup.
This was my first all grain batch, and I'm never going back to extract!!!
MacGuyver Stovetop All Grain
Oh well, almost ready to mash out, we'll see how this goes.
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