Hugh_Jass

Recipes 

won't the grain drop the water temp? I was thinking of having water above desired temp., and add to grain because of anticipated water temp drop.

Thanks for letting me pick your brain

DeathBrewer

Recipes 

yes, sorry if that was unclear. you want it to be above your mash temp (usually about 12°F above, in my experience) so that when you add the grains and stir, you are right where you want to be.

The point is, you want to try and calculate so that when you drop the grains in and stir it up, you are at your desired temp. cooling/heating after the grains are in there is a real pain.

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DeathBrewer

Recipes 

beersmiths mashing stuff is kind of confusing and really doesn't help much wit the way i do things.

i'm assuming light body means that you have enough water so it isn't really THICK, but i may be wrong. i'm sure it has nothing to do with the grain type.

that looks just fine, tho...but the temp will depend on your equipment and circumstances.

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dontman

Recipes 

No, light body, in this instance, refers strictly to the mash temp. At between 148 and 152 you get "light body" 154 "medium body" and 156 - 158 "Full body"

Since you quote your target originally, Death, as 154, I assume you are aiming for the midground of effectiveness between the two enzymes and medium body.

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DeathBrewer

Recipes 

ahh...gotcha. that makes sense and indeed i was shooting for "medium body" for the banana bread! i usually make my beer more dry, shooting for the 150-152 range.

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dontman

Recipes 

True. On both counts. My last brew was a strong Belgian with 16 # grainbill for a 5.5 G batch. I collected 9 gallon of wort and boiled in two pots to 6 in 90 minutes. Worked great.

At the end I carefully transferred both to my 10 gallon pot with an IC and cooled it in 15 minutes. PITA, yes, but it works during the cold months. Actually I am getting a new Viking cooktop for X'mas from the wife so this will all be moot for me in the near future.

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GroovePuppy

Recipes 

For the JHB I think the "Light Body" is the one @150F for a real low SRM like the commercial version.

One thing I realized you don't get with this method is the filtration. The cooler mash tun instructions I've seen show the wort recirculated before taking the runnings. Do you have another way of clarifying or do you just make cloudier beers?

Planning on getting a turkey fryer after Turkey Day. Now I know what I'm doing with the extra pot I'll end up with!

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gwood

Recipes 

I do a combo of irish moss, cold crashing, and gelatin in the kegs and I've gotten absolutely clear beer with similar methods that DB has described.

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DeathBrewer

Recipes 

all you are doing with recirculation or "vorlaufing" is getting the grain and particles out of the wort. the bags i've seen and used have a fine enough mesh, much more so than you would get from a false bottom or even a coil. not much gets through and it sets a grain bed up in its own way...it always pours through the bottom of the bag, after all.

if you have TOO much grain in the boil, you could get some tannins or astringency. this is why you vorlauf, not for clarity. but anything in the boil will fall out in the primary after fermentation regardless. this is not a problem with this method, anyway...i do not notice any difference between this and my batches using the other method.

now, if you want a brilliantly clean, extra clear ale, you CAN go to extremes. a friend of mine filters at every stage. he vorlaufs and has an inline filter for the mash. he recirculates and has a filter for the boil, and he sometimes filters after fermentation is complete (with a wine plate filter.) this makes some great beer with excellent clarity and they are indeed very smooth. however, it is a lot of work and i could get very close using my method and simply filtering after fermentation is complete. it just depends on how anal retentive you want to be.

in any case, my beers certainly aren't cloudy, the SMaSH i have on the counter now has brilliant clarity after only two weeks in the primary...i can see the whole bottom bit of trub

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rtockst

Recipes 

I mean I've heard that you shouldn't boil your wort in an aluminum pot, so only ceramic or stainless steel stockpots should be used. I can't remember the reason... something to do with acidity?

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