Amount of water?

Okay so I have been reading tons lately on going full mash!! Got all the equipment I need to do this, well not all, but the bare basics. I go to the brew store yesterday and get all my grains for my " Downtown Leroy Brown Ale ", my name for it.... I ask the HBS some pick their brain questions since the owner is a master brewer. I am told to pour the grains in my cooler, heat the water to around 165-168, and only cover the grain bead about an inch to 2 inches.....hunh? Everything I have been reading says to fill the cooler with about 3-4 gallons of water......am I crazy, been reading the wrong material, or just plain gone nuts here and need to drink some more homebrew before reading another piece of advice..... Would love some help with this to get more clarity!!!!

First off, people have varying ideas about whether the water or the grain should be added first (I'm a water first person), but it will work either way so go with what makes the most since to you.

Second of all, since coolers come in many shapes and sizes, it's not really the best idea to base your mash volume on how many inches of water cover your grains. The proprietor may have told you that as a simple way of getting you started, but it's much better to add a set volume of water based on how many pounds of grain you're using. Most people use a number of 1.25 to 1.5 qts of water per each pound of grain. If you have 10 pounds of grain and want 1.5qts of water per pound, that gives you 10 x 1.5 = 15 qts of water, or 3.75 gallons you would add to the mash.

Hmmm....okay that makes sense!! So then my next question is how do you know how much water you want per pound of grain?

Beer: Downtown Leroy Brown Ale Style: American Amber Ale
Type: All grain Size: 5.5 gallons
Color: 45 HCU (~20 SRM)
Bitterness: 58 IBU
OG: 1.055 FG: 1.016
Alcohol: 5.1% v/v (4.0% w/w)
Grain: 4 lb. 5 oz. American 2-row
5 lb. 5 oz. Belgian pale
12 oz. Dextrine malt (Cara-Pils)
4 oz. Belgian CaraMunich
4 oz. Belgian Special B
8 oz. British crystal 50-60L
4 oz. British chocolate
Mash: 72% efficiency
Single infusion, 155° F for 60 minutes.
Boil: 90 minutes SG 1.043 7 gallons
Hops: 1 oz. Centennial (10.5% AA, 60 min.)
.5 oz. Fuggles (4.75% AA, 20 min.)
.5 oz. Northern Brewer (8.5% AA, 20 min.)
.5 oz. Centennial (10.5% AA, 10 min.)
.75 oz. Saaz (3.75% AA, 10 min.)
Yeast: Wyeast 1056, 750-ml starter

I don't think it's really that important. Most of my reading indicates that 1.25-1.5 qts/lb is optimal, but I also know from experience that anything in 1-2qt/lb range will work. In most cases when people go down to 1qt/lb or less it's because they're limited by the size of their mashtun or they're doing a fancy pants mash schedule. Some people set up their ratio to hit certain volumes with batch sparges or additional infusions, but that's Mashing 201, so don't worry about it just now.

You have a pretty monster cooler, don't you? I'd go with 1.5qts/lb for easy math.

You generally work in the 1.0 - 1.5 qts per pound range. Thinner mashes (within reason) are suppose to be better for fermentability. Yet another variable to play with

Oh, and one more thing...I see the efficiency of your recipe is set at 72%. Don't worry too much if you don't get the #'s (OG) your first go round....you may, but it usually takes most of us some practice to get eff. up where we want it, and some of us (like me) are still pursuing good eff.

GABrewboy said:

Okay so I have been reading tons lately on going full mash!! Got all the equipment I need to do this, well not all, but the bare basics. I go to the brew store yesterday and get all my grains for my " Downtown Leroy Brown Ale ", my name for it.... I ask the HBS some pick their brain questions since the owner is a master brewer. I am told to pour the grains in my cooler, heat the water to around 165-168, and only cover the grain bead about an inch to 2 inches.....hunh? Everything I have been reading says to fill the cooler with about 3-4 gallons of water......am I crazy, been reading the wrong material, or just plain gone nuts here and need to drink some more homebrew before reading another piece of advice..... Would love some help with this to get more clarity!!!!

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Hello GABrewboy,

The idea to mashing (as you probably know) is to properly wet the grains and have them steep in hot water to release the enzymes so that they break down the starches into various sugars. There are different philosophies about the order in which you proceed: add grain to water, or water to grain. If you've ever made dough or pancakes, etc, you know that if you add dry to wet, you get clumps and this will happen when mashing if you fill your mashtun with water then add the crushed grains.
First what you do is heat you mash water to 165-168deg in a pot. You sound like you have a cooler mashtun with a manifold or a bazooka screen thing. Add some hot water to cover the manifold or screen (this will require about 2 -3 quarts). Add about half your grain, then slowly add hot water on top while trying to mix the whole. You want to avoid starch balls. Keep adding the water slowly while mixing until you get a nice thick mix, maybe a bit liquidy (not like 2in of water on top!). Add the rest of the grains, mix that into the mash, then add more water until you reach a ratio between 1.5 - 2.5 qts per lb. This is a good starting point. Check your mash temp with a thermometer. Depending on what you're making, your desired temp will be between 150 and 158 deg. If you're too high, slowly add cold water while mixing (it will drop fast). If too low, add boiling water (it's a good idea to have some boiling water ready before mashing in just in case). You need LOTS of boiling water to even raise by 1deg so be prepared. If you want to err on the safe sice, get your mashin water to 175deg, then just add water to cool it down. Much easier and you run less of a risk of running out of space in your mashtun. Trust me, I've been there.
I would suggest for your brown ale a mash temp about 153-154. You'll get a bit more body from higher sugars, and make it a bit sweeter. What's your grain bill?
Good luck with your fist mash - just remember NOT TO PANICK!
If you're mashing today, you can send me emails if you have any questions (over the next 8 hours). [email protected]
Cheers,
Seb

Well, I guess I got in late in to the replies!

Gesshhh....beer making is a science isn't!! Yes, I have a 50qt cooler, so I am fine as far as space goes......So I should start my mashing then with about 3.5 gallons since I have 11.625 lbs of grain? Sound about right?

GABrewboy said:

Gesshhh....beer making is a science isn't!! Yes, I have a 50qt cooler, so I am fine as far as space goes......So I should start my mashing then with about 3.5 gallons since I have 11.625 lbs of grain? Sound about right?

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A bit low. Try having about 4.5 gallons of water ready to mash, mashin, then check your temp as you go. If you can hit your mash temps with 4.5gallons, you wont need to adjust. As you keep brewing new recipes, you'll get a feel for it.

Seb

3.5 will work fine. I'd go with 4 just to simplify things, but I'm a simple guy.

Thanks BeerBiker!!! I am not going to be brewing today though....probably tomorrow. My grain bill? Not sure what you mean by this......you mean the cost of the grains?

Just another way of saying your recipe (what grains you're using).

HE HE......gotcha'!!!!

Here is my GRAIN BILL......

4 lb. 5 oz. American 2-row
5 lb. 5 oz. Belgian pale
12 oz. Dextrine malt (Cara-Pils)
4 oz. Belgian CaraMunich
4 oz. Belgian Special B
8 oz. British crystal 50-60L
4 oz. British chocolate

GABrewboy said:

HE HE......gotcha'!!!!

Here is my GRAIN BILL......

4 lb. 5 oz. American 2-row
5 lb. 5 oz. Belgian pale
12 oz. Dextrine malt (Cara-Pils)
4 oz. Belgian CaraMunich
4 oz. Belgian Special B
8 oz. British crystal 50-60L
4 oz. British chocolate

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Keep us posted on the results. Recipe's as good as any.

Cheers.

Another point of adding water to grain instead of grain to water: If you have a tub full of hot water and start adding grains, the grain will rise to the temp of the water (the initial addings) and with the strike temps home brewers use, you stand the chance of releasing tannins. If you have a cooler full of grain and add the water to the grain, the water will cool towards the grain temps and you stand less of a chance of this. Yes, after all is added, it is the same either way but the higher volume of grain to water initially will get the water down to a safe temp quicker. Hope that makes sense, still on my first cup of coffee...

I had a third water then a third grain is steps. Mix inbetween and check temp.
I've read you have a few minutes to get the righ dough temperature before yyou need to worry about tannins and killing the enzymes.

I'm not sure if I was lucky but on my First AG I got my target temp spot on.

Dyer, that makes perfect sense!!!! The HBS said since I don't have a sprinkler, to pour the water at an angle against the side of the cooler so I don't get a rivering effect....is this true as well?? Or any advice on some better method?

GABrew.
I just left it mashing for 90 minutes drained it (teturning the first 10 litres to clear)

Drained it all.

Added the sparge water in one go, mixed it and repeated the draining as above.
Worked fine.

GABrewboy said:

Dyer, that makes perfect sense!!!! The HBS said since I don't have a sprinkler, to pour the water at an angle against the side of the cooler so I don't get a rivering effect....is this true as well?? Or any advice on some better method?

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First of all, are you sparging continuously (fly sparging), or batch sparging (draining out mash water, then adding sparge water and draining again)? If you're batch sparging it's not as important. If you're fly sparging I wouldn't pour it down the side of the cooler as I would be concerned this could create a channel down the side of your cooler through the grain bed. You just need something like a pie plate or coffee can lid to place on top of the grains to disperse the water as you add it. It is at this point of the process that you do indeed want to keep an inch or two of water over the grain bed.

I don't think we really need to worry much about tannins. It's true that folks that due water first (I'm one of them) use a pretty high temp for my water (around 175°+ for me), but that's in order to preheat the mash tun. By the time the grain hits the water, the water has come down to safer levels.

Can't say I've had any starch blob issues yet *knocks on wood*, but I add the grain slowly while stirring. I personally think it's just one of those things were you do what you're comfortable with.

DyerNeedOfBeer said:

Another point of adding water to grain instead of grain to water: If you have a tub full of hot water and start adding grains, the grain will rise to the temp of the water (the initial addings) and with the strike temps home brewers use, you stand the chance of releasing tannins. If you have a cooler full of grain and add the water to the grain, the water will cool towards the grain temps and you stand less of a chance of this. Yes, after all is added, it is the same either way but the higher volume of grain to water initially will get the water down to a safe temp quicker. Hope that makes sense, still on my first cup of coffee...

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Tannin extraction is pH dependant, not temperature. Continental brewers used to perform decoctions which involves boiling part of the mash (grains included). I've done decoctions and never perceived any tannins. It is recognized however that if you over-sparge and your runnoff exceeds 6.0pH, you start extracting tannins from your grain.
I wouln't worry about overheating the grains when mashing in. You may denature some enzymes, but certainly not the majority. Your mash won't suffer from it.

Seb

Okay, I am getting confused again here......not hard for me to do though!!!

Let me do this step by step to make sure I have this right:

1) Heat about 3.5 gallons of water to 168-175
2) Add grains to bottom of cooler
3) Start adding water to grains, slowly so I don't create any channels in the grains, then stir gently to mix things up a little
4) check temp to make sure around the strike temp of 155-160, if not add more hot water till I get that strike temp
5) leave sitting for about 60-90 mins continually making sure temp is in the strike range at all times
6) Once the time is up, sparge the water into my brew pot

7) Now I am confused on what to do next after this point......

sebbeerbiker said:

Tannin extraction is pH dependant, not temperature.

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The two most important factors influencing tannin extraction are pH and temperature. Both are necessary conditions for unwanted tannin extraction (all beer has some tannins).

Most people's strike temp for dough-in is less than 170F, especially if they add the mash water before the grains to the tun, so it's not much of an issue. The pH of the mash water may well be above 6 if untreated when dough-in starts...the pH doesn't drop until the grains interact with the mash water. That combined with temps > 170F could result in tannin extraction, but it's not instantaneous and typically by the time a brewer has stirred in all grains the temp is below 160F.

GABrewboy, i used this method for calculating water until i got my www.promash.com brewingsoftware. http://www.allaboutbeer.com/homebrew/water.html

the article is by ray daniels and is pretty good. he also has a book called designing great beers.

GABrewboy said:

Okay, I am getting confused again here......not hard for me to do though!!!

Let me do this step by step to make sure I have this right:

1) Heat about 3.5 gallons of water to 168-175
2) Add grains to bottom of cooler
3) Start adding water to grains, slowly so I don't create any channels in the grains, then stir gently to mix things up a little
4) check temp to make sure around the strike temp of 155-160, if not add more hot water till I get that strike temp
5) leave sitting for about 60-90 mins continually making sure temp is in the strike range at all times
6) Once the time is up, sparge the water into my brew pot

7) Now I am confused on what to do next after this point......

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Sorry, GA. You'll have to excuse us for meandering a bit. It's what we do best

Don't worry about channels when adding your strike water. This is just something you do while sparging so as not to unsettle your grain bed, which forms a natural filter of sorts.

Everything else looks good. What sparging method are you using?

BeeGee said:

The two most important factors influencing tannin extraction are pH and temperature. Both are necessary conditions for unwanted tannin extraction (all beer has some tannins).

Most people's strike temp for dough-in is less than 170F, especially if they add the mash water before the grains to the tun, so it's not much of an issue. The pH of the mash water may well be above 6 if untreated when dough-in starts...the pH doesn't drop until the grains interact with the mash water. That combined with temps > 170F could result in tannin extraction, but it's not instantaneous and typically by the time a brewer has stirred in all grains the temp is below 160F.

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I admit that high temperatures may affect (increase) tannin extraction, in a high pH condition, but not on its own.
It is not the initial water pH that is a concern for tannin extraction, rather the pH of the runoff from your mashtun, after mashing, and more specificaly when you get near the end of your sparge. If you have a pH above 6.0 in your mashtun, during mashing, the last thing I'd worry about is tanning extraction!

Seb

My sparging method......Hmmmm......this is where I get a little confused on what sparging actually is......

GABrewboy said:

My sparging method......Hmmmm......this is where I get a little confused on what sparging actually is......

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The two methods I know of are fly (continuous) sparging, and batch sparging. Sparging = rinsing

edit: Check out this article for a good run down http://www.tastybrew.com/articles/dennyconn001

sparging means "rinsing" the grains w/ 170-175 degree water to make sure you get all the converted sugars of the malt and into the boil kettle. you want to do this at a slow rate and keep about an inch of water above the grain bed. same out of the mash/lauter tun as the same into the mash/lauter tun. an average sparge should last about 90 minutes.

Hmmm.....okay!! I gotcha......so what your saying is this:

I let the 4.5 gallons of initial water/grains rest for 60-90 mins.....siphon that out of the cooler. Grains fall to the bottom, I now start adding water slowly to rinse the grains and I leave my run off valve open to siphon the water going into the grains out of the grains and just keep doing this? So how much water do I use for this then.......for 90 mins that seems like you would get 50 gallons of wort.......:O

www.cruisenews.net/brewing/

your using a water cooler for mash tun right? follow this guy's directions for your 1st all grain. very easy to follow and he goes through each step w/ pics.

sebbeerbiker said:

I admit that high temperatures may affect (increase) tannin extraction, in a high pH condition, but not on its own.
It is not the initial water pH that is a concern for tannin extraction, rather the pH of the runoff from your mashtun, after mashing, and more specificaly when you get near the end of your sparge. If you have a pH above 6.0 in your mashtun, during mashing, the last thing I'd worry about is tanning extraction!

Seb

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Not only may affect tannin extraction, but does. Temperature is a required condition for tannin extraction as homebrewers are concerned. Having a pH of 6 of mash water prior to grain addition is no problem whatsoever...the grains will lower the mash depending on the buffering capacity of the water.

You might want to concider doing a batch sparge. The article I linked above has a step by step walkthrough on batch sparging. What you're describing is fly sparging.

edit: or follow the "Simple AG Brewing" link on the page DeRoux linked to. Both are great pages.

GABrewboy said:

Hmmm.....okay!! I gotcha......so what your saying is this:

I let the 4.5 gallons of initial water/grains rest for 60-90 mins.....siphon that out of the cooler. Grains fall to the bottom, I now start adding water slowly to rinse the grains and I leave my run off valve open to siphon the water going into the grains out of the grains and just keep doing this? So how much water do I use for this then.......for 90 mins that seems like you would get 50 gallons of wort.......:O

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Reading your questions reminds me of my first AG days! Man, I was calling my buddy up every 10 minutes!

Ok, so you've thoroughly mixed your hot water and grains together in the mashtun. Close it, cover it with a blanket and let it sit for 60 - 90 minutes. Don't touch it for now. In the mean time, heat up some more water 3 - 4 gallons should do it, to 170F.
After the 90mins are up, you want to get your runoff clear. To do this, you'll open up very slightly your valve, to get about 1qt per minute of runoff (yes this is slow). You'll see the runoff will be full of grain chunks, and very cloudy. This is normal. I used to do this with two small sauce pans. While one is filling up, you return the contents of the filled one to the top of the grain bed, pouring it back without splashing, or disturbing the grain bed too much (do it slowly). And keep doing this until you see no more grain chunks and the runoff is cleared up. It may never get crystal clear but that's ok. That is the end of your vorlauf (recirculation). All this time you have NOT been adding water to the mash tun.
Now you can start collecting your wort into the kettle. Once the liquid level on top of your grain in the mash tun has gotten close to the grain, you can start adding hot water to the top, trying not to disturb the grain as much as possible. There are many ways of doing this, but it can be done with a sauce pan, measuring cup, ...
All this time, you maintain the same runoff rate from the mash tun (1qt per minute). You don't want to go too fast and run the risk of compacting the grains and stopping the flow (known as a stuck mash). Continue doing this until you get your kettle full. Then stop. And you're done.

Seb

Cool, let me go read the two links you have given me now and if I have any more questions I will let you know.....Thanks so much everyone for your advice!! :cross:

BeeGee said:

Not only may affect tannin extraction, but does. Temperature is a required condition for tannin extraction as homebrewers are concerned. Having a pH of 6 of mash water prior to grain addition is no problem whatsoever...the grains will lower the mash depending on the buffering capacity of the water.

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I bet you if I ran cold water through a spent and cold mash, had runoff with pH above 6, you'll get the tannins out! Why would it be different for homebrewer than probrewers? We're just mimicking what they do but on a small scale. We just don't get the same efficiency for sure.

Beerbiker, that makes great sense there........See, I knew someone could put it in easy terms for this simple minded guy over here.....So when you say the kettle full, you mean full to the top or what? I have a 30qt kettle I am using. That is big enough right?

GABrewboy said:

Beerbiker, that makes great sense there........See, I knew someone could put it in easy terms for this simple minded guy over here.....So when you say the kettle full, you mean full to the top or what? I have a 30qt kettle I am using. That is big enough right?

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No! For a 5 gallon batch, you want about 25 quarts pre-boil. This will boil down to about 20 qts. You need some room for the boil, to avoid a boil over - everyone's had one. It makes such a mess.

Seb

What to look out for while boiling:
1- watch your kettle as it gets ready to boil. If you turn your back, it'll boil over. When you start hearing the rumbling noise get quiet, keep both eyes on it!
2- boil for about 15 - 30 minutes then add your bittering hops (60min hop additions). The idea is you want to get the hot break going. You'll notice corn flake like stuff rolling around in the kettle. This is protein matter clumping together. This is good.
3- a rolling boil is needed. You want to have the wort and hops rolling around as much as possible, but not too much to avoir boil-over. Proper boil provides: protein coagulation, wort sterilization, hop acid extraction and isomerization, color formation, ...
4- once you've ellapsed the boil time. Cut the heat. Now you need to chill the wort.

What do you have to chill your wort? Immersion chiller, water and ice in the sink?

Seb