Mash Reccomendation for Lambic

I plan on brewing a lambic style beer in the near future. I was following the steps in Zainasheff and Palmer's Brewing Classic Styles book, and from searching the net, it appears they are describing a Turbid mash process. It appears that in order to do this process you need to be able to heat up the container holding the mash. The instructions state: "Dough in at 113F for 15 minutes. Perform a rest at 122F for 15 minutes, 149F for 45 minutes, and 158F for 30 minutes. Raise to a mashout temperature of 169F and then sparge with 190F water." Since I am using a cooler as my mash tun, this does not sound possible with my setup. Is there another way to do this with one kettle(8 gallon) and a 52 quart cooler? If not, how would you recommend I go about the mashing process?

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

All you need to do is lower your initial qts/lb ratio to allow for a larger volume of total water. If you use .75qts/lb for your dough in, then work from there, you should be fine.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

All you need to do is lower your initial qts/lb ratio to allow for a larger volume of total water. If you use .75qts/lb for your dough in, then work from there, you should be fine.

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I'm not sure that I follow your suggestion. Could you provide me with an example of the procedure and steps?

Well, let's say you're using 10lbs of grain total. You want to dough in at 113 w/.75qts/lb instead of the normal 1.3qts/lb.

This would take approximately 7.5qts of water at 125F to bring your mash to 113. When you need to raise the temp to 122, you'd just add enough boiling water to get you to the next step. So for 122, you'd add 1qt of boiling water. For 149, you'd add 4.6qts of boiling water. For 158, you'd add 2.6qts. For 169, you'd add 4.6qts.

At the end of your mash, you should have around 4 gallons in your mash + grains.

That isn't a turbid mash, a turbid mash involves removing portions of the wort at various points and holding them hot to preserve the starches. It is a bit of work, but it really isn't too bad, and the results from my first attempt at it are much better than other Lambics I've brewed before (here are photos of my brew day: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/08/lambic-3-turbid-mash.html )

What they are talking about sounds just like a step infusion. The easiest way to go would be mashing in your kettle. Just turn on the heat and stir to raise it from one temp to the next. Once you reach the last step transfer the mash to your cool and lauter as usual (I just use a small pot to scoop the grain/wort).

Turbid mashes are sort of a variant on decoction mashes. You could do a regular decoction mash, step infusion mash, or step temperature mash if the turbid mash is beyond your equipment or you don't want to do that much work.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Well, let's say you're using 10lbs of grain total. You want to dough in at 113 w/.75qts/lb instead of the normal 1.3qts/lb.

This would take approximately 7.5qts of water at 125F to bring your mash to 113. When you need to raise the temp to 122, you'd just add enough boiling water to get you to the next step. So for 122, you'd add 1qt of boiling water. For 149, you'd add 4.6qts of boiling water. For 158, you'd add 2.6qts. For 169, you'd add 4.6qts.

At the end of your mash, you should have around 4 gallons in your mash + grains.

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What formula or software did you use to determine the amount of water to use at each step? I'm still relatively new to all grain brewing (only have done 3 batches).

Oldsock said:

What they are talking about sounds just like a step infusion. The easiest way to go would be mashing in your kettle. Just turn on the heat and stir to raise it from one temp to the next. Once you reach the last step transfer the mash to your cool and lauter as usual (I just use a small pot to scoop the grain/wort).

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How do I determine how much water to use for the mash?

I use BeerTools Pro...but here's a free one. http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php


Or...if you're doing multi-step... http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash/

boralyl said:

How do I determine how much water to use for the mash?

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Where are you in PA?

Here is what I did for a 5.25G post boil batch. For this size batch it was not too bad at all. I then redid the process with some friends for a 65G batch, that was a different story.

5.25 Gallon Batch Size Mash Schedule
Step 1 - 5 Gallons of water heated to 144*
Step 2 - 2.5 Quarts of heated water mixed with grist - grain should rest at 113*
Step 3 - Boil remaining water
Step 4 - Rest mash 20 minutes
Step 5 - 4 Quarts added of boiling water - rest at 136*
Step 6 - Rest 5 minutes
Step 7 - 1 Quart of mash liquid pulled after vorlauf (first turbid)
Step 8 - 6 Quarts of boiling water added to mash - rest at 150*
Step 9 - Rest mash 30 minutes
Step 10 - Raise temp of 1 quart turbid liquid to 176*
Step 11 - 4 Quarts of mash liquid pulled after vorlauf (second turbid), add to first turbid
Step 12 - 5 Quarts of boiling water added to mash - rest at 162*
Step 13 - Heat turbid 1 and turbid 2 to 176*
Step 14 - Heat sparge water to 185*
Step 15 - Add 176* turbid liquid back to mash to rest at 165-167*
Step 16 - Rest 10 minutes
Step 17 - 9 gallons collected from sparge