Attention new all grain brewers!

Wondering if someone can answer a question for me....

Before adding my base malt to a partial mash the other day I got the temp to about 168 F so account for the temp drop when adding the grains. Somehow, someway, the temperature remained close to 170 F for approximately 5 minutes until I added cool water to balance it out and then was constant at 152 for 45 minutes.

I'm fairly new to mashing, and I'm wondering if being at 170 F for a short period of time would result in a lot of unfermentables? Or if this is not enough time to denature any vital enzymes.

Thanks

It takes around 20 min. at 170 to denature enzymes.

162°F will begin to denature the enzymes. At 170°F, you're risking extraction of tannins.

However, 5 minutes is probably not a big deal...although your beer might be a bit maltier than expected, because SOME activity took place. If your water was truly 168°F, then I would wager that you were not sitting at 170°F, but that you were reading a hot spot on your thermometer.

DeathBrewer said:

162°F will begin to denature the enzymes. At 170°F, you're risking extraction of tannins.

However, 5 minutes is probably not a big deal...although your beer might be a bit maltier than expected, because SOME activity took place. If your water was truly 168°F, then I would wager that you were not sitting at 170°F, but that you were reading a hot spot on your thermometer.

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Thanks for the info. I'm sure it'll turn out fine.

Is 70% efficiency good for my second ever brew?

I'd say that's quite good. Congrats.

masonsjax said:

I'd say that's quite good. Congrats.

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Fantastic, i kept seeing 75% as default in beersmith and figured i suck, lol. Im sure with some minor adjustments i can get my efficiency up a little higher also. Im still getting familiarized with my sparging and lautering techniques so im sure i'll get even better. Just glad to know im doing alright. This guy took off like a champ too, now i understand why proper yeast pitching amounts help. This is 12 hours in

Hi there,
I am hoping to do my first AG within the next 3 weeks...but im scared. I really want to make sure I get a good efficiency, but not overdo my wort boil bc my pot is only 7.5 gallons, maybe 8. but thats all the way to the brim of the pot im pretty sure.

So Ive been thinking of ways to mash but also maintain an exact temp using my 10gallon gatorade cooler and/or my brew pot...and I thought the other day, why not throw all your water and grains into your brew pot and get them up to your desired mash temp...say 148, then stick it into your oven with the temp set to as low as it will go. for my oven, this is 170 degrees, but with the lid off the pot to allow the water temp to dissipate off the top slowly, and with the fact that it would be such a large amount of water, the oven would not really be able to raise all of the water and grains past 154 within an hour, so I figure it would stay within the 145-155 range.

Then after an hour mash, dump everything into your cooler with the false bottom and drain and sparge back into the brew pot?

If that did not work, is it possible to do the same thing with the water and grains directly into your brew pot, get everything up to mashing temp, and then put the flame on your stove to low and put the cover on the brew pot to maintain the mash temp for an hour??? then pour into your mashing tun to sparge....
Has anyone tried either of these methods??? Would this not maintain an exact temp of 148 or whatever you desire?

thanks for all your time and help to a fellow newbie AG-ist.

Sure, you can do that, but what a hassle! Why not try it the "normal" way first and se what happens. If it was as big a problem as you fear, none of us would be doing it any other way! And I doubt it would maintain the temp any more accurately than just mashing in the cooler.

But this wouldnt be any harder than mashing in the cooler...Plus, I have done a couple partial mashes, and it seems that my cooler does drop from my desired mash temp quite a bit, once it dropped down to 135 degrees after an hour had passed, and it started at 152...

Be careful of mashing in the oven especially with the top of the mash OFF. Your water will evaporate rapidly, you will have to keep opening it and adding water. I think you'd be better off to wrap your cooler in a couple of blankets or towels to minimize heat loss.

And, yes I've done the 'mash on the stove-top' method before also, and it too is a real pain. I was doing these for partial mashes that I was doing and ended up buying a 3-gallon cooler for the partials. When I went AG I went with a cooler and a couple of old army blankets. I lost a little heat in my first AG batch (which was done earlier this year), but the resulting beer is A-M-A-Zing.

I offer this IMO for what it's worth. Hope it helps you. Good luck with your first AG batch

Boy, it sure sounds a hell of a lot harder to me! Again, why assume you'll have a problem without trying it? Doing an AG batch means you'll have more thermal mass and less likelihood of a temp drop. I mean, it's your brew, do what you want...I'm just trying to help.

I would like to try to jump from partial to all grain, but I am worried about my temp control. Thanks for the tips, I think I need to try it soon.

so i did it on the spur last night, following the mashing technique from the killer bee belgian wit recipe...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f71/killer-bee-belgian-wit-73278/

I used the stovetop/oven technique, was not a problem at all and I was able to maintain temperature dead on...but when I put it in my carboy to ferment, it looked like someone had taken a huge #2...the liquid kind, in my carboy and all this protein haze globules were at the bottom of the carboy...though they took up about 75% of the volume of the carboy, and the rest of the 25% was a murky liquid...enuf said, it didnt look like beer at all.

so that was at 1am this morning when I finished, at 1130am this morning, my brother wakes me up and says I better come take a look...the krausen had filled the airlock and it was bubbling out the wazoo...around 72 F. So I took it into my basement where it is a good amount cooler, and sterilized the top and put in a blow off tube into a mug of water.

I used the wb06 yeast...is this stuff suppose to happen with this yeast, does it act that fast.

But my main question is, does this mean that I did a good job of converting the starches to sugar?

I my grain bill was 3 lbs torrified wheat, 2.5 lbs belgian wheat malt, 5 lbs belgian pils, and 5 oz belg. aromatic.

i just finished a mash on a small batch of a pretty big beer. its my first all grain brew. i had about 8 lbs of grains in a 5 gallon pot. i let it sit at 131 for 30 minutes, then brought it up to 149 for 50 minutes. before boiling and adding hops, i checked the SG and it was only 1.020. i was shooting for 1.080, so something has gone incredibly wrong.

the only thing i can surmise is that the grains were not properly milled/crushed. i just poured them from the bags and some were kind of cracked, but not pulverized or anything. any recommendations??

i am actually putting them back into the mash for another hour to see how it goes. could use any advise ASAP!!

i remashed for awhile and ended up with a 1.050 result. i had another thread on here with quite a few posts helping point me in the right direction, so no need to continue this discussion here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/very-low-original-gravity-after-mash-need-quick-advice-178238/index2.html#post2064530

Doing my first AG in a couple of days, and as always I start off the "hard way". 15 lb grain bill and me with a 7.5 gal kettle. Going to go for the boil off. This thread has boosted my confidence way up for this and I feel ready. Thanks to everyone's good advice and question asking. Wish me luck.

3# German Wheat
3# German Pilsner
1oz German Spalt Hops
Weihenstephan Yeast Wyeast 3068
2 gallons mash Started at 155 down to 150 in the hour
2 gallons sparge at 174 for 10inutes
1.044 OG for 79% efficiency according to Pro Mash
Used a 24qt coleman for my mash and sparge and worked quite nicely. Pouring su7cks, I have to work on a faucet. I like 3 gallon because I can brew a bigger variety, and, right now I have the equipment, altho humble. Thanks for the great tips from everyone! Small house so fermenter is in the kitchen using the wet t-shirt and fan method - 64 degrees.

One more thing: If you grind your own grain, make sure your cordless drill batteries are charged.
I am positive I charged them both last week, but I guess when they get two or three years old, they lose the charge even if you don't use them. The one in the drill wouldn't even turn. The backup went about half a turn.
Thankfully, I got the Barley Crusher, which comes with a hand crank. It took ten minutes instead of 90 seconds, but I got my batch done.

I brewed My fiirt AG Btch yesterday and it is very happily krausening away! It was the Bells Two hearted ale clone recipe I found On here. It was a awesomly amazing brew day. I calculated out I got % 86.2 efficiency. I am amazed. From dough in to pitching, it was a little over four hours. Great time.

I recommend that brewers that want to make the leap...Just go for it. I have been into this hobby for 8 months now. I was really nervous about making the leap. Just do it! No worries, relax, and have a homebrew!!!

Rock

Scratch that. I just looked it up, You measure the pre boil gravity for you efficiency. In that case, I was at %68.7. Still ok?

Yes I recently started AG brewing and the heat loss in the mash tun was a problem. Good advice to preheat the mash tun to prevent heat loss. Wish I had read this a few weeks ago!

I am new to AG brewing and doing my first one on Friday. How do you calculate efficiency?

Find a good resource for the "theoretical max" for the grain you are using. Multiply it up for the volume you expect (mash + sparge - absorption) Right before you boil, measure your SG for the volume and divide it out... first time I did all grain I got 45% eff.

Embarrassing, so I boiled the snot out of it to reduce my volume and raise the OG. The beer was like a 3 gallon batch because of it. It's o.k. though, my next batch was better.

I say you just figure out if you like the beer!

I just used 38 gravity points per pound of grain. So points times lbs of grain divided by volume of boil.
Sound ok?

I just used 38 gravity points per pound of grain. So points times lbs of grain divided by volume of boil.
Sound ok?

Each type of grain has a different potential gravity. It will not be accurate if you pick a number from thin air and apply it to the entire recipe. That said, knowing your efficiency isn't really that important. After a few batches, you'll learn your system and what you need to do to get consistent results. At that point you'll know roughly what your efficiency is based on how close you are to your target OG.

If you're OCD about numbers and absolutely must know, there are programs on the web that you can punch your recipe into and calculate your actual efficiency.

Hey Jewsh, don't let masonsjax discourage you from calculating your brew. I'm a numbers guy and enjoy looking at the science and technology of the craft. Use Google to search for "malt grain theoretical max points" and find what your grain will theoretically produce.

Get out your spreadsheet and enjoy tinkering with the numbers.

Jewsh said:

Scratch that. I just looked it up, You measure the pre boil gravity for you efficiency. In that case, I was at %68.7. Still ok?

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Pre boil vs post boil shouldn't matter right? Cause it is relative to the volume of wort you are using? Preboil you will have a lower gravity, but more wort. Post Boil you will have a higher gravity, but less wort. These numbers should contain the same amount of sugars, just relative to the wort level.

Brewhouse efficiency is calculating how many sugars you can get out of those grains.

I really enjoy tinkering as well. Thanks for the tip. I will try and finger out my points more accurate next time, that way I can calculate my true efficiency.

I just bought beersmith and am trying to get everything ready for my first AG batch on Friday. A couple things are giving me problems though so please give me some feedback so I can figure out the best thing to do. I am doing a 10 gallon all grain IPA and my confusion is on the mashout and sparge volumes that beersmith is giving me. In one case when I select a medium bodied single infusion it is telling me to mash with 37.5 qts at 165.2 F (cooler pre-heated) and then mash out with 21 qts at around 195. Then it says to drain all of that and then sparge with around 3 gallons. I feel like this isn't right because sparging with only 3 gallons doesn't seem like it is going to do much. The least amount of mashout volume it will allow me is 14.1 qts at boiling in order to get me to 168 F. This is still only leaving me 4.3 gallons of sparge. Should I just skip the mashout? I mean I have a 75 qt mashtun so I have the room to do the large mashout to bring it up to temp but is my efficiency going to suffer from such a small sparge? I feel like adding 5 gallons or less of sparge to 30 lbs of grain isn't going to do much but I have never done all grain so that is why I am asking. Any input or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

crlova2 said:

I just bought beersmith and am trying to get everything ready for my first AG batch on Friday. A couple things are giving me problems though so please give me some feedback so I can figure out the best thing to do. I am doing a 10 gallon all grain IPA and my confusion is on the mashout and sparge volumes that beersmith is giving me. In one case when I select a medium bodied single infusion it is telling me to mash with 37.5 qts at 165.2 F (cooler pre-heated) and then mash out with 21 qts at around 195. Then it says to drain all of that and then sparge with around 3 gallons. I feel like this isn't right because sparging with only 3 gallons doesn't seem like it is going to do much. The least amount of mashout volume it will allow me is 14.1 qts at boiling in order to get me to 168 F. This is still only leaving me 4.3 gallons of sparge. Should I just skip the mashout? I mean I have a 75 qt mashtun so I have the room to do the large mashout to bring it up to temp but is my efficiency going to suffer from such a small sparge? I feel like adding 5 gallons or less of sparge to 30 lbs of grain isn't going to do much but I have never done all grain so that is why I am asking. Any input or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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What are you brewing thats 30 lbs? Miine says for 30lb of grain 37.5 qt first mash, then a 21 qt. mash out .43 sparge. I don't do mash out though. I'd go with single infusion, no mash out. That will give you what you're looking for most likely.

xjncoguyx said:

What are you brewing thats 30 lbs? Miine says for 30lb of grain 37.5 qt first mash, then a 21 qt. mash out .43 sparge. I don't do mash out though. I'd go with single infusion, no mash out. That will give you what you're looking for most likely.

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I am doing a 10 gallon dogfish 60 min clone. It only calls for like 27 pounds of grain but since its my first time I figured I would have bad efficiency and should add some extra. Yours said .43 sparge? What does that mean .43 Gallons? So if I do no mash out then it is telling me to do like 7.8 gallons of sparge at 168 F. Should I do a higher temp than that though?

crlova2 said:

I am doing a 10 gallon dogfish 60 min clone. It only calls for like 27 pounds of grain but since its my first time I figured I would have bad efficiency and should add some extra. Yours said .43 sparge? What does that mean .43 Gallons? So if I do no mash out then it is telling me to do like 7.8 gallons of sparge at 168 F. Should I do a higher temp than that though?

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I normally do my mash at whatever temp i want it to be at then sparge with about 165-170 degree water.

I finally have the equipment to make the jump to AG, and this thread has been extremely beneficial.

It appears that efficiency is really the perspective of the beerholder. For those who aren't worrying about max efficiency - they seem to want to adjust their sparge amounts to get to a fixed preboil volume. For those who are, they get to a larger pre-boil volume, but with max efficiency, and boil down to the desired volume before actually starting the boil.

I'm not sure if it's been asked, but what would be the estimated efficiency percentage difference between these two processes?

I guess this is weighing on my mind a bit because I'm considering doing an Oatmeal Stout for my first AG, and it calls for a 12.5 lb grain bill. To obtain max efficiency, my mash water volume would be around 15.5 quarts (or 3.9 gallons) and my sparge water would be 7.75 gallons - with an ultimate preboil volume of just over 11.5 gallons for a 5.5 gallon batch.

That does sound like overkill and a lot of propane to use. I guess my question would be to see what the difference in efficiency percentage would be given both situations. If it's somewhere in the range of 10-20%, I'm wondering if that'd be worth my time spent boiling off nearly half of the preboil volume as well as the cost associated with using the propane to do so.

Grasslands said:

I finally have the equipment to make the jump to AG, and this thread has been extremely beneficial.

It appears that efficiency is really the perspective of the beerholder. For those who aren't worrying about max efficiency - they seem to want to adjust their sparge amounts to get to a fixed preboil volume. For those who are, they get to a larger pre-boil volume, but with max efficiency, and boil down to the desired volume before actually starting the boil.

I'm not sure if it's been asked, but what would be the estimated efficiency percentage difference between these two processes?

I guess this is weighing on my mind a bit because I'm considering doing an Oatmeal Stout for my first AG, and it calls for a 12.5 lb grain bill. To obtain max efficiency, my mash water volume would be around 15.5 quarts (or 3.9 gallons) and my sparge water would be 7.75 gallons - with an ultimate preboil volume of just over 11.5 gallons for a 5.5 gallon batch.

That does sound like overkill and a lot of propane to use. I guess my question would be to see what the difference in efficiency percentage would be given both situations. If it's somewhere in the range of 10-20%, I'm wondering if that'd be worth my time spent boiling off nearly half of the preboil volume as well as the cost associated with using the propane to do so.

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Judging by your first sentence, you have yet to brew all grain with your setup, correct? If thats the case you should probably just make a beer and see what kinda efficiency you get. I was pleasantly surprised that my system lends to about an 80% efficiency on average. I am really pleased with that. Sure more would be nice, but not at the expense of propane/TIME its just not worth it. I have yet to try and use a finer crush to achieve better efficiency, but I probably could. I used Bobby_M's all grain guide when I started and I beleive he said he gets 88%-92% with his crush. Thats pretty darn good!

You don't want your runnings to go below 1010, I have been lackadaisical with my procedure and don't check my final runnings gravity, just go to whatever my preboil volume should be, but i really don't think its below that ( i will check this weekend when i brew!). To boil off 6 gallons of wort is just not efficient in itself. The only time you may consider something like this is with a barleywine.

I guess in my opinion, your hypothetical case of boiling down 6 gallons is not a good decision. If you purchase or own your own mill, trying a finer crush to improve efficiency is a great way to do it. But you won't know until you try your system. To answer the percentage difference question that has many variables. But basically you'd have to know your boil off rate and the cost of an hours worth of propane and compare that to your normal efficiency and the amount of extra grain you would have to use to get the gravity you would have gotten from the 6 hour boil off. Then you can factor in your personal time of waiting X hours to continue your brew. Ultimately the decision is yours, but I think the general consensus is better crush and standard boil times and you get what you get. Long post, let me know if i completely missed your question!

Efficiency is overrated. I wouldn't obsess about it. I just try to hit my OG or as close as I can.

I apologize if this question was already covered, as I didn't get through all 20 pages.

But, my false bottom hold two gallons of water under it. So, if I stick to 1-1.25 quarts per pound of grain, then the top of my mash will not be submerged in water. How much will my efficiency be hurt if I use too much mash water? Also, is it really a big problem if I just boil longer to remove the excess water? (that is, assuming I am not brewing a very pale pils for which I do not want excessive caramelized sugars)?