Pre-soak before mashing?

I'm still trying to master the single step infusion. Sure, I've made plenty of good beers with the process, but I'm still tweaking and refining it for my equipment.

My efficiency has always been very low so I wanted to tweak the process a little. First, I tightened down my rollers a bit. This will be an all-malt batch anyway whereas my previous few were wheat beers.

But I was thinking about another possible source of a poor conversion. The time it takes the mash temp to even out. You see, if you dump 170 degree water onto the grains, it will take a bit of time for the grains to absorb the water and heat. During this time, whatever the water touches will be in the upper portion of the mash temps, if not outright destroying the first enzymes it sees.

This seems, in part, to be the reason for using the rests at near-room temperature (pardon me for not recalling the name of that rest period). So I was thinking about tossing in about 6 quarts of room temp water in with the grain before striking and letting it sit for 10 minutes or so. My logic is that the pre-moistened grain should be much more capable of transferring heat quickly through out the grain. Of course, I'll have to account for the extra water mass in my calculations.

Any thoughts?

Damn Squirrels said:

…But I was thinking about another possible source of a poor conversion. The time it takes the mash temp to even out. You see, if you dump 170 degree water onto the grains, it will take a bit of time for the grains to absorb the water and heat. During this time, whatever the water touches will be in the upper portion of the mash temps, if not outright destroying the first enzymes it sees.
…[/B]

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I did two things to improve my single step…

First, I moved a hell of a lot faster when assembling my mash. Instead of opening each grain package separately, I dumped the whole lot into a big empty bucket so I could just dump the grains in half at a time. This is probably not an issue for you since you crush and probably use a bucket to hold the grains. And instead of dumping a pot of water, a pot of grains a pot of water and so forth, I got more aggressive…half the water…half the grains…quick stir…then repeat. Stick the thermometer in and I would get pockets of temps from 152 to 156. Another quick stir and the temps evened out around 154.

Second, I let my mash sit longer and recirculated my (batch) sparges a few times before running off to the pot. This really made a big difference because I was more careful to truly rinse down the grains of all the sugars before draining.

Whatever you decide to do, you may want to try one change at a time, otherwise you may not nail down which process change worked.

Damn Squirrels - What you are saying makes sense, and I think it is called "Doughing In".

From John Palmer's "How to Brew" (quoted without permission):

Chapter 14 - How the Mash Works
14.3 Doughing-In
To the best of my knowledge, the temperature rest (holding period) for phytase is no longer used by any commercial brewery. However, this regime (95-113°F) is sometimes used by brewers for "Doughing In"- mixing the grist with the water to allow time for the malt starches to soak up water and time for the enzymes to be distributed. The debranching enzymes, e.g. limit dextrinase, are most active in this regime and break up a small percentage of dextrins at this early stage of the mash. The vast majority of debranching occurs during malting as a part of the modification process. Only a small percentage of the debranching enzymes survive the drying and kilning processes after malting, so not much more debranching can be expected. With all of that being said, the use of a 20 minute rest at temperatures near 104°F (40°C) has been shown to be beneficial to improving the yield from all enzymatic malts. This step is considered optional but can improve the total yield by a couple of points.

Good call brloomis... I knew I read about it SOMEWHERE before....

I think I'll give it a try.

BierMuncher said:

I did two things to improve my single step…

First, I moved a hell of a lot faster when assembling my mash. Instead of opening each grain package separately, I dumped the whole lot into a big empty bucket so I could just dump the grains in half at a time. This is probably not an issue for you since you crush and probably use a bucket to hold the grains. And instead of dumping a pot of water, a pot of grains a pot of water and so forth, I got more aggressive…half the water…half the grains…quick stir…then repeat. Stick the thermometer in and I would get pockets of temps from 152 to 156. Another quick stir and the temps evened out around 154.

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I still don't "get" that. I've never been able to get my mash pockets within 10 degrees of each other (highest reading vs. lowest). Even after 10 minutes. I'm mashing in a cooler.

I think that, given this issue, the doughing in is the only way to go. Should go far towards resolving this issue.

Second, I let my mash sit longer and recirculated my (batch) sparges a few times before running off to the pot. This really made a big difference because I was more careful to truly rinse down the grains of all the sugars before draining.

Click to expand...

You recirculate the entire sparge?

Whatever you decide to do, you may want to try one change at a time, otherwise you may not nail down which process change worked.

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Well, I'm expecting the fine crush to improve efficiency. I'm expecting the dough-in to improve temperature consistency. So I think I'll be able to analyze the two changes rather independently. But I totally agree with what you are saying there.

Well, I tightened my rollers and presoaked. Mashed at 155 degrees.

55% efficiency.

Wow.

Give us some details...grain bill, recipe, boil volume...sparge techniques.

Maybe you're doing too heavy a beer for your boil volume and need to sparge out 7.5 gallons (for a 5-gallon batch) instead of 6.

Might be that you need to sparge in, stir, let it set for 10 minutes and then drain...recirculating 5 or 6 pot fulls first to rinse the grains better.

I started relying less on the "wash" cycle (mash in) and more on the "rinse" cycle(sparge out) to get the sugars washed out.

If I had to guess, I'd say you're converting plenty of starches in to sugars, but ineffective "rinsing" is leaving too much sugar behind.

11.0 lbs Maris Otter
0.5 lbs Special B

3 quarts of 120 water into the grain bucket, stir up as best I could (still had dry spots, of course), let sit for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Measured temp was around 80 degrees.

20 quarts into a preheated cooler/mash tun, combined with grain, stirred up, top closed for 10 minutes, measured the temp, and it was at 155.

Wait an hour, drain the wort, collected a hair under 4 gallons.

Add 10 quarts of 168 degree sparge water. Run it through twice (10-15 minutes rest each time).

Collected just over 6.25 gallons of wort. Boiled down to 5 gallons. OG: 1.050


(That's 60% efficiency, not 55%... sorry. But still.....)

Damn Squirrels said:

11.0 lbs Maris Otter
0.5 lbs Special B

3 quarts of 120 water into the grain bucket, stir up as best I could (still had dry spots, of course), let sit for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Measured temp was around 80 degrees.

20 quarts into a preheated cooler/mash tun, combined with grain, stirred up, top closed for 10 minutes, measured the temp, and it was at 155.

Wait an hour, drain the wort, collected a hair under 4 gallons.

Add 10 quarts of 168 degree sparge water. Run it through twice (10-15 minutes rest each time).

Collected just over 6.25 gallons of wort. Boiled down to 5 gallons. OG: 1.050


(That's 60% efficiency, not 55%... sorry. But still.....)

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23 quarts of total water at mash in? That's nearly 6 gallons. Sounds like your mashing in with too high a volume and not sparging with enough.

I do 10-gallon batches and my initial strike volume is a hair over 6 gallons. When I did 5 gallon batches, I would mash in like 3 - 3.5 gallons...then do multiple batch sparges with 2.5 - 3 gallons.

I'd suggest three things:
1) Shoot for 1.5 quarts of initial water for each pound of grain. In your case that would have been just a bit over 4 gallons.

2) Do a minimum of 2 batch sparges, using 3 gallons of 175 degree water each time...let rest 10 minutes and drain.

3) Aim for a total boil volume of 7 gallons next time, using the two sparges.

This should make sure you get two good "rinses" out of the grain bed. Then shoot for a 5.5 post boil volume to allow for loss to trub and sampling.

Thanks BM... I'll give it a try next week when I do my triple batch...

BierMuncher said:

23 quarts of total water at mash in? That's nearly 6 gallons. Sounds like your mashing in with too high a volume and not sparging with enough.

I do 10-gallon batches and my initial strike volume is a hair over 6 gallons. When I did 5 gallon batches, I would mash in like 3 - 3.5 gallons...then do multiple batch sparges with 2.5 - 3 gallons.

I'd suggest three things:
1) Shoot for 1.5 quarts of initial water for each pound of grain. In your case that would have been just a bit over 4 gallons.

2) Do a minimum of 2 batch sparges, using 3 gallons of 175 degree water each time...let rest 10 minutes and drain.

3) Aim for a total boil volume of 7 gallons next time, using the two sparges.

This should make sure you get two good "rinses" out of the grain bed. Then shoot for a 5.5 post boil volume to allow for loss to trub and sampling.

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I almost second the above.

The only (minor) changes that I would make are:
Use 1 to 1.25 qts water per lb grain for the mash instead of 1.5.
For the first sparge water addition use 185 degree water to raise the entire temperature up to about 170 degrees
For the second addition, 175 degrees should be fine
Immediately after adding each batch of sparge water, stir well, let rest a few minutes, then vorlauf and drain.

One other thing that I would do is to take a gravity reading of the final runnings from the second sparge. Ideally, the gravity should be about 1.010. If the gravity is above 1.020, then you still have a substantial amount of sugar that has not yet been sparged out, and you need to pay more attention to your sparging methods.

Just one other suggestion. Have you checked your thermometer for accuracy? An inaccurate thermometer can really screw up a mash.

-a.

I agree, your mash isn't thick enough. I hadn't thought about recirculating the sparge though. That would save on time if it works. I usually sparge twice with different water and end up with about 9 gallons and a long boil down with a simlar grain bill. I get about 2.5 to 3 gallons on the first runnings and 3 on the next two, 75% eff and 1.020 gravity average for the last sparge.

The problem might be that your sparge water has too much sugar in it and isn't disolving the sugar as efficiently as fresh water would.

One of the things I really like about my system is that I can get 6 AG batches out of a single tank of propane. :rockin:

Stepping up to a 2 hour boil or something like that doesn't interest me. However, I will admit that my mashes are a bit thin. The reason being, a thin mash makes hitting mash temps very easy, there being less room for error. But I will take the advice given and thicken them up a little. And two sparges should be doable as well, once I have a thicker mash.

I mostly went up to 2 qts/gal in a period when I was struggling to get conversion, let alone efficiency. Things are a bit better now. I suppose it's time for me to start homing in on the things that are keeping me from better efficiency.


FWIW, one thing that did help me get to the point I'm at was adding the mash water BEFORE the grain. That way, you can take the heat of the MLT out of the equation when aiming for your mash temps. It really helps a lot.

Damn Squirrels said:

FWIW, one thing that did help me get to the point I'm at was adding the mash water BEFORE the grain. That way, you can take the heat of the MLT out of the equation when aiming for your mash temps. It really helps a lot.

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How does that work for you? Based on the reading I have done (Papazian and Palmer), you should be adding the water to the grain. Pre-heating the mash tun with a gallon or two of boiling water mostly eliminates heat loss to the tun; my brewing software (Beer Alchemy) also has the ability to estimate heat loss to a room-temperature tun. I have only done one AG batch so far, but using Beer Alchemy to calculate infusion temps allowed me to hit my mash temp dead on. One batch is hardly definitive, so I am always looking to learn more - I would love to try reversing the order of addition to the tun (water then grain) if that's something people feel would help.

I plugged your grain bill into Beer Smith and it's telling me that if you go with a single infusion mash (medium body), you'll need 3.6 gallons at a strike temp of 170. At that temp you should land at 154 degrees...

Watch my AG batch video in the sig. I hit 86% efficiency with that method according to Beer Tools.

8.25lbs grain bought me 1.044 in 6 gallons post boil. I'm pretty sure that's it, I don't have the file on this computer.

Key points...
Infuse your mash water way high, cover the cooler for 5 minutes, test temp. Once you get it down to 168 (use software to dial this in), dump the grist in. You should stick with a stiffer mash for the simple reason that it lets you sparge with more.

I'm still an AG novice but I'm really pleased with the results so far. Of course it's all going to change when I get around to building the direct fired keg MLT.

I will throw my 2 cents worth in to say that from all that I have read from more experienced brewers than I indicate that 2 equal sparges work best.

At the end of my one hour mash I add enough water to offset the loss due to grain absorbtion. I mash at 1.25 qt. per pound and figure .15 qt. per pound for absorbtion. I generally add almost 2 gallons at the end so it brings the temp up nicely. The water is generally around 180 to 185.

The 2nd sparge is just equal to one half of the wort needed and I get the right amount most every time. I get roughly 75% efficiency.

I always pre-heat the cooler and add the grain to the water evenly and stir constantly during the additon.

I definately agree that you need to thicken your mash and increase your sparge amounts. But here's a couple other thoughts based on my own past struggles with efficiency.

Your best bet is to use gravity and volume readings taken pre-boil. That way you get your true mash system efficiency instead of your brewhouse efficiency and it eliminates inaccuracies that result from volume losses. The only drawback is that you will be reading gravity of a hot sample (unless you have a way to cool it quickly) and you will need to do a hydrometer temp correction to find your actual gravity.

Plus, make sure you're getting accurate readings of your volume. Small errors in volume can have a big impact on the efficiency calculation. I can usually estimate my volume to within .25 gal and this seems to work pretty well.

SP

Hey thanks for posting the link to the video...it's awesome!

The one thing that comes to mind for me is when you say with your sparge you "run it through twice". Do you mean you split the volume and do two batch sparges (that's usually what I do, unless I'm pressed for time and do one batch sparge) or that you re-run the same sparge runnings?

The reason I ask is that lower sg liquid "pulls" more sugar out. So, water will get you more sugars than the runnings. I can't remember the exact chemistry behind it- it has to do with an osmosis-like process.

Sorry if I read you wrong- that just stuck out at me.

I've done 6 all grain batch sparge batches so far and the first three got me 75-76% (double sparge but no mash out). I recently did the same with a mash out, double sparge and hit 86%. Tonight I did a mash out, single sparge and it dropped to 80%. Take it for what it's worth.