What a terrific thread! I wish you best of luck with that next batch, Bob. In the meantime, enjoy the one you have!
TL
TL
I'm screwed...
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bobwantbeer
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I need the support. Me and my friend are brewing every monday now so I'm sure I'll be on here on here same time next week with a new conundrum. This really is a terrific forum.
killian
Well-Known Member
Are you flysparging or batch sparging?
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Im thinking about your lower than expected volume post boil. It could be that you didnt calculate for absorption. Your grain will soak up some of your mash water and you will have some dead space in your mash tun to account for. I usually plan to lose .1 gallons of water for every pound of grain in the mash. So for a 10lb grain bill you will probably loose about 1 gallon to absorption. If you mash with 1.5qt/lb with a 10lb grain bill the total mash will be 15qts (3.75gallons) I would plan on collecting 2.5-2.75 gallons of 1st runnings
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Im thinking about your lower than expected volume post boil. It could be that you didnt calculate for absorption. Your grain will soak up some of your mash water and you will have some dead space in your mash tun to account for. I usually plan to lose .1 gallons of water for every pound of grain in the mash. So for a 10lb grain bill you will probably loose about 1 gallon to absorption. If you mash with 1.5qt/lb with a 10lb grain bill the total mash will be 15qts (3.75gallons) I would plan on collecting 2.5-2.75 gallons of 1st runnings
Hmmm, you brewed my recipe...there's yer problem!! Actually no, that amber is by far the best beer I've ever made period.
I'll summarize what I think your problems were:
1. Mash water infusion was too big and too cold. A half batch would have been 10lbs of grain total and you'd want your strike water to be somewhere between 12-15 quarts max based on a rule of thumb of about 1.25 qts/lb (I'd go 3 gallons). You can use calculators and software but the average strike temp is around 169F give or take depending on your grain temp and desired rest temp.
2. You didn't sparge with enough water. I say this because you ended up having to top off at the end. It's better to sparge a little more than less. Read up on the many batch sparge threads about maximizing efficiency with split sparging and eeking the temperature up a bit. In any case, if you end up with more volume in the kettle than you wanted, you can always boil for an extra 15 minutes prior to starting your hop schedule.
Good luck next time.
I'll summarize what I think your problems were:
1. Mash water infusion was too big and too cold. A half batch would have been 10lbs of grain total and you'd want your strike water to be somewhere between 12-15 quarts max based on a rule of thumb of about 1.25 qts/lb (I'd go 3 gallons). You can use calculators and software but the average strike temp is around 169F give or take depending on your grain temp and desired rest temp.
2. You didn't sparge with enough water. I say this because you ended up having to top off at the end. It's better to sparge a little more than less. Read up on the many batch sparge threads about maximizing efficiency with split sparging and eeking the temperature up a bit. In any case, if you end up with more volume in the kettle than you wanted, you can always boil for an extra 15 minutes prior to starting your hop schedule.
Good luck next time.
CEMaine
Well-Known Member
50% was bout the efficiency of my first few partial mashes.Yuri_Rage said:
To Brew is To Learn.
processhead
Well-Known Member
Addressing you efficency concerns.... Two thing that have made a big difference in extract efficiency for me are:
1) Make sure your sparge water elevates the temperature of your mash to 168 to 170 degrees. At lower temperatures, you just don't dissolve soluable sugars from the grain bed as effectively.
2) Make sure that the run off rate from your lauter tun is not too fast. Too rapid a run off will leave behind soluable sugars in the grain bed that you want in your boiling kettle. If you have run out of sparge water after only 30 minutes of sparging, your run off rate is probably too high.
All this assumes that you are flysparging.
1) Make sure your sparge water elevates the temperature of your mash to 168 to 170 degrees. At lower temperatures, you just don't dissolve soluable sugars from the grain bed as effectively.
2) Make sure that the run off rate from your lauter tun is not too fast. Too rapid a run off will leave behind soluable sugars in the grain bed that you want in your boiling kettle. If you have run out of sparge water after only 30 minutes of sparging, your run off rate is probably too high.
All this assumes that you are flysparging.
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bobwantbeer
Well-Known Member
I'm batch sparging. I actually made a mistake by topping off because I got confused between the recipe I brewed and the other recipe I considered brewing. The recipe I actually brewed was meant to yield exactly ten gallons, and the other 5.5. For some reason I got confused and topped off the extra half gallon that I didn't need. I didn't even realize that until last night. I didn't do a calculation for the amount of water absorbed by grain, I've just been using more and more water each time because I've never gotten the correct amount post boil. This time I did and ****** it up. That's an easy calculation though and I'll be sure to use it in the future. I'm sure it works much better than my guessing. Thank you.
killian said:
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bobwantbeer
Well-Known Member
I think I've been confused about proper mash schedule in general. From my reading it seemed like you mash in with a gallon more than your intended yield, and batch sparged with 2, and that would work all the time. This forum has tought me otherwise. I'm doing the chaos IPA from this forums database next week and I'm going to figure out exactly what needs to be done by then. Thanks for your in put, I was hoping you particularly would see this thread.
Bobby_M said:
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bobwantbeer
Well-Known Member
CEMaine said:
I hope so.
WBC
Well-Known Member
bobwantbeer said:
New all grain brewers should NOT do decoction mashing. It is hard enough to do single infusion and do it correctly. From what I understand you did not get good efficiency from the grain because it was not milled correctly. Either buy grain crushed or buy a mill and crush it yourself. Poorly crushed grain = Poor efficiency.
First thing is to get to reading about "How To Brew" and pay attention to mashing and sparging.
www.howtobrew.com/
Software: www.beersmith.com/
+1WBC said:
I think the real issue was diagnosed on the previous page but maybe not spelled out specifically.WBC said:
10 pounds of grain, 6 gallons of mash water.
That is 2.4 quarts per pound. I find it amazing you actually got all the way up to 1.035 with a mash that thin. You should almost always be between 1.0 and 2.0 quarts of mash water per pound of grain and most people don't even go over 1.5. When the mash is too thin, the enzymes needed for starch conversion are too diluted, so they work much more slowly.
I personally use a stiff mash, about 1.0 to 1.1 qt/lb so that I have room to adjust with hot or cold water if I under or over shoot my target mash temperature.
WBC said:
(Unless you screw up and miss your temp by something like 20F because you forgot to take the grains out of the fridge, were mashing in a Gott cooler, and had to come up with some way to get your temp up from the unintentional protein rest to a sach rest, a la TL's first AG batch! :rockin: )
TL
Das Mueller
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WBC said:
We did mill it ourselves....the local brew supply shop has a mill that they permit people to use....i guess it's possiblt that it was not a very good mill job...but i don't know why or how it could be.
WBC
Well-Known Member
Das Mueller said:
The grain should be well opened so water can get at the starch. The mash thickness should be 1.25 qts or less water per pound of grain. Use a brewing program to determine how much water at what temp to obtain the mash strike temp. Too much strike water (over 1.25 qts) makes less sugar conversion per minute of time. Mash PH also plays a part. Read up on this.
Enough said.......
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