John Palmer specifies 2 quarts water per pound of grain, for a basic mash. This seems very thin. I've been having problems with efficiency, perhaps partly because I must sparge with less water, or my boil volumes are consistently too high. Ive rarely seen as much as 2qt/lb quoted anywhere else - usually more like 1.25-1.5 qt/lb. Thoughts?
Mash consistency
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I use around 2 qt/lb most of the time. It's common in German brewing practices (1.75-2.5 qt/lb). You should read Kai's efficiency write up.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency
The way to get higher efficiency is not with a bigger sparge, it's with better conversion. Take a SG reading of the first runnings and see how well your doing.
2 qt/lb is what I'd strike with for a 9 pound grain bill. It would run off 14 quarts and I would single sparge with another 14 quarts to get 28 quart boil volume. I'd end up with 5.25 gallons of wort at about 1.053 after boil.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency
The way to get higher efficiency is not with a bigger sparge, it's with better conversion. Take a SG reading of the first runnings and see how well your doing.
2 qt/lb is what I'd strike with for a 9 pound grain bill. It would run off 14 quarts and I would single sparge with another 14 quarts to get 28 quart boil volume. I'd end up with 5.25 gallons of wort at about 1.053 after boil.
I usually mash with 1 qt per lb, but I have also gone as thin as 2 qt per lb. I have never noticed any differences in efficiency caused by the mash thickness with an OG less than 1.060. With an OG > 1.060, it is possible that there is insufficient sparge water to rinse the sugars out of the grains. This is a guess, as I've never tried a thin mash with a gravity > 1.060
-a.
-a.
The only way is is possible to sparge all the sugars out of the grain is to fly sparge all the way down to zero. It would take a perfect lauter tun and you would have to filter out some of the polyphenols. Some commercial operations do and can get laboratory extraction rates. They work with something like a three foot grain bed.
You never can with batch sparging. Ideally you want runoffs nearly the same. Even if they are much different there is still very little loss in efficiency. Your just stealing form Peter to pay Paul. Even going from two to three run offs is worth very little (3%).
Efficiency is always about total conversion and total liquor to malt ratio. It's very predictable. Once I have my first running gravity I can calculate my OG.
Look at the crush. That's the prime cause of low efficiency.
Thanks for all the ideas. So if the mash thickness doesn't affect the conversion all that much, and a thinner mash is filling up the kettle to quick, perhaps I should mash thicker, and sparge bigger for a proper sugar rinse? I don't think my rectangular cooler mash tun and bazooka screen is suitable for fly/continuous sparging, and I might go back to batch sparging. I've wondered about the grain crush - my LHBS does it for me. No stuck mashes at least!
If I leave my spent mash overnight, and collect the quart or so of extra wort that collects at the bottom, I've been boiling it down to make malt extract syrup. Delicious for malted milks etc. Even though it's only a half cup of syrup that results, it tells me I'm leaving sugars behind.
If I leave my spent mash overnight, and collect the quart or so of extra wort that collects at the bottom, I've been boiling it down to make malt extract syrup. Delicious for malted milks etc. Even though it's only a half cup of syrup that results, it tells me I'm leaving sugars behind.
Yes you should batch sparge. At the home brew level fly sparging is not any more efficient and your set up is not very good for fly sparging anyway.
A thinker mash will not help either. My typical pilsner is 8 lbs pils malt. By the first running it's at 2.25 qt/lb. The first running is 14 quarts of 14 brix wort. I sparge with another 14 quarts. The sparge gravity is just the dilution of the first runnings absorbed in the gran and dead space. In my MLT that would be four quarts with that grain bill. So my sparge will be 4 brix. ((14x4)/14)
At the end of the sparge all that is left is one gallon of 4 brix (1.016) wort in my tun. It's not worth much (maybe a starter.)
In the kettle I have 28 quarts of 9 brix (1.036) wort. I'll boil it down to 21 quarts of 12P wort (1.048).
The key to this is conversion, not sparge volumes.
A thinker mash will not help either. My typical pilsner is 8 lbs pils malt. By the first running it's at 2.25 qt/lb. The first running is 14 quarts of 14 brix wort. I sparge with another 14 quarts. The sparge gravity is just the dilution of the first runnings absorbed in the gran and dead space. In my MLT that would be four quarts with that grain bill. So my sparge will be 4 brix. ((14x4)/14)
At the end of the sparge all that is left is one gallon of 4 brix (1.016) wort in my tun. It's not worth much (maybe a starter.)
In the kettle I have 28 quarts of 9 brix (1.036) wort. I'll boil it down to 21 quarts of 12P wort (1.048).
The key to this is conversion, not sparge volumes.
With a low gravity beer, I'd agree that there isn't much difference between a fly sparge and a batch sparge (in terms of efficiency).
However, as the gravity increases, there can be a considerable difference.
When I used a 5g MLT (Rubbermaid cooler with a false bottom), I couldn't get a gravity > 1.060 with a batch sparge, but I could get up to 1.075 with a fly sparge. That's a 25% increase in efficiency which I consider to be very significant. In both cases, I had complete conversion, so the difference was caused by fly sparging vs batch sparging.
-a.
I have to say your failing to stir it enough. It's all about dilution. Every drop needs to be the same gravity before running off. It's not hard to mash 10 pounds in a five gallon cooler. I used to use one...I know.
You don't seem to be able to understand what I'm saying.
If you can get a gravity of 1.075 in a 5g batch with 10 lbs grain, you are getting approximately 100% efficiency. This is not possible.
-a.
You said 1.060. With 100% conversion (as you also said) and proper dilution of a single sparge you will get over that out of 10 pounds of pale ( when boiled down to ~five gallons.) To get any less you would have to have not gotten 100% conversion or had very poor dilution of the sparge. There are no other variables. Maybe dead space--but that's a bigger hit fly sparging. It would stay first running gravity.
You probably just don't understand what 100% conversion is. It's not an Iodine test. It's a gravity test.
You probably just don't understand what 100% conversion is. It's not an Iodine test. It's a gravity test.
With my mill at .030 I tend to get a little over 85% with eight pounds and a little under 85% with 12 pounds. It's not unusual to get 90% with session beers or with more intensive mashes. Lately I've been making some 2 gallon BIAB batches. They have been just under 80% with out any sparging.
With runnoffs/pre-boil volume being equal efficiency has to go down with larger grain bills simply because there's more grain absorption and at a higher gravity.
In theory fly sparging should be able to do better. In pactice? I'm not so sure.
With runnoffs/pre-boil volume being equal efficiency has to go down with larger grain bills simply because there's more grain absorption and at a higher gravity.
In theory fly sparging should be able to do better. In pactice? I'm not so sure.
If you actually read the post, you would see that I stated "in a 5g cooler"
Have you ever tried batch sparging 13.5 lbs grain in a 5g cooler? It will result in a poor dilution of the sparge.
I also do understand what 100% conversion is. An iodine test is fine for indicating whether or not you have got full conversion. Kaiser's article was about measuring conversion efficiency to determine where efficiency is lost. An iodine test just indicates that you have full conversion. It does not measure the conversion efficiency, which was necessary for his article.
-a.
Years ago I made Morebeer's Fire in the Hole in my five gallon cooler. That was before I had a mill and I was fly sparging. As I recall I pulled 1.070 out of just over 15lbs of grain. I kept sparging it to make another gallon or more of a small beer. The second beer turned out to be a good lesson in tannin extraction.
I can get 85% mash/lauter efficiency fly sparging (which I have been doing for many years). With a batch sparge (which I have only done a few times) I can get about 80% efficiency for beers with an OG <= 1.050, but the efficiency dropped off sharply as the OG increased. This was using a 5g cooler with a false bottom to make a 5g batch of beer. I agree that with that equipment, I did have some problems with the system, but these were a few experimental batches to see if batch sparging would work for me. My efficiency into the fermenter drops another 5 - 10% because of hop absorption, and wort trapped in the equipment.
-a.
Mine will drain dry, sort of. There is none at the end of the runnoff but over some time some wort will come out of the grain and settle on the bottom. I can get as much of 25% or the grain absorption back over the next hour because my tun can drain freely (no dead space, no siphoning). Sometime I'll freeze it for staters. It can bump my OG up a point or two if I let it drip into the kettle.
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