Increasing Efficiency

lucianthorr said:

This sticky was super useful to read through. Thanks for pinning it.

There is one part that confuses me, at least when applied to my home setup. Why does the thickness of the grain bed matter if stirring is okay during the mash out?
Until recently, I had always thought the rule was "don't touch the grain bed" because it needs to set and act as a filter (despite having a false bottom is doing a lot of the filtering). But if stirring is okay, why not even stir during the sparge and avoid channeling altogether?
I'm sure there's good reason, I just think I'm overlooking some critical fact.
Thanks

Click to expand...

Thickness of the grain bed affects the flow dynamics during fly sparging, but is irrelevant for batch sparging. The integrity of the grain bed only matters during the fly sparging process, or run-off when batch sparging. The grain bed can be reset by vorlaufing - running off some wort and then pouring it back on top of the grain bed. This is repeated until the wort runs clear. At this point you can start fly sparging, or running off if batch sparging.

You don't want to stir during fly sparging, as the efficiency depends on having a vertical concentration gradient of extract (basically sugar) thru the grain bed. Stirring during the sparge will destroy the concentration gradient, and at that point you are basically doing a batch sparge.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have additional questions.

Brew on

Thanks for the reply Doug. Your explanation does make sense. I can imagine that, if you're mixing the grain bed during sparge, you're not only mixing the grains, you're also mixing the sugar concentration in the water, and you really want that sinking towards the output valve... and sinking/rinsing equally amongst the grains rather than channeling through a few select paths.
But what about mixing during the mash, as the sticky-note advised? I had thought during the mash, that's when the grain bed "solidifies" but was I wrong? Is that not the case? Maybe it doesn't really set until the mash out and before the sparge water is then added to begin the fly sparge process.

lucianthorr said:

Thanks for the reply Doug. Your explanation does make sense. I can imagine that, if you're mixing the grain bed during sparge, you're not only mixing the grains, you're also mixing the sugar concentration in the water, and you really want that sinking towards the output valve... and sinking/rinsing equally amongst the grains rather than channeling through a few select paths.
But what about mixing during the mash, as the sticky-note advised? I had thought during the mash, that's when the grain bed "solidifies" but was I wrong? Is that not the case? Maybe it doesn't really set until the mash out and before the sparge water is then added to begin the fly sparge process.

Click to expand...

Mixing during the mash is fine. A few minutes at the end of the mash is enough for the grains to settle low in the mash, and then a vorlauf will set the bed so that it forms a good filter.

Brew on

ok not sure if this should be it's own thread or not?

But the strangest thing happened to me on my last batch. I already got a bump from 83%, to 88-90% with a second step at 162f. not sure if that's just streching out alpha, like i thought, or more complete geling of the starches, or both....but i did it by pulling wort, and bring to a boil and adding back.

But I was informed that i don't need to worry so much about tannin from temp alone, and that it's fine to just boil the mash to step it up, because osmotic pressure, and ph...

Anyway to the point of this short story, i use 100% base malt 20lb's for a 10 gallon batch...and my OG was 1.067 at 85f....that corrects to 1.070 or 97% effec?
i'm still kinda in a state of disbelieving....but i'm going to do it the same way next batch too, and see if it's duplicatable! great way to increase effec!

edit: off-topic, but holy jesus! i brewed that friday, and didn't ptich my yeast till 10pm! it's monday the gravity is .995 or so, and going to keg it up! i'm going to burst carb with 1.3oz's of co2 here in a bit, as soon as it's cold tomorrow, i'll see how it tastes, i'm hoping for MALTY!

edit #2: just tried a sip, it's still at 65f, so 50/50 foam, but it's got me excited! the finish tasted malty rough, and that's the way i like my beer!

welp done brewing....i got 1.073 for 10 gallons, 20lb's pale, 1lb 40L crystal, and 8oz's chocolate malt......beersmith puts that at 94%, not as impressive, but i'm just a humble homebrewer it would have been nice if i got my 1.075 for 97% though! lol (maybe i should try taking a nap during the mash again!)

edit: on a note worthy topic, i notcied when i added the boil mash back to the tun, the mash got significantly thinner, and the grains all dropped like rocks to the bottom....not sure if that helps anyone on the quest to be 100% awesome.....

(and i did sparge a bit quicker this time....)