"faster" and "shorter" mash and sprarge

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beesy

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k, so been brewing 1.5-2 years. did 2 batches of extract kits, then me and pickles quickly moved to all grain. in doing a 3 floyds gumball head clone a few weeks ago, I accidentally messed up (picked up 1lb of special b off counter instead of the caravienne sitting beside it), and i decided to experiment. I am now doing 30 minute mashes, vaurloffing for 10, for a total of 40m in mash, and collecting between 6.25-6.5g runnings within 25 minutes (total time from mash in = 65 minutes (fly sparge, single infusion)) with ~76% eff for a 60/40 wheat and ~80-82% for a largely 2 row bill. I have done this about 4 times now (for pale ale type beers with og around 1.053) and have cut massive times off brew day. The last one, I collected 4.5 and put it on to boil, collected another 2g and added to boil pot, and shaved another 25 or so minutes off brew day. i have not had a chance to taste any carbed beers from this process, but do not notice any off flavors. I also recently increased my sparge water temp to 180F. The two times i measured mash bed when done, they were 167-168 which seems ideal. This seems to fit all the "normal" parameters with a lot less time. anyone have any input? what's your experience. FYI the beers i have done this with are more standard type pale ales that don't need to be extra dry.
 
You will have less fermentables in your wort with shorter mash times. Your conversion test will still say you have no starches left, but those sugars will be "bigger", and less tasty to yeast. I am not sure how much less though...(I think Kai may know...maybe hunt around his wiki at brukaiser.com)
 
It depends a lot on the target mash temp and what the diastatic power of the grain bill is too. Mashes high in adjucts like unmalted wheat will take longer to convert and so will colder mashes down near 150F. If you're doing 90+% base malt mashes at 155F+, there's no reason why it wouldn't convert in 20 minutes and a simple iodine test will tell you. I mash for 60 and like it because I go do other things like weigh my hops out and sanitize my carboy or generally clean up the garage.
 
You will have less fermentables in your wort with shorter mash times. Your conversion test will still say you have no starches left, but those sugars will be "bigger", and less tasty to yeast. I am not sure how much less though...(I think Kai may know...maybe hunt around his wiki at brukaiser.com)

Thanks for the info - I'll have to check it out his site. The one thing i will watch closely, my fg. i guess in theory, i am thinking the enzymes are still breaking down larger sugars until they get denatured by heating during boiling. so the time the enzymes are working is actually still well over an hour. I'll post fg results as soon as i can get them.
 
It depends a lot on the target mash temp and what the diastatic power of the grain bill is too. Mashes high in adjucts like unmalted wheat will take longer to convert and so will colder mashes down near 150F. If you're doing 90+% base malt mashes at 155F+, there's no reason why it wouldn't convert in 20 minutes and a simple iodine test will tell you. I mash for 60 and like it because I go do other things like weigh my hops out and sanitize my carboy or generally clean up the garage.


Mashed has mostly been around 153 and most have been large percentages of 2-row. Relativley small percentages of crystal type malts.

I'm not worried about the heavy wheat content as i believe the white wheat malt i used has as much if not more diastic power than more 2-row.
 
You will have less fermentables in your wort with shorter mash times. Your conversion test will still say you have no starches left, but those sugars will be "bigger", and less tasty to yeast. I am not sure how much less though...(I think Kai may know...maybe hunt around his wiki at brukaiser.com)


Ferm was completed on one batch so I took a fg reading last night which was 1.011. This was for the SNPA clone that is out there all over the place. So on this one, the shorter mash appears to not have affected the fg. I'll post results on the other batches as the fermentation completes.
 
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