I was looking at my false bottom today and it has got a small "bow" in it from lots of use:rockin: It is for my keggle and it is very heavy duty. It got me thinking about all the weight pushing down on. Isn't this weight essentially "squeezing" the bottom of my grain bed? It just reminded me of how everyone tells you not to squeeze your grain bag because you might get some tannins from the husks. Now I have noticed a slight astringency in some of my beers. I wonder if it could be from batch sparging and draining every ounce of wort out my mash tun? Thoughts??
Weight of the Mash....
- Thread starter Phunhog
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Well my runnings are rarely below 1.020 so I don't know if I would be getting astringency from that and my mash ph is usually between 5.2-5.5. I brew 11 gallon batches and it is not unusual to have 25-30 lbs of grain in the mash tun. When you add water to it I am sure it is closer to 40 lbs. Assuming the grain/water weighs 40 lbs wouldn't that equate to almost that much "pushing down" on bottom of the compacted grain bed during the end of lautering? I am imagining a bag of wet grain and putting a 40 lb weight on top of it. Isn't it bound to squeeze some tannins out of it?
StanJohnson
Well-Known Member
Check out post #19
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/dreaded-tannin-astringency-229696/
From Aussie Homebrewer.com
Quote:
Tannins And Astringency
If you are worried about squeezing your bag too much or crushing too fine, relax! Astringent beers do not come from finely crushed or squeezed husks but come rather from a combination of high temperatures and high pH. These conditions pull the polyhenols out of the husk. The higher your pH and the higher temperature you expose your grain to, the worse the problem becomes. Any brewer, traditional or BIAB, should never let these conditions arrive. If you do allow these conditions to arrive, then you will find yourself in exactly the same position as a traditional brewer. Many commercial breweries actually hammer mill their grain to powder for use in mash filter systems because they have control of their pH and temperatures. This control (and obviously expensive complex equipment) allows them non-astringent beers and into kettle, efficiencies of over 100%.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/dreaded-tannin-astringency-229696/
From Aussie Homebrewer.com
Quote:
Tannins And Astringency
If you are worried about squeezing your bag too much or crushing too fine, relax! Astringent beers do not come from finely crushed or squeezed husks but come rather from a combination of high temperatures and high pH. These conditions pull the polyhenols out of the husk. The higher your pH and the higher temperature you expose your grain to, the worse the problem becomes. Any brewer, traditional or BIAB, should never let these conditions arrive. If you do allow these conditions to arrive, then you will find yourself in exactly the same position as a traditional brewer. Many commercial breweries actually hammer mill their grain to powder for use in mash filter systems because they have control of their pH and temperatures. This control (and obviously expensive complex equipment) allows them non-astringent beers and into kettle, efficiencies of over 100%.
