Help With Mash Schedule & Boil Time - First All-Grain

Hey everyone, first time doing an all grain beer. This one just arrived at the local beer kit shop, the one that I bought:

http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/wifey's wheat by andy robinson.pdf

I couldn't help but wonder, what it means by "Sacch' Rest: 149 F for 75 Minutes"

I thought this means to heat the water (approx. 2 gal.) to 149 F, then steep the wheat grains in it for 75 Minutes at that temperature. After looking around John Palmer's "How to Brew", I feel as though I've got the wrong idea. Additionally, the store owner told me his opinion was that the Mash Schedule was a part of the Boil Time (I don't think that's right at all).

Any advice on how to proceed? I haven't done anything yet, but would appreciate someone's interpretation of these instructions. Additionally, does the wort have to be boiled for 90 minutes? I thought the boiling time should never exceed 60 minutes.

Thanks!

I can't open that file via that link, so I'm not sure how much water to tell you to use (it depends on the recipe).

but generally, the "strike water" temperature needs to be higher than the "saccrification rest" temperature. For my system, I need to preheat my mashtun, and then use water that is 11 degrees higher than my desired mash temperature (the "saccrification rest").

149 is a low mash temp, so I'm assuming this is a light, thin bodied beer. I'd probably go a little higher, just in case the temperature is missed by alot. It's easy to add an ice cube to the mash to cool it a bit, but it's harder to warm it up if it's at 145!

The Saccharification Rest is where you will create usable sugars by enzymes in the malt. You are not steeping (where there typically are no enzymes), but rather mashing using the enzymes found in 2 row, pilsner, vienna, etc. Steeping usually involves leeching out crystalized sugars found in kilned malt like crystal, roasted barley, etc.

Anyway, you are almost correct. But you will need to account for the loss in temperature of your strike water from contacting the relatively cool malt. So for me, I heat to ~ 163F to get to my 151F mash temps (sacch rest). Then you try your very best to hold those temps for 75 minutes. There are calculators out there to determine how warm your strike water needs to be (based on grain weight, grain temp, and amount water added). Here's one I use quite often:

http://www.brewheads.com/strike.php

Your store owner is way off. The 75 minute mash to convert the sugars has nothing to do with the boil (usually 60-90 minutes). You also typically have a mash out step and sometimes a sparging step in between mash and boil. The mashout is where you heat the grain and wort to 170F to stop enzymatic activity and help with "rinsing off the sugars". The sparge is the rinse where you try to get as much sugar out of the grain as possible (many different methods).

For the most part, a 60 minute boil is sufficient. But for the lightest color malts like Pilsner malt, a 90 minute boil is desired to remove DMS which tastes like canned corn. Also do not boil with a cover on for the same reasons.

Sorry about that. The recipe kit is here:

http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/Wheat_Ale_Kit_p/agkit-wifeys-wheat.htm

By scrolling down, there is a link to the PDF in the description.

It doesn't say how much to use, but from what I've gathered on these forums, it's 1.25 quarts / lbs. of grain (the kit contains 7.44 lbs. of grain, so about 9.29 quarts of water would be necessary). To me, that means 8 to 9 liters (approx. 2-3 gal.).

So then, I should want to heat the water to 145-155 F, then AFTER it has steeped for... a magical # of minutes, let it "rest" at 149ish for 75 more minutes?

Looking at the recipe, this is meant to be a light colored sessionable beer. Good advice from Yooper about the temp.

I am totally new to this as well but I figured I would reply. You need to heat the strike water up so that when you add the room-temperature grist it stabilizes at the desired temperature. I plugged in the numbers in this calculator and it suggests 163.5* for the strike water. You may have to adjust that depending on if your mash tun is preheated or for some other variable that's yet to be seen.

http://brewheads.com/strike.php

I think I'm getting this now.

Heat the water above the designated temp. (in this case, Sacch Rest at 149 F) for 75 minutes. Thanks for doing the calculation there, I was messing with the calculator a bit over units. This increase in temperature is to account for the addition of the grains/solids; which will lower the temperature of the medium (water) once added.

Hold this temperature range as closely as you can (stove top with a chili pot; this will be fun) for that 75 min. After this is done, the grains will need to be filtered (I've seen scenarios, solbes, where the grains are rinsed again with the wort in order to get as much sugars as possible from them).

The wort must then be boiled for 60 minutes (or 90 in this case to remove excess DMS) so enzyme activity can be stopped. Wort is then cooled (ice bath in my case); it and more water are added to primary and yeast is pitched.

Right?

Nastynate65 said:

So then, I should want to heat the water to 145-155 F, then AFTER it has steeped for... a magical # of minutes, let it "rest" at 149ish for 75 more minutes?

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Again, you are not steeping you are mashing. No steeping involved with this recipe.

Think of the "rest" temperature as the target temp you want your water and grain to be. If you want the wort and grain to be at 149F, you need to have ~160-162F water that mixes with the ~ 65F grain. Use the calculator that is referenced above to see if the 160-162F water temp is in the ballpark.

Pretty much have it right now. Only thing I might add is usually all grain is done with full volume boils. If your brew pot is in the 2-3 gallon range and you have a 5 gallon recipe, you are stuck with a partial boil with make up water added to primary. It will work for now, but you might want to check out some 10-15 gallon brew kettles as you move on with your skills

Lots of good answers.

Nastynate65 said:

I think I'm getting this now.

Heat the water above the designated temp. (in this case, Sacch Rest at 149 F) for 75 minutes. Thanks for doing the calculation there, I was messing with the calculator a bit over units. This increase in temperature is to account for the addition of the grains/solids; which will lower the temperature of the medium (water) once added.

Hold this temperature range as closely as you can (stove top with a chili pot; this will be fun) for that 75 min. After this is done, the grains will need to be filtered (I've seen scenarios, solbes, where the grains are rinsed again with the wort in order to get as much sugars as possible from them).

The wort must then be boiled for 60 minutes (or 90 in this case to remove excess DMS) so enzyme activity can be stopped. Wort is then cooled (ice bath in my case); it and more water are added to primary and yeast is pitched.

Right?

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Yep, you've pretty much got it!

A couple of tips:

-if your pot will fit in your oven, preheat the oven while you mash in (add the grain to the water). Then turn the oven OFF, and put your pot in there for 75 minutes.

- Consider using a grainbag to hold the grain. Well, not "consider"- you really need a way to separate the grain and the liquid. Since it's 7 pounds of grain or so, I recommend using a couple of 5 gallon "paint strainer" bags. Or a very very big bag to line your pot with first, and then stir in the grain. You need the grain to be "loose" in the bag, so that you can thoroughly stir and the grain is thoroughly wetted, and not packed in there so you may need more than one bag, tied very loosely at the top so the grain can be stirred in the pot. I used to do partial mashes in my bottling bucket, liked with a super large mesh bag, and that worked great to separate the grain from the wort.

You can get buy with a 60 minute boil after that.

Once you switch to all grain you should almost never use the word "steeping" again. You might steep occasionally with some special additives, but most of the magic happens when mashing. When you are steeping all you are doing is letting the heat and solvent character of the water dilute and extract what is already in the grain. With mashing you have grain that is full of starch and you have to use the enzymes in the grain to convert that starch to sugar. This is done by holding the grain in a warm, wet environment at a set temperature where the enzymes are most active. They are very different processes, so now you should see why brewers are not very fond of using the terms interchangeably.

One last point and this may be a bit presumptuous (or downright snooty), but if the OWNER of your LHBS thinks a saccharification rest "has something to do with the boil," you may want to look for another place to buy your stuff. You will often be asking questions of the proprietor and you want to know that he knows his products. Besides, it sounds like he sells the stuff but either hasn't been bitten by the bug, or doesn't have any interest in knowing what he is actually selling. I would never go to a butcher who didn't know the basics of meat. I newbie brewer not knowing a saccharification rest is to be expected, but the owner of a LHBS should be fairly expert, at least on the things he sells and I assume he sells malt.

Thanks for all the excellent advice & help with this, thought if done wrong I could end up looking at a big pot of gruel or something.

solbes said:

If your brew pot is in the 2-3 gallon range and you have a 5 gallon recipe, you are stuck with a partial boil with make up water added to primary.

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While looking into all grain brewing a few months back, I noticed this. I'm assuming the more water used in the mashing & boiling, the more sugars/flavors are extracted from the grains. I hope to eventually have all the awesome equipment I've seen featured around these forums, from these 5-6 gallon kettles to kegerator's.

cluckk said:

if the OWNER of your LHBS thinks a saccharification rest "has something to do with the boil," you may want to look for another place to buy your stuff.

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I didn't explain this fully, but given my situation, it wasn't as big of a concern for me as it might be for others. In my location is seems wine & wine kits/equipment is all the rage from brew shops. This particular brew shop is the first one I've seen to try getting new things at their place to which, in my opinion, everyone around here is too afraid to try (they actually got order's of Wyeast! Before that all there was was Coopers!).

Two all grain kits were brought in, partially because I felt I kept asking them questions regarding all grain malts, local producers, where/how do i get hops, etc. Yeah, they don't have all the answers (I claim this forum does when I go in), but hell, they're the only 1 out of 4 brew shops here that actually get new things for me to mess around with. Everywhere else it's malt in a can & boxes/buckets of grape juice. The others look at me as if I'm talking more about a bakery than all-grain brewing. For this alone I look passed this; at least until I get off this island into real civilization.

I have a question about your brewpot. Are you going to be doing this in two boils? Or are you cutting the amount of grain in half, and doing a 2.5 gallon batch?

Yooper said:

I have a question about your brewpot. Are you going to be doing this in two boils? Or are you cutting the amount of grain in half, and doing a 2.5 gallon batch?

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This had me running back to check the volume of my pot. There's a 12 L mark (3.17 Gallons).

I think I would try to do this all in 1 boil. At first glance (and never done this), it looks possible. Should I expect a lot of boil over? Would it be possible to do this in two boils (I would imagine I'd just reduce the volume of water and mash half the total amount of grain, two times). This would mean more time would be spent, right?

Nastynate65 said:

This had me running back to check the volume of my pot. There's a 12 L mark (3.17 Gallons).

I think I would try to do this all in 1 boil. At first glance (and never done this), it looks possible. Should I expect a lot of boil over? Would it be possible to do this in two boils (I would imagine I'd just reduce the volume of water and mash half the total amount of grain, two times). This would mean more time would be spent, right?

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My first instinct was to say, "Um, you can't boil 6 gallons of wort in a 3 gallon pot!"

You don't want to use half the water and all the grain and mash twice. That seems like it would work- but it won't. You need to have conversion of the starches in the grain into sugar, so you need to use at least 1 quart of water per pound of grain, up to about 2 quarts of water per pound of grain, in the mash to get you in the right pH for conversion.

Then, for boiling, since you're doing it twice, you'll need to boil more like 8 gallons of wort (to allow for boil off) so that won't work either. You can split the boil into two pots, but in more like a 3 gallon and a 5 gallon pot.

I don't see how to make a 5 gallon batch out of that size pot, either with the mash or the sparge.

However, if you split the ingredients in half, you could mash and boil 2.5 gallon batches. Your brewpot is still too small, since you need to start with 3.5 gallons of wort at least for the boil, but you could start smaller and keep adding more wort as you boil down. That's not ideal (you need to boil to coagulate proteins and stuff), but it could be done. That's the only way I can think to do it- do a 2.5 gallon batch, twice.

Why not just mash, then boil, all 7.4 lbs. of the grain in 2 - 2.5 gal. of water; dump that in the primary, and fill to the 5 gal. mark? I had assumed that was possible.

What I mean is: At 1.25 quart of water per lbs. of grain, 1.25 x 7.4 lbs. = 9.25 quarts = ~8.7 liters (or 2.3 Gallons). Therefore, 2.3 gallons of water is necessary for mashing 7.4 lbs. of grain (as I understood it).

Nastynate65 said:

Why not just mash, then boil, all 7.4 lbs. of the grain in 2 - 2.5 gal. of water; dump that in the primary, and fill to the 5 gal. mark? I had assumed that was possible.

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Perhaps you did not mean this the way it sounds, but you don't want to boil the grain, only the wort. Now for the amount of water: the 2-2.5 gallons of water is only the mash water. You then need to add sparge water to get the rest of the sugars out of the grain. You could feasibly mash and then only boil the first runnings (without the sparge), and then top off with water, however, you will not get the gravity you expect and it would really throw off your hop utilization. Besides that, you would lose a ton of sugars left in your mash that didn't get sparged out. Most 5 gallon batches are boiled down from 7.5 to 8 gallons of water.

I feel like I might've misunderstood more than I thought. Yeah, I didn't mean boil the grains, after mashing you filter out the grains, then boil. My plan was to:

Mash 7.4 lbs. of the grain in 2 - 2.5 gal. of water. Using a nylon straining bag, filter the grains from the pot. Poor more water, 1 - 1.3 gal., (@ approx. 150-160 F) over the grains into another pot, and boil it for 90 min. beside the original pot that I had used to mash. At the 60 min. boil mark, add the hops to the pot I had used to mash with. At 90 min., cool both pots, and poor into primary. Fill primary up to 5 gal. mark with cold water.

Oh yeah, I think I messed up. I just don't understand at what point the mashing and boiling procedure turns into 5-6 gal. of water. At 2.5 gal for 7.4 lbs. of grain, plus another gallon for sparging, approx., I thought there would be enough.

Typically with all grain you will never get away with using top up water. You need all that water volume to extract the sugars from the grain.

Check out a book on all grain brewing, I love how to brew by john palmer. He has a great chapter titled "my first all grain brew". The first edition is free online. It'll give you a comprehensive rundown of the AG process.

What the book doesn't mention is a common AG way to brew called brew in a bag. I think there is a great sticky on the forums. BIAB require less equipment, like someone mentioned previously if you have a 3.5 gallon pot and a 5 balloon paint strainer you have all you need to do a 2.5 gallon BIAB all grain beer.

I couldn't read the recipe off the link so I'll go on what you've said. You have 7.4 lbs of grain. That calls for about 2.3 gallons of water. You will love about a quart or more soaked up into the grain. If you are going to boil for 90 minutes and end with 5 gallons of beer, you will need around 7.5 to 8.5 gallons or more to start boiling, depending on the strength of your boil. This means you will spare with 5.5 to 6.5 gallons of water to fill your kettle. You can reduce this with a 60 minute boil, but you'll still need 7 gallons or more to start the boil.

Aso double check your hop iterations because they sounded off. It sounded like you will add your first hops after 60 minutes of a 90 minute boil. Most battering additions start with an hour left to boil them.

I'd really like to see that recipe.

Damn this phone's autocorrect! Lose, not love and sparge not spare!

cluckk said:

I'd really like to see that recipe.

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Sorry about that; tried to upload the PDF but it's too big.

Wheat Beer
Estimated SRM: 4
Estimated IBU: 18
Estimated OG: 1.041
Estimated FG: 1.007
Estimated ABV: 4.4%
Pre-Boil Vol: 6.75 gal
Post-Boil Vol: 5.25 gal.
Adjusted for 75% Mash Efficiency

Ingredients

Grain Bill:
4 lbs. 4 oz. Wheat Malt
2 lbs. 13 oz. Pilsner
6 oz. Melanoidin
Hops:
0.5 oz. Perle (10.2%)
Yeast: 1 Pkg SafAle WB-06

Authors Instructions

Mash Schedule:
Sacch' Rest - 149 F for 75 Minutes
Boil Additions & Times:
90 min. Total Boil Time
0.5 oz Perle Hops at 60 min.

Fermentation
7 Days Primary @ 57 G
After 7 days warm to 64 F