What if I vorlauf forever?

I was thinking about the benefits of really long volraufs not just for clarity of maltose concentration. It's a not well thought out mental experiment so far but essentially is like removing a vessel from a 2 vessel Brutus like system.

1. Would wort gravity get higher if I vorlauf the hell out of it?

2. What if I actually add all the sparge water and just keep on vorlaufing it?

I know at some point there's a saturation point, can you hit it this way?

You would have this.

The vorlauf step is to help set the grain bed/clear the wort before draining into the boiling vessel. Your gravity is determined by the other factors of the mash, which you have now completed. If conversion is complete, wasting time on a longer than necessary vorlauf is just that, a waste of time.

I know why it's done, doesn't necessitate that it can serve only one purpose. I just wonder if anyone has wasted the time or can do the math to see what would happen if you kept doing it and if/how the characteristics of the wort changed.

G-Lover said:

I was thinking about the benefits of really long volraufs not just for clarity of maltose concentration. It's a not well thought out mental experiment so far but essentially is like removing a vessel from a 2 vessel Brutus like system.

1. Would wort gravity get higher if I vorlauf the hell out of it?

2. What if I actually add all the sparge water and just keep on vorlaufing it?

I know at some point there's a saturation point, can you hit it this way?

Click to expand...

This is what I would expect

1. No the gravity won't get higher. What your doing is a recirculating mash. You could do the same thing simply by stiring with a spoon. Stir all you want it's not gonna make the gravity change.

2. This would be like a no sparge or BIAB. Where all the sparge and mash water is in the MLT at one time. There is no real advantage here. In fact most people don't have a MLT big enough for this. Also, compared to batch or fly sparging , I expect your efficiency would go down.

I thought maybe this thread was going to be all about a brewer's existential crisis.

A HERMS is basically a constant vorlaufing mash.

Even by the end of a mash that isn't moving at all, the wort in the grain and the liquid wort around it is of the same sugar concentration. Moving the liquid around wouldn't change it.

Dr Fix dabbled in the no sparge/full batch mash effect, and came to the conclusion of getting a more malty flavor profile with a lower efficiency. His thought was it was worth doing for festive brews, but too costly for an everyday house brew.

No sparge is like the dirty dishwater analogy.. the sugars can only get washed away so much, without having clean water to rinse with. So it holds up to believe George when saying you get this great malty profile, but the efficiency is compromised from this brewing technique.

Would you have to worry about tannin extraction after a while, or would you be protected from that due to pH of the circulating wort (or other reason)?

mk78 said:

I thought maybe this thread was going to be all about a brewer's existential crisis.

Click to expand...

Funny comment. kudos.

airving said:

Would you have to worry about tannin extraction after a while, or would you be protected from that due to pH of the circulating wort (or other reason)?

Click to expand...

no worries. I'd expect the gravity is wicked high and the pH still low. You could probably boil it and it would not extract tannins.