30 min mash Success!

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Psylocide

Ippons for Days
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I'm always looking for ways to save time brewing, because, as much as I love it... I don't love the amount of time it takes. I'm not really trying to find an easy button, but I'm trying to limit the amount of time that I'm tied up during the day, especially when I've got a wife/kid/dog to attend to.

Most hobbies do take time, but this is the first where I've really had to commit a full day to the activity on a regular basis.

I tried an overnight mash that was pretty successful in breaking the brew day up, but saved no real time.

Taking a tip from another member here, I decided to give a 30 min mash a shot. The real killer here for me (mentally) was that I did no iodine testing, so was strictly going off of taste to know that at least some conversion happened.

I crushed 8.75 lbs of grain in my blender a couple of days before brew day. Put the pail in a garbage bag and tied it up, sat it in my basement.

Treated tap water with 1 campden tablet then heated mash water (4.75 gal) to 168° and Sparge water (2.75 gal) to 170°, this took about 30 mins.

Mashed in, stirring like a mad man, hit mash temp of 152° pretty much dead on (thanks greenbayrackers calcs). Insulated and let sit for 30 mins.

Sparged by stretching bag over old bottling bucket, poured sparge water over while stirring. Dunked, then squeezed bag until it was dry.

I collected right around 6 gal of wort @ 1.042 pre-boil gravity. After the boil, I had around 4.75 gal of wort @ 1.052 gravity. Efficiency for this batch worked out to ~75%.

However, that was only half the battle. The wort was very sweet pre-boil, so I knew I got some conversion. But was unsure of how much... the only thing to do was to wait until the yeast got to work.

Well, 1 packet of re-hydrated US-05 took it down to 1.010 final gravity in 2 weeks. Success!

Tasted the sample today, big success!!!

Conclusion: 30 min mash experiment turned out better than I could've hoped, and between no-chill, crushing grains the night before, I'm able to knock out an all grain brew day within 3 hours.

Pics from the day (minus the post-boil OG, really the most important for this thread, which my phone apparently asploded or the taker was too drunk to save it). I mash indoors on the stovetop and boil outdoors on a propane burner.


Grain crush blender style.


260801d1425480919-hoppy-wheat-overnight-mash-biab-downsized_0219051216.jpg




My brew partner hard at work cleaning the kettle from the last brew day.


0221050705.jpg


Heating water for mashing indoors.


0221051035.jpg


Sparge time.


0221051259.jpg


Pre-boil OG, 1.042.


0221051344.jpg



As mentioned, no post boil OG pic, for shame... 1.052.




Boil stuffs. How a real brewery operates.


0221051330.jpg


FG sample before kegging, tastes as good as it looks.


262169d1425916122-what-you-drinking-now-0309051039.jpg



262168d1425916122-what-you-drinking-now-0309051042.jpg



This batch is kegged and I'll sample it on Saturday.

Edit: It's amazing.

264369d1426611615-30-min-mash-success-img_2922.jpg


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f244/30-min-mash-success-519602/index6.html#post6771314

***See link to Gavin C's awesome post including Iodine test and pretty pictures, Thanks for the contribution Gavin***

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6820017&postcount=103
 
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Congratulations on having the guts to try something out of the ordinary. I'm glad you gave the OG and FG because that is the essence of all grain brewing, the ability to mash to get conversion, to hit the expected OG, and finally to let the yeast have the conditions to reach a decent FG which requires action by the beta amylase which is quickly denatured at mash temperatures.


Psst, wanna hear a secret....or maybe its a heresy. I have just bottled a beer that only got 20 minutes to mash and the OG was right where the software predicted based on 85% efficiency and the FG reached 1.010, just a little below where it was predicted. That tells me that I got full conversion in only 20 minutes with plenty of action from both alpha amylase (that's the fast one) and beta amylase (the slow one that produces the fermentable sugars). Stay tuned for more heresy within the next week, I have more going on.
 
Congratulations on having the guts to try something out of the ordinary. I'm glad you gave the OG and FG because that is the essence of all grain brewing, the ability to mash to get conversion, to hit the expected OG, and finally to let the yeast have the conditions to reach a decent FG which requires action by the beta amylase which is quickly denatured at mash temperatures.


Psst, wanna hear a secret....or maybe its a heresy. I have just bottled a beer that only got 20 minutes to mash and the OG was right where the software predicted based on 85% efficiency and the FG reached 1.010, just a little below where it was predicted. That tells me that I got full conversion in only 20 minutes with plenty of action from both alpha amylase (that's the fast one) and beta amylase (the slow one that produces the fermentable sugars). Stay tuned for more heresy within the next week, I have more going on.

Thanks for the tips.

I really wish I could find the picture of the post-boil OG, but it's gone... not that it really matters, but people will just have to take my word for it.

This test was made easier by the fact that I had grains "left over" from my last batch, and I was, before these 2 brews, not a huge wheat beer fan.
 
Question:
I crushed 8.75 lbs of grain in my blender a couple of days before brew day.

What is that like? 2 cups at a time in the blender? How long overall to do for 8.75#? I am one most very curiously interested person. Thanks.
 
Neat. I'll be trying this if it means I can cut time off once I'm able to use my new equipment.
 
Question:


What is that like? 2 cups at a time in the blender? How long overall to do for 8.75#? I am one most very curiously interested person. Thanks.

It's better than doing 11 lbs... lol.

It's about a cup at a time due to the way it flies around in there. 2 cups would turn out to have a ton of whole grains at the bottom while the flour stays afloat above the blades.

I think it took me about 15-20 min to do 8.75#... really not too bad.
 
Do you think you got the conversion because your grain was smashed to bits in the blender? You are using the BIAB method I am assuming, so the fine crush and the good exposure to mash water from a large volume mash could be the ticket here.

Very cool experiment, thanks for sharing the info.

:mug:
 
Do you think you got the conversion because your grain was smashed to bits in the blender? You are using the BIAB method I am assuming, so the fine crush and the good exposure to mash water from a large volume mash could be the ticket here.

Very cool experiment, thanks for sharing the info.

:mug:

Yes, this was BIAB and yes, I think I got better conversion due to the crush.

Also, I really can't take any credit for this other than documenting my experience, @RM-MN turned me on to the idea and I just jumped in with both feet.

The results are obviously fantastic and the beer tastes great... what else are we shooting for, if not that?
 
I think it takes me about 2-2.5 hours for everything pre-boil. So if you did it in 30 minutes +20 for the crushing... and I follow your method, I should be able to save about 1 hour 40 minutes to 2 hours 10 minutes? Assuming it's just regular biab. Or am I missing something else here?
 
I think it takes me about 2-2.5 hours for everything pre-boil. So if you did it in 30 minutes +20 for the crushing... and I follow your method, I should be able to save about 1 hour 40 minutes to 2 hours 10 minutes? Assuming it's just regular biab. Or am I missing something else here?

I'm unsure of your math there, so... I'll just recount it.

1. A few days before, I crushed grain: 20 mins
2. Washed my equipment: 10 mins
3. Water heated to mash/sparge temp: ~30 mins
4. (Concurrently with #3) Measure out hops, etc.
5. Mash in, ~5mins
6. Mash: 30 mins
7. Sparge: 15 mins, I think it took 10, but I'll fluff it.
8. Heating to boiling + 60 min boil: 90 mins
9. Hop Stand: 30 mins

So, looking at it that way, in total it took 3.5 hours. But! The 20 mins for crushing grain actually happened on a different day. Cleaned everything out while I waited for the boil, did no-chill, and transferred later that night.

I really only had to dedicate ~3 hours in one shot before I could go about my day and come back to move wort to the fermenter hours later and pitch yeast. I could do this faster if I had tried to push it.
 
It's better than doing 11 lbs... lol.

It's about a cup at a time due to the way it flies around in there. 2 cups would turn out to have a ton of whole grains at the bottom while the flour stays afloat above the blades.

I think it took me about 15-20 min to do 8.75#... really not too bad.

Since we're coming out of the closet on using blenders to chop grain for BIAB...


Short version: I buy pre-crushed grains, then do 6 cups at a time in a Ninja blender on speed 3 ("high") for 15 seconds (or 2 cups at a time in a Cuisinart food processor for 15 seconds). Gives me very consistent 75% mash efficiency.


Long version: I first tried it when I realized that the pre-crushed grain I was buying from an online vendor was very poorly crushed, probably at least 15-20% visibly still whole, and I was getting some sad-ass mash efficiencies of 55-65%. (I won't name names, but I do still occasionally buy More Beer items from them :cross: )

LHBS crush was visibly better, but mash efficiency varied from 65%-75%, so I really never knew what I was going to get.

So then I tried buying some uncrushed grains, figuring 60 sec of blender alone would do the job, screw the mill. What I got then was powdered husk with lots of uncrushed but very "polished" kernels (like white rice), mash efficiency about 45%, and very husky, tannic flavor.

SO now I buy pre-crushed grains from either online or LHBS, hit them with the blender (see "Short Version" for details), and always get 75% +/-1% mash efficiency.

(Maybe someday I'll buy a mill and store 50lb bags of grain...but probably not.)


EDIT: And I also typically mash for 30 min if around 152F (60 min if under 148F, 45 min if around 150F, 20 min if over 154F)
 
I'd suggest buying a cheap corona/victoria mill rather than risking it frying your blender. Unless it has a really good warranty, I wouldn't put it up to that sort of strain.

Cost you like $25 i think from wally world.
 
I'd suggest buying a cheap corona/victoria mill rather than risking it frying your blender. Unless it has a really good warranty, I wouldn't put it up to that sort of strain.

Cost you like $25 i think from wally world.

Not to hijack the thread, but.......

New to BIAB and used my corona mill for the first time this weekend instead of using the LHBS crush.

I bought this one ($24.99 shipped free if you're a "prime" member)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000U5NZ4I/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

After a few minutes of cranking the handle manually, I had an epiphany.

I found a metric socket that fit the end of the spindle perfectly once the handle was removed, and powered through the last 7 pounds with my drill in about 2 minutes. Nice, super fine grind!
 
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Heh heh... We told ya! ;)

81% attenuation by my math. It suggests you might need to mash even shorter!

Or maybe skip the mash out 15 minutes, and start heating the kettle while you sparge. That's what I do - saves time by overlapping the time to boil and the sparge.

My process is very similar to yours, except I grind in a Corona mill (Victoria actually), and I don't squeeze, I just hang the bag over a pitcher and dump it in the kettle as it drains.

If you grind the grain while the water heats up, you can get the whole thing knocked out (to flame out anyway) in about 3 hours if you want to.
 
I'd suggest buying a cheap corona/victoria mill rather than risking it frying your blender. Unless it has a really good warranty, I wouldn't put it up to that sort of strain.

Cost you like $25 i think from wally world.

Corona mills are great. I crank by hand for a bit of a workout to offset a tiny fraction of the calories I'll be drinking when the beer's finished and packaged. :cross:

Not to hijack the thread, but.......

New to BIAB and used my corona mill for the first time this weekend instead of using the LHBS crush.

I bought this one ($24.99 shipped free if you're a "prime" member)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000U5NZ4I/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

After a few minutes of cranking the handle manually, I had an epiphany.

I found a metric socket that fit the end of the spindle perfectly once the handle was removed, and powered through the last 7 pounds with my drill in about 2 minutes. Nice, super fine grind!

Lots of people use drills to power mills, whether they're corona style or 2-3 roller style mills. It's a great way to do it quick without setting up a dedicated motor, which can often be more expensive than a drill anyway. I've tried my cheapo drill on the rare occasion when I'd rather not bother with hand-cranking the Corona, but unfortunately it doesn't produce enough torque to get going, so no dice.
 
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Just as an aside - I read that hydro as a 1.044 pre-boil and a 1.012 FG.

Anyone else?

Crappy angle on my part when i took the pics. Eye level, they were right at what i had mentioned previous.
 
Awesome write-up. I've done 45' mash for my last few batches all with good success. I also do no-chill in my kettle and transfer to fermenter the following day- this way I can aerate the wort during transfer.

I'm really curious about the no-chill thing. I get my wort chilled in ~30' over the winter but once it warms up, I'm screwed unless I get a chiller. That being said, I often brew during the week... it's a bad habit I guess, just once the weekend comes I rather go out and get wrecked. Anyway, if I brew during the week that would mean just letting it sit on the counter covered overnight, transfer and pitch in the morning?

Also, this is how I transfer. It is the best way I found to get it into my carboy to primary, without having a funnel. If I sit the bottling bucket on the countertop and carboy on a chair, it goes in without mess and aerate's the funk out of it. I actually have to stop towards the end for a min or two to let the foam die down before draining the rest into the carboy.
 
That's basically all there is to it. I spray my lid with star-san, but the steam after flameout most-likely sanitizes it anyhow.

Because the boil took place in the kettle, it should be relatively free of any nasties that could cause problems. Overnight is usually the longest I let it sit before transferring, and if it's still not to pitching temp, I wait it out while it's in the carboy.
 
Anyway, if I brew during the week that would mean just letting it sit on the counter covered overnight, transfer and pitch in the morning?

Personally, I dump everything (trub and all) into to my fermenter while it's still hot, slap the lid on, and then I put it wherever is convenient, which is usually in the corner somewhere. Usually I'm at pitching temp about 24 hours later.
 
Personally, I dump everything (trub and all) into to my fermenter while it's still hot, slap the lid on, and then I put it wherever is convenient, which is usually in the corner somewhere. Usually I'm at pitching temp about 24 hours later.

Yeah... I should mention that I use glass carboys, so I don't want to risk a break from thermal shock.

Also for anyone else that hasn't tried this... if you use a three piece airlock, it's going to drain whatever is in there as it cools. So make sure you've got starsan or vodka in there. S type would be better.
 
Personally, I dump everything (trub and all) into to my fermenter while it's still hot, slap the lid on, and then I put it wherever is convenient, which is usually in the corner somewhere. Usually I'm at pitching temp about 24 hours later.

Wow that long? This is looking more and more attractive. I hate trying to chill.
 
I'm always looking for ways to save time brewing, because, as much as I love it... I don't love the amount of time it takes. I'm not really trying to find an easy button, but I'm trying to limit the amount of time that I'm tied up during the day, especially when I've got a wife/kid/dog to attend to.

Most hobbies do take time, but this is the first where I've really had to commit a full day to the activity on a regular basis.

I tried an overnight mash that was pretty successful in breaking the brew day up, but saved no real time.

Taking a tip from another member here, I decided to give a 30 min mash a shot. The real killer here for me (mentally) was that I did no iodine testing, so was strictly going off of taste to know that at least some conversion happened.

I crushed 8.75 lbs of grain in my blender a couple of days before brew day. Put the pail in a garbage bag and tied it up, sat it in my basement.

Treated tap water with 1 campden tablet then heated mash water (4.75 gal) to 168° and Sparge water (2.75 gal) to 170°, this took about 30 mins.

Mashed in, stirring like a mad man, hit mash temp of 152° pretty much dead on (thanks greenbayrackers calcs). Insulated and let sit for 30 mins.

Sparged by stretching bag over old bottling bucket, poured sparge water over while stirring. Dunked, then squeezed bag until it was dry.

I collected right around 6 gal of wort @ 1.042 pre-boil gravity. After the boil, I had around 4.75 gal of wort @ 1.052 gravity. Efficiency for this batch worked out to ~75%.

However, that was only half the battle. The wort was very sweet pre-boil, so I knew I got some conversion. But was unsure of how much... the only thing to do was to wait until the yeast got to work.

Well, 1 packet of re-hydrated US-05 took it down to 1.010 final gravity in 2 weeks. Success!

Tasted the sample today, big success!!!

Conclusion: 30 min mash experiment turned out better than I could've hoped, and between no-chill, crushing grains the night before, I'm able to knock out an all grain brew day within 3 hours.

Pics from the day (minus the post-boil OG, really the most important for this thread, which my phone apparently asploded or the taker was too drunk to save it). I mash indoors on the stovetop and boil outdoors on a propane burner.


Grain crush blender style.


260801d1425480919-hoppy-wheat-overnight-mash-biab-downsized_0219051216.jpg




My brew partner hard at work cleaning the kettle from the last brew day.


View attachment 262194


Heating water for mashing indoors.


View attachment 262195


Sparge time.


View attachment 262198


Pre-boil OG, 1.042.


View attachment 262196



As mentioned, no post boil OG pic, for shame... 1.052.




Boil stuffs. How a real brewery operates.


View attachment 262197


FG sample before kegging, tastes as good as it looks.


262169d1425916122-what-you-drinking-now-0309051039.jpg



262168d1425916122-what-you-drinking-now-0309051042.jpg



This batch is kegged and I'll sample it on Saturday.

Really interesting post. Your lil' brewing assistant looks about the same age as mine. I think it's safe to say your excellent result are in a small part due to her skills. Credit where it's due:cross:

Make sure you follow up with some final images of the tasty beverage in some weeks. I'm going to have to try to emulate your and RM-MN's success with a shorter mash.
 
My big "time saver" is doing 2 batches in a day. Of course on brew day you're taking more time, but you've got half as many brew days meaning half as many trips to the basement to haul the gear up, half as much cleaning the equipment etc.

I'll generally start the mash on one then start setting up the second but this time I did 1 AG and 1 extract batch. I started the mash then brewed the entire extract batch then got back to dunk sparging and brewing the AG. In the end I had a 120 min mash (only lost about 3 degrees in that time) and between that and double crushing the grains I got over 90% efficiency.
 
Really interesting post. Your lil' brewing assistant looks about the same age as mine. I think it's safe to say your excellent result are in a small part due to her skills. Credit where it's due:cross:

Make sure you follow up with some final images of the tasty beverage in some weeks. I'm going to have to try to emulate your and RM-MN's success with a shorter mash.

She's two today and loves to help. So far she's just been on cleaning/sanitation duty, but she does a damn fine job.

Some weeks? Hopefully I'll post a pic on Saturday. :D

However, I always feel like pics of wheat beers are... well, not as cool as pics of other styles, simply because most of us aren't filtering them and they turn out looking like fizzy pinapple/orange juice, lol.
 
She's two today and loves to help. So far she's just been on cleaning/sanitation duty, but she does a damn fine job.

Some weeks? Hopefully I'll post a pic on Saturday. :D

However, I always feel like pics of wheat beers are... well, not as cool as pics of other styles, simply because most of us aren't filtering them and they turn out looking like fizzy pinapple/orange juice, lol.

Cool. Look forward to seeing the results. I think wheat beers can look cool to with their creamy delicious foamy heads.
 
Cool. Look forward to seeing the results. I think wheat beers can look cool to with their creamy delicious foamy heads.

I won't argue that one bit... the head is just amazing on these. My last iteration (1.0) has the craziest HB lacing I've ever produced.



0305051817.jpg
 
Wow that long? This is looking more and more attractive. I hate trying to chill.


24 hours in the kettle with the lid on. Then I drain out the tap on the kettle which has a hop filter. That aerates the wort plenty as it goes into the fermenter.

No chill is a legit technique- I think the amount of water required for chilling is wasteful IMO.
 
Adding to the heresy: I always "crush" in a blender. Only two of my dozens of grain batches were crushed in a mill. The first blender was a 1970s avocado green Waring, $5 at a yard sale. When it got quirky, I ponied up $14 to have another delivered, ebay. Identical to the first. I've slowly upped the speed, I now use "grate". I timed it once, took 15 minutes to grind 11lbs of grain. I weigh and grind while my water comes to strike temp. The blender cleans and stores easily. I use a scoop to add the grain, I've not measured how much at a time. I blend until I see no more whole pieces. My efficiency is mid seventies, my brews score mostly mid twenties to mid thirties at competition. No judge ever mentioned tannin.
 
I started doing the shorter mashes ( 30-45 ) minutes end of last year and so far my OG and FG have come out right on target. I started doing this thanks to RM-MN's posts and a few others. I just tried no chill this past weekend but I think I overcomplicated it. I sort of chilled no chilled. I put the pot in cold water and got it down to the 120's then put it in the bucket and let it sit until the next morning. I has been bubbling away happily ever since Monday night. I don't think I found it to be a time saver and kind of a hassle to come back later and resanitize my aeration stuff but I may continue to do it bc of the water savings. I also had to aerate and pitch before work on Monday so getting up earlier for that wasn't fun.
 
I started doing the shorter mashes ( 30-45 ) minutes end of last year and so far my OG and FG have come out right on target. I started doing this thanks to RM-MN's posts and a few others. I just tried no chill this past weekend but I think I overcomplicated it. I sort of chilled no chilled. I put the pot in cold water and got it down to the 120's then put it in the bucket and let it sit until the next morning. I has been bubbling away happily ever since Monday night. I don't think I found it to be a time saver and kind of a hassle to come back later and resanitize my aeration stuff but I may continue to do it bc of the water savings. I also had to aerate and pitch before work on Monday so getting up earlier for that wasn't fun.

There you go over complicating it.

I shake to aerate, so I don't have to sanitize anything additional, lol.

You'll notice a pattern here... I have the ability to go out and buy this stuff, but I'm brewing great AG beer without:

A proper mill
Wort Chiller
Aeration gadgets
Giving a flocc

:D
 
There you go over complicating it.

I shake to aerate, so I don't have to sanitize anything additional, lol.

You'll notice a pattern here... I have the ability to go out and buy this stuff, but I'm brewing great AG beer without:

A proper mill
Wort Chiller
Aeration gadgets
Giving a flocc

:D

How can you sleep at night?:D
 
How can you sleep at night?:D

Actually, the worst two nights of sleep I've had lately were when I did my overnight mash and the first night that I had a beer kegged.

So... I sleep much better now. :mug:
 
Yeah... I should mention that I use glass carboys, so I don't want to risk a break from thermal shock.

Also for anyone else that hasn't tried this... if you use a three piece airlock, it's going to drain whatever is in there as it cools. So make sure you've got starsan or vodka in there. S type would be better.

Sounds like you need to upgrade to some buckets :)
 
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