Boiling water at 160 degrees! (BIAB)

[Chris7687]

Hey guys, so I made my 3rd AG BIAB batch last night and ran into a problem. My 1st batch I made I reached the strike water to 160 and poured my grain in, covered, and left it for 90 minutes; it sat at 157 the whole time! Didn't drop. 2nd batch I set the strike water to 157 and it sat at 154 the whole time. Both times it "mashed out" at 160, which I thought was the correct temp, but last night double checked and saw it was supposed to be at 170. So last night I set it for 155 (wanting the temp to be around 152, which is think is correct), poured it in and sat at 152 for 90 mins. Increased the temp to try and reach the 170 Mash Out, but while I stirred and watched the temp rise (which seemed to be forever) I started to hear a sizzle. I killed the burner and still heard it. Stirred really hard and it started to go away. It was the water in the 3" gap between my SS basket, which holds the grain bag, and the bottom of my kettle boiling! I know this could not be good for the grains and release of the tannins so I had to kill the whole mash out. Today, I was thinking; would it be alright to Mash In at the 150-158 temp for the 90 minutes, pull the grain basket out, raise the water to 174, then drop the basket back in for Mash Out at 170? Or do the grains need to be submerged the whole time and gradually be heated? Will the pull out at 150 and dropped back in at 175 shock the grains into releasing certain tannins? No mater how hard I tried stirring the 14 lbs of grain I could not get the heat to evenly disperse throughout the grain bed. Open to any and all ideas.

 

[david_42]

The purpose of a mash out is to denature the enzymes and stop the conversion process. If you beer requires a 90 minute mash, there won't be many starches unconverted. With modern grains, most of the conversion occurs in the first 20 minutes.

Tannins are more a matter of pH than temperature.

 

[Chris7687]

The more I am reading into the Mash In part, I am reading the temp ranges vary per beer type being made. Is there a list/thread/site somewhere the recommends what temps to use for what beers?

 

[pvtschultz]

I'm under the impression that us BiaB brewers don't need to be quite as concerned about mashing out as the traditional mashing/sparging crowd. I can simply pull the grain bag at the end of the mash and be boiling in 10 minutes effectively denaturing the enzymes. The traditional guys can spend an hour or more sparging which leaves the enzymes active the entire time which can really dry/thin out a beer as the result of more complete conversion. While others are still sparging, I'm already chilling; what's not to love about BiaB?

 

[wilserbrewer]

I searched and couldn't find the recent thread regarding mash out and biab...most of the "experts" felt that it wasn't really needed, IMO....therefore I gave it up and don't miss it. Of course YMMV...

edit...found the thread...link below

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/biab-why-mashout-309533/

 

[djfriesen]

Ya I'd either lose the mashout or lose the basket. In my modified BIAB, I dunk sparge into a separate pot and use this as my de facto mashout.

 

[Chris7687]

Ya I guess I can get rid of the mash out as I mostly do 90 min mash in's. Plus I have been using an extra lb of grain for every batch just to make up for any lost efficiencies. Haven't taken a Brewhouse Efficiency Calculation yet, as my Hydrometer broke on Thursday and I have done two batches since then, but I will soon just to see how I'm doing.

 

[smokewater]

Is your burner flame adjustable? Is so turn it down. Pulling the basket to heat the wort will work too. This calculator is useful.

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

Just plug in the mash temp for the grain temp variable.

 

[Chris7687]

It is adjustable, but it really is a problem when it is even one cause of that 3 inch gap between bottom of kettle and the bottom of the basket. I have used a similar calculator for getting my mash in temp. I just have been aiming for 159-160 though and it usually does the trick. I'm going to mess around with the the pulling the bag out, raising the temp, and dropping back in. But before hand taking my efficiency and seeing if I gain any result at all and will let you all know my findings. Prolly make a batch sometime next week/weekend.

 

[captainL]

I went from a 60 minute mash with no mash out to a 90 minute mash with a mash out to 170 (I just crank up the turkey frier and my bag sits on the bottom...No problem yet, I do stir constantly). Doing the longer mash and mashout I have increased my eff on my last two batches from around 68% to 74 %. Just FYI. I haven't had a problem with burning the bag and I go from mash to mash out temps and then boil in around 10 minutes.

 

[stux]

Just get rid of the basket, you don't need it.

 

[Chris7687]

I read numerous places to use it or some type of thing on the bottom to prevent burning of the bag. Even if I removed it the bag still wouldnt reach the bottom. I am using a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in an 11 gallon kettle... There is still going to be that gap.

 

[Ambrose_Balin]

You won't have extracted tannins with that boil. Your pH would need to be way off as well.

Decoction mashing, by the way, requires that 1/3 of the mash grain be actively boiled for several minutes, then stirred back in with the rest of the mash. This is done multiple times.

Tannin extraction requires either 1) COMPLETE mechanical pulverization of the grain into flour or 2) BOTH high pH and high temperature.

Your grain can endure a bit.

Cheers!

 

[Chris7687]

What is the concern for high temps creating "Off-flavors"? Or is everyone misinformed? I get my water from the food store "fill yourself station". Never tested the pH or anything in it.

 

[BigRob]

Most of the self-fill stations dispense R-O water, which is mostly devoid of minerals, and should be adjusted with proper water chem additions.

If the dispenser is giving spring water, you might have other problems in that spring water tends to be fairly high in dissolved minerals, which can put your mash pH out of the desired range and result in poor efficiency and possibly tannin extraction, among other things.

 

[Chris7687]

So many possible problems with water! Why can't water just be water! I know this is off topic, but what can I get for cheap water testing and correcting stuff?? Might move this to the Brew Science part if I need too.

 

[kh54s10]

So many problems with water! Why can't water just be water! I know this is off topic, but what can I get for cheap water testing?

Water?!? Have you been in Tampa long. The water taste changed drastically during the year when I lived there. It was not too bad in the winter and terrible in the summer.

This is where I have seen most links to:
https://producers.wardlab.com/default.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f

 

[Chris7687]

Been here 2 years and the water gets worse and worse by the day. I was grabbing 2.5 gallon jugs from publix at $2 a pop, but that was adding up now that I am doing full AG batches at least once a week. Can get 10 gallons filled at the water station for $3, which is nice but now that I am hearing that it's bad, kinda concerns me.

 

[BigRob]

Reverse Osmosis water is not "bad" but for AG you should be adding some brewing salts to it.

 

[stux]

I read numerous places to use it or some type of thing on the bottom to prevent burning of the bag. Even if I removed it the bag still wouldnt reach the bottom. I am using a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in an 11 gallon kettle... There is still going to be that gap.

You should probably use a cake rack or something to keep the bag off the bottom, you don't *need* to use it as long as you stir continuously and thoroughly when applying heat with bag in. Ie keep the grains on the base of the kettle moving.

eg:

If your bag is not reaching the bottom it is too small. It should be big enough to enclose your kettle in order to avoid restricting the grains, which leads to low efficiency.

The bucket insert will also lead to restraining the grains, and makes it impossible to mix the wort/mash properly, leading to serious stratification, as you found

 

[MarkD]

I suspend the bag with one of those Rope Ratchets when the flame is on, then lower it again to stir.

 

[Chris7687]

BigRob - Where can I find some of these brewing salts? What kind do you recomend?

stux - I don't necessarily think I am getting low efficiencies with the basket. I know plenty of BIAB bewers that use them. The bag is reaching the bottom of the basket, which the basket is what is 3 inches short of the kettle, but that void doesnt really cause any problem till mash out which I think I am going to skip all together. I get a perfect mash temp of 154-158 for 90 minutes straight with no problem.

MarkD - I am going to play around with this once I get my new bag next week. I will let you know any efficiency changes, if any, but from most of the comments and other research I think I might drop tho whole Mash Out idea all in all.

 

[BigRob]

There's a few different salts, I'd recommend taking a look at the water chemistry secton of how to brew

 

[Chris7687]

Trying to make an understanding of this water stuff, never was good at chemistry. Tampa's drinking water is 7.5-8.5 pH. The water quality report is attached below. What should I be looking at? Everything talked about on John Palmers site isn't listed on this report, as far as I can see. Note, this isn't the report of the water station water that I used for my last two batches but if I can get it worked out to where I can just use tap water I'd love to go that route and save money (as long as the water is ok). From what I read a ph of 7.5-8.5 is a little extreme. Let me know what you water geniuses think.

Water Report - http://www.tampagov.net/dept_Water/files/Annual_Report_and_CCR/2010_Water_Quality_Report.pdf