First All grain

[beerofhrod]

I attempted my first all grain today and I ran into a few problems. The recipe is an english mild from cybi.

5lb Maris Otter malt
.75 lb crystal 60
.5 lb crystal 120
.5 lb pale chocolate
4tsp burton water salts
1 whirfloc tablet
8 drops fermcap
RO water

I mashed at 153.5 with 13.5qt of water for 60 mins.
I was reading how to brew as I went along with my process and read to use 2 qts per lb of grain. Then 1.5x the mash water as sparge water so I used 20.25 qts as sparge @ 170 degress.

I had a big biab nylon sack in my mash tun so I could avoid a stuck sparge. I poured the 5 gallons of sparge water at 170f then let it sit for 5 mins before I ran off the rest of it into my kettle. I "tea bagged" the nylon biab as it ran off then gave it a gentle squeeze.

According to my estimation I should have collected 7.375 gallons of wort, I didn't measure it but I took a gravity reading of 1018 preboil.

I think that equals a 55% efficiency, which is bad and I had a 3 gallons of water to boil off in 90 minutes.

The boil went by ok but I had too much water and it extended my boil to 130 minutes. my hop additions got pushed around
5g first gold for 130min
14g for 60
7g for 15

It wasnt looking good so i added 20oz of lme in the last few minutes of the boil and my fg was 1041, I was shooting for 1036 without the lme.

I don't know what I did wrong other than letting the sparge water sit for 15-20 minutes longer next time.

 

[RM-MN]

First thing to mention is that letting the sparge sit longer isn't going to be the fix. With the batch sparge you are simply dissolving the sugars that are left in the grain when you empty the tun. Dump the sparge water in, stir it really well, and let it drain. A couple minutes of stirring beats the 15 minute wait.

The usual culprit in low efficiency is a poor crush. Since you used a bag in the tun, you could have used a very fine crush but whoever crushed the grain didn't know that you could so they milled it coarse enough that the average user could avoid a stuck sparge. Next time ask for a double crush or get your own mill if you intend to keep on making beer for some time. If you have your own mill you can save enough on the cost of grain by buying in bulk to pay for the mill in a reasonable amount of time.

The second possibility is that you didn't stir the grains in well enough when you added them to the water in your mash tun and had some grains that didn't get wet. Dry grains (and the grain likes to make "dough balls" with dry centers) won't convert so you don't get the sugars out of them.

When you drain the tun, measure how much wort was collected and figure out how much you are likely to need to get to your preboil amount and add just that amount for your sparge. It will save you a lot of boiling time.

 

[kombat]

RM-MN gave you good advice. I'll just try to summarize the water volume calculations for you.

You're correct in that your strike water volume is a function of the grain weight. 2 quarts of water per pound of grain is a little thin - most sources recommend between 1.25 and 1.5 qt/lb. The grain will absorb roughly 0.1 gallons per pound. Also, a small amount of this water will remain in the "dead space" in your mash tun (the space below the drain plug, that will not drain out).

The good news is that when figuring out your sparge water volume, it gets much easier. The ratio (qts per pound) is irrelevant. The grain is already saturated and will not absorb any more. And any "dead space" in your mash tun already has wort in it. So pretty much however much you put into the tun as sparge water, you'll get back out. All you have to do is figure out how much you need.

To do that, just determine how much total wort you need at the start of your boil. Say you're brewing a 5 gallon batch, and you know you boil off 1 gallon per hour. So you want 6 gallons of wort at the start of your boil. Measure how much you collected in your first runnings (say, 2 gallons), and subtract it from your desired starting volume of 6 gallons. The difference (4 gallons) is how much sparge water you add. That's it!

Or just use BeerSmith.

 

[icebob]

Is that me or the grain bill seems pretty low at 6.75 lbs for a 5 gallon batch?

 

[Yooper]

Is that me or the grain bill seems pretty low at 6.75 lbs for a 5 gallon batch?

No, not for a mild. A typical OG for a mild is 1.037-1.039.

 

[PeteNMA]

You used way too much water. You had 6.75lb of grain, and typically you want to mash with about 1.25-1.5qt per lb. That puts you at about 8.5 quarts of strike water for 1.25/lb. Round up to 9 for simplicity.

Then you sparge with 2 quarts per lb of grain for 13.5 quarts of sparge water. You could even sparge with a bit more to compensate for dead space loss and grain absorption.


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[kombat]

Then you sparge with 2 quarts per lb of grain

Slight correction - you sparge however much you need to get to your desired pre-boil volume. There is no "quarts per pound" guideline for sparge water - only for strike water.

 

[beerofhrod]

I'm guessing the problem must have been dough balls stuck in the folds of the nylon mesh bag. I used a ten gallon mash tun and wasn't aggresive with the stir because i didn't want to knock off the bazooka strainer the bag was sitting on (or tear the bag on the little wires that poke out, homemade). The grains were crushed at more beer riv and I did it myself. I used what ever setting the machine is set up for, single crush through it. I own a mill, but I usually use it for corn. I'll give all grain another go after I run out of lme. Thanks for the responses.

 

[PeteNMA]

Slight correction - you sparge however much you need to get to your desired pre-boil volume. There is no "quarts per pound" guideline for sparge water - only for strike water.

With my system batch sparging I'm never too far off with 2qts/lb. Its a guideline as much as the mash ratio is a guideline


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[RM-MN]

I'm guessing the problem must have been dough balls stuck in the folds of the nylon mesh bag. I used a ten gallon mash tun and wasn't aggresive with the stir because i didn't want to knock off the bazooka strainer the bag was sitting on (or tear the bag on the little wires that poke out, homemade). The grains were crushed at more beer riv and I did it myself. I used what ever setting the machine is set up for, single crush through it. I own a mill, but I usually use it for corn. I'll give all grain another go after I run out of lme. Thanks for the responses.

What kind of mill are you using for the corn?

 

[beerofhrod]

it's the big red. belt driven with a corkscrew and hopper. corn comes out the side. we use it for nixtamal and corn to make homemade tortillas and tamales. it uses two adjustable plates that grind to crush. Would it work for malted grain?

 

[RM-MN]

I think that mill should work fine for your malted grain. You may have to play around a bit with the adjustment to get it to grind just right for BIAB. You don't want just flour so you might have to open the adjustment a bit. If it were me, I'd try it with a small batch to see how it worked. That way you wouldn't be risking a lot of $$$ if your adjustment wasn't right. I started all grain with my Corona style mill by doing a 2 1/2 gallon batch just in case it didn't work out. I still do a lot of that size batches because I like to experiment with recipes and techniques and I don't want to waste a lot of grain if the experiments come out bad.

 

[Flipadelphia]

With my system batch sparging I'm never too far off with 2qts/lb. Its a guideline as much as the mash ratio is a guideline


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Your system doesn't apply to everyone else's systems.

 

[PeteNMA]

Did I say it did? It's a good guideline, and is a good place to start if you are still calibrating your process. Once you have a couple of accurately measured batches under your belt you can start to tweak to your own setup, but everyone has to start from somewhere.

There's certainly no need to be rude either.