Low-ish efficiency...

[govya]

I brewed my first all grain, so lots of flukes I am quite sure. Not sure if I ended up with more knowledge or more questions, but either way.

I did end up with slightly low efficiency, 67%... I purchased a continuous setup, so thats what I used. A couple questions:

1. Should a continuous mash go through a sparge arm?
2. I had a home brew store grind my grain, but I am sure that I am more likely to blame than they are... is it even an applicable question to ask what is reasonable to expect from a grind perspective from them?
3. During mash out, I 'ended up' with leftover water in the mash tun (a gallon-ish)... everyone talks about the '1 inch above' for sparging, is it ideal to leave this water, or to plan on it being used during the mash out?

All in all, it was a good experience, well, we'll see, but I think the beer will be fine. Thanks for reading/replying!

 

[prandlesc]

I brewed my first all grain, so lots of flukes I am quite sure. Not sure if I ended up with more knowledge or more questions, but either way.

I did end up with slightly low efficiency, 67%... I purchased a continuous setup, so thats what I used. A couple questions:

1. Should a continuous mash go through a sparge arm?
2. I had a home brew store grind my grain, but I am sure that I am more likely to blame than they are... is it even an applicable question to ask what is reasonable to expect from a grind perspective from them?
3. During mash out, I 'ended up' with leftover water in the mash tun (a gallon-ish)... everyone talks about the '1 inch above' for sparging, is it ideal to leave this water, or to plan on it being used during the mash out?

All in all, it was a good experience, well, we'll see, but I think the beer will be fine. Thanks for reading/replying!

Congratulations on your first all grain brew. It definitely adds an new dimension to brewing.

You may run into problems recirculating through a sparge arm because the grain particles, especially in the first few quarts or gallons, can clog the holes in the arm. I have a simple i/2" silicon tube laying on top of the grain bed that the wort flows through at a low enough volume so that it doesn't create a channel in the bed. I keep the liquid level just above the grain bed during recirculation. I also stir the top few inches of my grain bed occasionally to insure that the recirculating wort doesn't create a channel straight through the grain bed.

Most likely the LHBS ground your grain correctly. My guess it they do it for lots of brewers and are probably home brewers themselves. It's a good idea to look at the ground grain and be certain that you don't see a lot of whole grain or just a bag of flour - problems on both ends of milling. Most likely they did a fine job.

I always have a little liquid left in my mash tun - generally not a gallon, but some. The grains hold some liquid that I'm too impatient to wait for, and it drains out eventually. There are a couple of things to consider. First is the method of your sparge.

If you fly sparge, then you may end up with more liquid that you don't want going into your kettle as the sparge water is there just to "push" the wort out of the grain bed, and it really mostly just water with few sugars. If you batch sparge, you'll want to measure your sparge water more carefully and use mot all of it.

Second is the temperature of the water you're using to mash out or sparge. If you use really hot water, it may extract all the sugar in addition to some of the less desirable flavors in the grain, and you'll want to leave that behind.

If you use lower temperature water and have a little more liquid than you expected, you can just extend your boil time to evaporate more of it to hit your target volume Measure the OG of your wort pre-boil, compare it to your target OG and adjust you boil time if needed to increase the OG of your wort.

Another piece of the puzzle is your mash temperature. Depending on the temperature of your mash, you'll see different results in OG.

So my suggestions is keep reading the forum posts related to all grain brewing as well as some of the other resources available like this one - http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html.

Pretty soon you'll be up in the 75%+ range and making great beer!!

Best of luck.

 

[govya]

Keeping the temperature constant is definitely interesting, more difficult than I thought.

I sparged at 170 degrees, by then I had figured my temperature out fairly well. Sparging on my setup is gravity, very easy to control, I see your point with the grain getting stuck in a sparge arm. I did it with a glove manually, and went about as slowly as I could stand (25 mins or so).

At the end, though, I didn't let the brew kettle fill faster than sparging so that the overall level of the grain was lower at the end of the sparge. I presume that that would be the correct method?

Thanks!

 

[prandlesc]

QUOTE=govya;5041307]... I purchased a continuous setup, so thats what I used[/QUOTE]

Maybe I misunderstood this comment. Are you continuously recirculating your wort through the grain bed? My first reply about using a sparge arm in recirculation was based on that assumption.

I sparged at 170 degrees, by then I had figured my temperature out fairly well. Sparging on my setup is gravity, very easy to control, I see your point with the grain getting stuck in a sparge arm. I did it with a glove manually, and went about as slowly as I could stand (25 mins or so).

At the end, though, I didn't let the brew kettle fill faster than sparging so that the overall level of the grain was lower at the end of the sparge. I presume that that would be the correct method?

Thanks!

Sparge temp sounds about right and your process sounds good too - draining into the brew kettle at about the sparge rate. An alternate method used frequently is to drain into the kettle and add water all at once - called batch sparging. It's a little easier in that you don't have to be quite as careful. Either will work, and I believe your method is the preferred.

I'll bet you'll like your beer. What type of beer did you brew?

 

[govya]

I brewed a variation with only Saaz hops of this tall blond ale. You were right, I continuous mashed, but you answered the 'duh' question about the sparge arm. My thought process was sound, but I forgot that a sparge arm would only have 'pure' water coming through it, not wort.

I do attribute some of the efficiency loss to the system, as it was a 5 gallon brew in equipment that's really for a much bigger one (less vertical grain bed). Mostly, of course, its because I am brand new

When you continuous mash, what rate is 'right'? I went at a very slow pace, but I'm really unsure of the pros and cons, other than a 'stuck' grain bed, of going slower or faster. Is there a general rule other than 'not too fast so it channels' and 'not so slow that the temperature isn't constant'?

I definitely am going to look into a better way of cooling the wort after boil, the 25' immersion takes forever, even prechilled in copper. The only other thing is some sort of auto-lighter for the burners, seems like a spark-based solution like this would be ideal. Not sure why the banjo burner guys don't manufacture one... be nice if there was something between a full on pilot system and a long lighter.

 

[Yooper]

I brewed a variation with only Saaz hops of this tall blond ale. You were right, I continuous mashed, but you answered the 'duh' question about the sparge arm. My thought process was sound, but I forgot that a sparge arm would only have 'pure' water coming through it, not wort.

I do attribute some of the efficiency loss to the system, as it was a 5 gallon brew in equipment that's really for a much bigger one (less vertical grain bed). Mostly, of course, its because I am brand new

When you continuous mash, what rate is 'right'? I went at a very slow pace, but I'm really unsure of the pros and cons, other than a 'stuck' grain bed, of going slower or faster. Is there a general rule other than 'not too fast so it channels' and 'not so slow that the temperature isn't constant'?

I definitely am going to look into a better way of cooling the wort after boil, the 25' immersion takes forever, even prechilled in copper. The only other thing is some sort of auto-lighter for the burners, seems like a spark-based solution like this would be ideal. Not sure why the banjo burner guys don't manufacture one... be nice if there was something between a full on pilot system and a long lighter.

I don't understand "continuous mash". Or do you mean "continuous sparge"?

 

[govya]

Basically, continuously recirculating the mash. Supposedly it is an efficiency increase, you are pumping the mash water back into itself. Also, the temp at the top of your mash tun and the bottom are more likely to stay equal (ie, you're pumping out the bottom and in to the top).

To keep temp, you direct fire (burner under mash tun) or HERMS (heater in line with the recirc system).

 

[Yooper]

Basically, continuously recirculating the mash. Supposedly it is an efficiency increase, you are pumping the mash water back into itself. Also, the temp at the top of your mash tun and the bottom are more likely to stay equal (ie, you're pumping out the bottom and in to the top).

To keep temp, you direct fire (burner under mash tun) or HERMS (heater in line with the recirc system).

Ah. I have a HERMS, but I've never heard it referred to that way before. I recirculate just fast enough to maintain temperature in the MLT. It's not necessarily a gph figure, just enough to keep the temperature where it should be in the mash. When I mash out, I run it wide open when I ramp the temperature. I hope that helps!

 

[govya]

When you first start out, all the terms run together... The guy I bought the setup told me continuous blah something mash... recirculating seems a better word

When you say 'ramp up the temp', you do it in the tube, or in the sparge water? This is just interesting because you see all these guys running their sparge for an hour, and frankly, I'd rather buy another $0.90 pound of grain than get 80% efficiency. How long do you sparge?

I am definitely going to be in the market for a better way to control mash temp, probably that honeywell unit people are talking about for pilot being a start. That was more labor intensive than I imagined!

 

[Yooper]

When you first start out, all the terms run together... The guy I bought the setup told me continuous blah something mash... recirculating seems a better word

When you say 'ramp up the temp', you do it in the tube, or in the sparge water? This is just interesting because you see all these guys running their sparge for an hour, and frankly, I'd rather buy another $0.90 pound of grain than get 80% efficiency. How long do you sparge?

I am definitely going to be in the market for a better way to control mash temp, probably that honeywell unit people are talking about for pilot being a start. That was more labor intensive than I imagined!

My system sounds different than yours. I have a HERMS, with a heat exchanger (copper coil) in the HLT. So to boost the mash temp, I turn up the temperature of the hot liquor tank, and circulate. I hope that makes sense- I think there are lots of diagrams of a HERMS on the internet to show what I mean if I'm not explaining it well.

Sparging is a different part of the process. I have two different ways I sparge, depending on my mood. I either continous sparge- that is, after I raise up the temp, I sent water into the mash tun at the same rate I take wort out of the mash tun- very slowly.

Or, I "batch sparge". That is, drain off the MLT and then dump in all the sparge water at once, stir well, and then drain.

Both are valid, and both do equally well. It's just a matter of time and set up. I'm lucky enough to have a pretty nice system that gives me the choice, and I go back and forth.

I get about the same efficiency either way, and when I do 10 gallon batches, batch sparging can be a time saver! But yesterday, I made a 10 gallon batch and did a continous sparge anyway.

 

[govya]

I understand... When you do continuous, how long do you sparge for? Lots of advice saying 1 pint per minute, which is 1 gallon over 8 minutes. With a SWAG of 6 gallons of sparge water required, that's almost an hour. That's a lot of time!

I am confused about how you transition from a recirc mash to a fly sparge. Do you do an initial drain, or keep your water 1 in above the grain bed? Kinda seems like a hybrid could be applicable.

 

[prandlesc]

I understand... When you do continuous, how long do you sparge for? Lots of advice saying 1 pint per minute, which is 1 gallon over 8 minutes. With a SWAG of 6 gallons of sparge water required, that's almost an hour. That's a lot of time!

I am confused about how you transition from a recirc mash to a fly sparge. Do you do an initial drain, or keep your water 1 in above the grain bed? Kinda seems like a hybrid could be applicable.

You transition from recirculating your wort by simply stopping the pump and disconnecting it. Next, I start moving the wort from the mash tun to the boil kettle (and I use a pump for this - many other brewers drain into their kettles using gravity). This is a low volume, slow process. I don't want to pull the wort out so quickly so as to compact the grain bed and create a blockage (or stuck mash). And a pint to a quart a minute is the rate I use.

I then start my sparge, also using a pump - at about the same rate. I monitor the flow out of the mash tun into the kettle, and the sparge water going into the mash tun and balance them so that the flows match. I do try and keep the liquid level at or above the top of the grain bed in order to insure that there's even coverage of the grain.

All the time I'm measuring the wort volume in the kettle, and as it gets close to my expected pre-boil volume, I stop the sparge water going into the mash tun and continue removing wort from the bottom of the mash tun until I reach my volume.

That means I will have additional liquid in my mash tun that I discard later - but it is not a lot, and has a very low amount of fermentables in it.

And the process could take an hour with a large batch. The goal is to remove as much of the frementable sugars as possible, and that takes a while.

An alternative method is to stop recirculating the wort as described in my first paragraph, and then drain off all the wort into your kettle - once again, a little slowly so you don't compact the grain bed. The dump in all of your sparge water at once - based on how much you need in your kettle pre-boil, and how much the grain will hold onto. Give the top few inched of your grain be a good stir and then drain that wort into your kettle. This is generally a quicker way to sparge, and may be a little less efficient in terms of removing fermentables from the grain bed.

Either method can be used to produce good beers, and the differences in efficiency may be very little.

And you mention a hybrid approach - and that's a possibility, too.

It gets down to which process works for you, which to you like, how much time you have, etc...

My best advice to you is brew a few batches using both techniques, learn how they effect your brews, and decide which method you'll use and when. And when you're sharing one of the great beers you made with your friends, you can describe the process you use and they'll think you're an expert on the topic!!

 

[govya]

With a 10 gallon system, I'm beginning to understand that it will take a long time to figure this out, mostly because 10 gallons is a lot of beer. One way to be popular

For mine, I would transfer the outlet of the pump from the mash tun to the brew kettle, then gravity sparge at the same flow rate. I have a basic idea, but execution will take some practice. Thanks for the clarity!

 

[prandlesc]

With a 10 gallon system, I'm beginning to understand that it will take a long time to figure this out, mostly because 10 gallons is a lot of beer. One way to be popular

For mine, I would transfer the outlet of the pump from the mash tun to the brew kettle, then gravity sparge at the same flow rate. I have a basic idea, but execution will take some practice. Thanks for the clarity!

You should be able to brew 5 gallons in your system, too. And I agree, if you make a batch every week in order to get some of this figured out - even at 5 gallons at a time, it's a lot of beer. I'm lucky in that in my office we have meetings or pot-luck parties that I can bring some of my beer to to share. It goes pretty quickly on those days.