MLT and residual wort left over

[LookingGlass]

Made a mash tun with a stainless steel braid for batch sparging. I used it the first time 2 days ago and had zero issues. Works like a charm and was a good experience. I mashed, recirculated, drained all the mash H20, added the sparge water, stirred, waited 10 minutes, recirculated, drained to my boil volume. What I noticed was quite a bit of good wort still left in the grains as I was cleaning my MLT. I could've drained out close to another gallon of viable sugary goodness. Is this normal? Is this why it is recommended to add 10% more base malt to offset the leftover wort? Thanks ahead of time.

 

[pvault98]

Yeah that is relatively common assuming your lauter rate is not excessively fast. If your efficiency is around 70% or more then that is to be expected from both the grains releasing some of the wort as it settles as well as any other wort making its way through the grain bed down to your manifold. The longer you wait the more additional wort you can extract. Like everything it is a tradeoff with how long you are willing to wait. For certain beers I will add a little less sparge water and after mostly training the MLT I will let it sit for 30 mins or so then open it back up and get quite a bit more wort out.

 

[govner1]

Made a mash tun with a stainless steel braid for batch sparging. I used it the first time 2 days ago and had zero issues. Works like a charm and was a good experience. I mashed, recirculated, drained all the mash H20, added the sparge water, stirred, waited 10 minutes, recirculated, drained to my boil volume. What I noticed was quite a bit of good wort still left in the grains as I was cleaning my MLT. I could've drained out close to another gallon of viable sugary goodness. Is this normal? Is this why it is recommended to add 10% more base malt to offset the leftover wort? Thanks ahead of time.

If you add that residual wort that didn't flow out originally you'll most likely discover increased astringency in your beer.

 

[LookingGlass]

Yeah that is relatively common assuming your lauter rate is not excessively fast. If your efficiency is around 70% or more then that is to be expected from both the grains releasing some of the wort as it settles as well as any other wort making its way through the grain bed down to your manifold. The longer you wait the more additional wort you can extract. Like everything it is a tradeoff with how long you are willing to wait. For certain beers I will add a little less sparge water and after mostly training the MLT I will let it sit for 30 mins or so then open it back up and get quite a bit more wort out.

Good idea. I usually sparge with 4 gallons so I might cut that down a bit. I wait ten minutes after adding the sparge h20 and recirculate 3 quarts. I'm getting about 70% efficiency right now. Thanks again.

 

[mattd2]

If you add that residual wort that didn't flow out originally you'll most likely discover increased astringency in your beer.

I don't think he would - from what I gather he is either batch sparging or fly sparging with a set amount of water - i.e. at the end of the sparge all the wort has been drained from the MLT and it is "empty". The if you wait another 30-60 minutes and open the MLT valve again there is magically anoth 0.5-1 gallon of wort that comes out, this wort has slowly drained through the grain bed over that time and collected at the bottom. I usualy see about 0.5 gallons in my MLT at the end of the boil. as pvault98 said.