Planing my first big beer: How to keep extract efficiency high

[DrJerryrigger]

Edit: I'm "planning" this, not trying to make it flat.

So I'm sure this comes up a lot, but I didn't find anything quite helpful enough from "searching".

Anyway I'm planing a big beer: 4gal, ~17lb grain, WLP500 (just made the starter tonight)

I hate wasting anything, and also I'm mashing in a 5gal drink cooler. So I've read a few tricks hear and there and what I'm planing now (if I don't hear better suggestions) is as follows:
Mash 70% of grain. Fly sparg, put first 1-2gal in boil pot, rest of sparg divided in to two parts
Mash remaining 30% of grain in higher gravity part of first sparg, fly sparg with rest of first sparg.
Also mixing and recirculating often throughout both spargs.

So does this sound reasonable, is there anything I missed?

Thanks


Edit:
I though I'd share what I'm making here:

15.5lb 2 row base (US)
1.75lb Briess Extra Special Malt (130L) (French)

That's for a 4 gal (post boil) batch.

 

[Clementine]

I'm new to AG however basic sense says that if you want a really high OG there must be sugars left in the grain or you run off as much as you can and the boil down a long way to get to the OG you want. I think this is why the party gyle was invented.

Clem

 

[WHYB]

If your going to try and mash %30 in the boil pot, you may want to think about using clean water to get a better extraction.

Do you have a plan to maintain the proper temp in your boil pot to ensure a full conversion of those grains?

Might be simpler to try just swapping out the %30 grain with an appropriate amount of DME.

 

[944play]

I would not have the patience to do an iterative mash just to keep from having to use a little extract.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

I would not have the patience to do an iterative mash just to keep from having to use a little extract.

well I'm a cheapskate, and i like a challenge.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

I'm new to AG however basic sense says that if you want a really high OG there must be sugars left in the grain or you run off as much as you can and the boil down a long way to get to the OG you want. I think this is why the party gyle was invented.

Clem

There will be lots of sugars left behind, but I want to minimize this, partly so I can calculate what my beer will be in the end, but also to save a few bucks.

If your going to try and mash %30 in the boil pot, you may want to think about using clean water to get a better extraction.

Do you have a plan to maintain the proper temp in your boil pot to ensure a full conversion of those grains?

Might be simpler to try just swapping out the %30 grain with an appropriate amount of DME.

You understandably misunderstood my first post. The 30% of grain would be mashed in my mash tun. The water would be the sparg from the first mash, but not the very first part of the sparg, that would be put in the boiling pot to be used as is.

 

[WHYB]

I assume your limited do to the size of your mash tun and can't fit all the grain in at once?

You might see better efficiencies if your second mash is done initially using clear water (first 1/2 gallon only), as this would take into account the grain absorption, then with the grain well hydrated you could introduce the higher gravity sparge water, might squeeze a few more gravity points out that way.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

I assume your limited do to the size of your mash tun and can't fit all the grain in at once?

You might see better efficiencies if your second mash is done initially using clear water (first 1/2 gallon only), as this would take into account the grain absorption, then with the grain well hydrated you could introduce the higher gravity sparge water, might squeeze a few more gravity points out that way.

Yes, my tun is not big enough, though this more complex plan has more to do with efficiency, as I could just split the bill in half and mash separate.

Good idea with the clean water. The plan is evolving and I still have about 4 to 7 days before my starter is ready. So I think I'll do a very thick dough in with clean water on the second mash. Since it's a smaller bill; I'll do it stove top, and maybe do a protein rest wile I'm at it. Then toss in the cooler for a 157ish mash then sparg (with sparg water from first mash)

This is complicated to write about. I feel I need to draw a diagram.

 

[weirdboy]

Why not just split the whole thing into two mashes? Just do a mash & sparge of half the volume, then clean out your MLT and do another mash & sparge of the second half?

I think trying to extract those sugars during your sparge is definitely going to affect your efficiency unless you leave it in there long enough to effectively do another mash anyway. And your sparge temps are higher than your typical mash temps, so you'll also have problems with fermentability of that wort from the second part with sparge water.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

Why not just split the whole thing into two mashes? Just do a mash & sparge of half the volume, then clean out your MLT and do another mash & sparge of the second half?

I think trying to extract those sugars during your sparge is definitely going to affect your efficiency unless you leave it in there long enough to effectively do another mash anyway. And your sparge temps are higher than your typical mash temps, so you'll also have problems with fermentability of that wort from the second part with sparge water.

There will be two mashes. But rather than sparging with half the water twice, I'll sparg with all the water twice (little more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea). This trick is used by scotch distillers to save grain when making high OG wort, but I don't really know the "nuts and bolts" of it, just the basic concept.

 

[weirdboy]

I don't understand what that gets you. Why is it better to sparge with all of the water twice?

Also, that is not what you said. Here is specifically what I am referring to:

Mash remaining 30% of grain in higher gravity part of first sparg, fly sparg with rest of first sparg.

This is probably not a good idea. This is already going to be saturated with sugars, and the temperature is not going to be appropriate for creating a fermentable wort. You are going to end up with more alpha amylase that will convert very quickly due to the higher temps.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

I don't understand what that gets you. Why is it better to sparge with all of the water twice?

Also, that is not what you said. Here is specifically what I am referring to:



This is probably not a good idea. This is already going to be saturated with sugars, and the temperature is not going to be appropriate for creating a fermentable wort. You are going to end up with more alpha amylase that will convert very quickly due to the higher temps.

Still think there is a little bit of misunderstanding (though I'm not 100% sure).
So I'll try to explain it better (using made up numbers):
The sparg from first mash is split 1gal/1.5gal/2.5gal
The 1gal (highest gravity) is set aside, nothing more will happen with it.
the 1.5 gal is use for the second mash strike water (heated)
the 2.5 gal (lowest gravity) is used as the second sparg water (heated)

If I was to do two mashes I'd only take 2.5 gal out of 8lbs of grain (twice), which seems like a wasteful plan to me. I don't know how much better this would be, but it seems to me that it would be at least a little better.
The water will absorb more sugars, maybe not as much a fresh water, but if there is more of it than hopefully there will be better overall extraction.

 

[Clementine]

I can now understand what you are doing. That said I'm new to AG but applying some chemistry and math you can calculate which will give you the lowest sugar content going into the sparge so it has the greatest chance and running off maximum amount of sugar. I see that is what you are tyring to do with using the lowest gravity part heated as the second mash sparge but I think using all of the first sparge as a second sparge would give you better numbers.

Clem

 

[WHYB]

What do you usually get on your mash efficiency?

It would be nice to see a comparison between this next batch and previous batches.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

What do you usually get on your mash efficiency?

It would be nice to see a comparison between this next batch and previous batches.

Unfortunate this will be the second beer I make with a new tun so there isn't a good baseline to compare to. Also on that one beer my volume calculation were not all that exact, but conservatively I got ~80%.

 

[emetcalf]

You can also use more water than you normally would, and boil longer. Just don't add your hops until you get down to your normal pre-boil volume, and then time your boil from there.

 

[WHYB]

Well, be sure to take readings from this, and future, batches so you can compare numbers.

I'd be interested in seeing how this stacks up against a semi-fly/batch sparge (which is what I normally do) on efficiency.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

You can also use more water than you normally would, and boil longer. Just don't add your hops until you get down to your normal pre-boil volume, and then time your boil from there.

I'm planning on doing that to some degree, but I don't want to spend three days boiling this.

Well, be sure to take readings from this, and future, batches so you can compare numbers.

I'd be interested in seeing how this stacks up against a semi-fly/batch sparge (which is what I normally do) on efficiency.

I will be quite careful to measure everything on this, the only reason I didn't with the last batch was the many complications which came up.
I'm interested in your "semi-fly/batch sparge" technique. How do you do that? Maybe that could be incorporated with this.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

I'm starting to think batch sparging using the same concept would be the best way to go.

I'm also starting to reconsider the 70% 30% split. Why not 50/50, or 30/70.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

Okay so new plan. I just scored a 3gal carboy at a yard sale. So I'll be making a 2.5 gal batch of the big stuff using WLP500 and use the rest for a smaller beer ~1.050 with a qt of WLP002 I have in my fridge washed and ready to go.
I'll be using some of the methods discussed in this thread, even with the parti-gyle as it would be nice to not have to boil the big beer for all that long. And also I'll have to mash twice anyway due to the size of my mash ton.

The yeast in the starter seem to be slowing down, so I think I'll be good to go by Tue.

 

[bottlebomber]

Basically the best way to get the most out of the grain, is to use a lot of sparge water. In which case you are going to be wasting propane boiling it down. Something must be "wasted".

 

[DrJerryrigger]

Basically the best way to get the most out of the grain, is to use a lot of sparge water. In which case you are going to be wasting propane boiling it down. Something must be "wasted".

Yeah, that's true, but I'm going to try to reduce the wasting as much as possible.

 

[bottlebomber]

I think making sure you have a nice fine mill on the grains, making sure your sparge water is hot enough, and fly sparging instead of batch sparging is going to give you the best you can get. If you really don't want to waste anything, there's some threads on here from people who bake bread from spent grains

 

[DrJerryrigger]

Okay, so my work scheduled changed, so the brew day is getting pushed back to Wen.
I'll be upping the grain a bit from what was posted, and be making two beers. 3.2gal of 1.100 and 6gal of 1.038.
I'm going to run the smaller mash first 30-40%. Fly sparg, dividing the runners into as many groups as I have pots for. Then mashing and sparging the 60-70% with those runners, starting with the highest gravity ones.