Recent content by hendenburg2

My M&B only dropped about 8F. From 162 to 154, but this batch only had 10lbs of grain. However, here's the real reason I suspect for the lower temp drop: The M&B's temp sensor is right at the bottom, close to the heating element. This would mean that it's not measuring the bulk volume of the...

Update 2: Sparge is done. Pre-boil volume: 6.5 gallons Pre-boil gravity: 1.04 Target final volume: 5.25 gallons Estimated post-boil OG: 1.05 Estimated BH efficiency: 73%

Hey all. Brew day first update: Here's the grain bill I'm using today: 8 lbs US 2-row 1lb 3 oz C20 6 oz black malt 4 oz Munich II 3 oz US chocolate Strike water volume: 3.5 gal Strike water temp: 162F Mash temp: 156F Mash out temp: 168F Total mash time: 95 minutes Pre-sparge gravity: 1.08...

The only place where the M&B determines my volumes is after sparging. I buy water in 1 & 2.5 gallon containers, and my electric kettle has volume markings in liters. My 5 and 6 gallon brew kettles also have volume markings on them.

With recirculation setup, I make sure that the top of the grain in the sleeve is *slightly* submerged, so in theory the wort is being evenly distributed. Tomorrow is my brew day, so I'll attach pictures.

No, some all-in-one systems actually have a pipe that goes up through the center of the grain sleeve, which is what confused me. And by "turning", I mean "rotating around the vertical axis".

This model doesn't have a mash pipe.

I've tried using my SV stick before to heat all of the sparge water at once, but that's caused me problems when I'm trying to hold a 5 gallon pot full of 3 gallons of water and pour it out half a gallon at a time. The M&B instructions are that your sparge volume should be 70% of the strike...

Would your stirring advice still stand if I were to use a recirculation pump?

Well, that was the advice of my LHBS owner who uses an all-in-one to do the test batches for his brewery. The way these all-in-ones work is they have an inner sleeve that holds the grain. To lauter, you lift the sleeve up and turn it 45 degrees, since there are posts that support the weight of...

What do you mean by the cabinets in my hydrometer? As for batch sparging, my process is this: 1) Lift up the grain sleeve 2) Drain off and pour over/recirculate about a gallon of wort 3) Working in 2L batches (the size of my temp-controlled electric kettle), pour 170F water over the grains...

Yeah, I use a long-stemmed analog thermometer (~10" long) to test the grain bed temp. The very center is always below temp, but get ~1-2" out from center and it's usually right on target.

Hmmm... I'll have to start adding an extra half an hour to the mash time. I have tried using the M&B to raise the temp for mash out, but it seems like it takes an extremely long time (30+ minutes), even while recirculating. The problem with "just use the amount of grain you need" is that at...

Odd.. I was told that you don't want to stir the grain bed, because otherwise the sparge can go too quickly. I have a 5 gpm pump that I've tried using for recirculating during the mash and always use for wort chilling, I guess I can give that a try.

Sorry, when I said "doesn't seem to correlate", what I meant was, "whether or not I use mash pH stabilizer doesn't seem to correlate with higher or lower efficiency". As for dark beers, that rye was pretty dark, close to a brown ale in color. But generally speaking, I stick to pales and...