30 min mash Success!

[Psylocide]

Not sure if I amused, impressed, or saddened...

Yeah... but I could get 2 oz of hops for the cost of the tube....

I understand.

 

[Rhaop]

Haha yeah but he won't bat an eye at dropping $500 on car parts but hey its priorities right? lol

 

[Psylocide]

Haha yeah but he won't bat an eye at dropping $500 on car parts but hey its priorities right? lol

Brewing is one of my least expensive hobbies by choice.

 

[brettwasbtd]

Pulled out all the stops for a speed brew today. Right under 3 hours today (20 min last night). 30 min mash, 45 min boil, and fermenting in my boil kettle. Very smooth

 

[Psylocide]

Did a speed brew on Saturday as well, 3 hours flat and grain was not crushed the day before (as is my normal method)... but efficiency sucked @ 70%. I guess it wasn't terrible since I usually target 75%, but it was a little disheartening.

However, the culprit seems to be white wheat. I brewed with it before and got crap efficiency when it was 40% of the grain bill. This time it was much less, but it is very hard to get a decent crush on wheat in the blender.

And, since I was hurrying, said "flocc it, good enough."

Luckily, this is a Saison, so the FG should more than make up for the slight reduction in efficiency.

Also, my burner did go out (windy as hell) and ended up boiling off a little less than normal. Oh well.

Also, I have no pictures because I'm a noob.

 

[Gavin C]

Did a speed brew on Saturday as well, 3 hours flat and grain was not crushed the day before (as is my normal method)... but efficiency sucked @ 70%. I guess it wasn't terrible since I usually target 75%, but it was a little disheartening.

However, the culprit seems to be white wheat. I brewed with it before and got crap efficiency when it was 40% of the grain bill. This time it was much less, but it is very hard to get a decent crush on wheat in the blender.

And, since I was hurrying, said "flocc it, good enough."

Luckily, this is a Saison, so the FG should more than make up for the slight reduction in efficiency.

Also, my burner did go out (windy as hell) and ended up boiling off a little less than normal. Oh well.

Also, I have no pictures because I'm a noob.

What was the OG?

 

[Psylocide]

What was the OG?

1.048 vs. Target of 1.052.

Not terrible. It's a smallish Saison, I was shooting for 6.5%, but will end up closer to 6% if Belle Saison yeast is as much of a beast as people say.

Mashed at 150°

 

[TheCADJockey]

1.048 vs. Target of 1.052.

Not terrible. It's a smallish Saison, I was shooting for 6.5%, but will end up closer to 6% if Belle Saison yeast is as much of a beast as people say.

Mashed at 150°

Are you doing anything special for fermentation temperatures? Heard some people keep saisons on the warmer side.

 

[Gavin C]

1.048 vs. Target of 1.052.

Not terrible. It's a smallish Saison, I was shooting for 6.5%, but will end up closer to 6% if Belle Saison yeast is as much of a beast as people say.

Mashed at 150°

Sounds good. That will still pack a punch if (as is likely) it gets down close to 1.000. Your own recipe?

 

[Psylocide]

Are you doing anything special for fermentation temperatures? Heard some people keep saisons on the warmer side.

No, I pitched at 66° and am going to let it free rise to wherever it's going to go.

Sounds good. That will still pack a punch if (as is likely) it gets down close to 1.000. Your own recipe?

Not really... most everything I've done is somewhat derivative.

Basically this recipe scaled down, upped the white wheat to 1 lb, switched in Simcoe for bittering:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=462598

 

[brettwasbtd]

Ya, I definitely forgot to take an OG flying blind on the efficiency for this one

 

[Psylocide]

Ya, I definitely forgot to take an OG flying blind on the efficiency for this one

First world problems.

 

[brettwasbtd]

First world problems.

Haha, very true. I am lax about a lot but having an og and fg is usually something I'm very anal about

 

[Psylocide]

This floccin' Saison ended at 1.001 down from 1.048 (that's 98% apparent attenuation for those of you playing at home). Taste is pretty darn good right now, nice notes from the Belle Saison yeast, even though I only fermented around 73°.

Dry hopped with 2 oz of Mosaic pellets today.

 

[Psylocide]

Just got the BIAB bag back from the MIL... She did an awesome job.


View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1441320408.085169.jpg

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1441320419.073454.jpg

 

[Gavin C]

Just got the BIAB bag back from the MIL... She did an awesome job.


View attachment 300856

View attachment 300857

That's a fine looking bag you got there. Very nice. Look forward to hearing how it holds up with your next big batch. Are you going for a 10ish gallon?

Just tried a Saison for the first time. St Feuillien

Just delicious. Looking forward to trying yours.

 

[jtratcliff]

That's a fine looking bag you got there. Very nice.

HBT... Where men compliment each other's bags

 

[Gavin C]

HBT... Where men compliment each other's bags

....not that there's anything wrong with that.....

 

[SlamDunkel]

Have never BIAB. However a Small BIAB with Dry hops may be the way to go for Aromatic smell.

 

[Psylocide]

That's a fine looking bag you got there. Very nice. Look forward to hearing how it holds up with your next big batch. Are you going for a 10ish gallon?

Just tried a Saison for the first time. St Feuillien

Just delicious. Looking forward to trying yours.

Thanks yeah, 10 gal batches... Maybe the occasional 15 gal lowish gravity batch.

Pipeline will be the deciding factor.

Glad to hear you liked the saison...awesome style.

 

[Psylocide]

Mashed in on 10 gal of saison, first full volume in my 20 gal kettle with my new BIAB bag... Easiest mash in ever at ~3qts/lb


View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1442689633.515836.jpg


Does this look infected?

 

[Gavin C]

Yep

Bag's infected for sure. There are creams you can get. It's sticky but there is a sticky for it somewhere.

 

[Gavin C]

Enjoying your fine creation right now Psy. (It's just now this second all gone actually, hic)

Raining and cloudy outside right now so couldn't use my regular beer spot for the picture.

Gin clear, beautiful dark ruby-red hue, delicious caramelly and slightly nutty notes. Gotta make me some Sandy's Mild Breeze soon.

Not sure if I feel

or more Yorkshire

Eh up Lad!

 

[Psylocide]

Awesome! Thanks for reporting back!


Just now heating to boil... Nice BIAB setup if I do say so myself. Lol.



View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1442692050.673651.jpg

 

[Rhaop]

Very nice setup!

 

[brettwasbtd]

Did a thirty minute mash, with a cold/no sparge, and a 30 min boil yesterday, it went really well other than - poor efficiency 65% - not sure if it was the cold sparge or if that last three quarters of a gallon extract that much sugar that I normally boil off. I adjusted for less boil off. Either way, its worth a little extra grain for the time savings

 

[Psylocide]

That sucks about your efficiency... I had my best day ever at 83%.

I was a half gallon short on my volume, I think the grain absorbed more than I calculated with this new method. Efficiency was recalculated at adjusted volume.

Oh well, 10.5 gal of 1.050 wort went into fermenters this morning. Not bad for 17 lbs of grain.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Alright, so did some more readings throughout my mash today (and another one a week and a half ago). BH efficiency 72% for both.

Zombiedust Estimated pre boil OG: 1.043. Actual 1.041. (volume was a little high). Did an equal runnings BIAB mash, where the volume after the mash and grain bag is pulled is equal to the sparge volume. The main reason I did this is because I'm weird and curious how it works out following braukaisers findings on batch sparge efficiency. Secondly, it lets me mash in my 1G slow cooker and let it maintain temps perfectly. (.825 G batch size, mash volume was .85G)

15 minute 1.053
20 minute 1.059
27 minute 1.063
33 minute 1.065
38 minute 1.057
49 minute 1.071, and there it stayed.
Second runnings 1.018
Combined runnings 1.041

Continued mash for 75 minutes while my sparge water heated up in main brew kettle. Assuming homogenous gravity, ending my mash at 30 minutes would've lost me about 10% effeciency and put it 63-64%. My guess is the thicker mashes take longer to convert, and I don't have as tight of a grind at the new LHBS as I'm used to.


Wee heavy: Again equal runnings biab.
10 minutes 1.038
15 minutes 1.043
23 minutes 1.050
38 minutes 1.058
45 minutes 1.061
55 minutes 1.062
65 minutes 1.061

Second runnings 1.021.
Combined runnings 1.038

 

[Gavin C]

Lot's of cool data

Hey priceless.

This is really interesting stuff. Cool idea to try out the Kaiser's model on two small batches like this. Looks you were busy busy busy today. Kudos for taking the time and effort to record it all and share with us numbers nerds. Thanks

Would it be fair to say that you will not be discarding your thin mash full-volume no sparge model based on this?

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Hey priceless.

This is really interesting stuff. Cool idea to try out the Kaiser's model on two small batches like this. Looks you were busy busy busy today. Kudos for taking the time and effort to record it all and share with us numbers nerds. Thanks

Would it be fair to say that you will not be discarding your thin mash full-volume no sparge model based on this?

I'll have to do another couple batches to compare, but from what it looks like to me I get a similar mash efficiency with no sparge and with equal runnings, however the conversion efficiency appears to be faster and higher in the end with the full volume mash but the "lauter" efficiency is slightly lower which makes them even out. I'll be doing a couple more "equal runnings biab" batches before I have enough space to do a full volume mash.

A key difference to me is the amount of "work" in order to drain the bag, squeeze it slightly, then dunk sparge and batch sparge dough in, then combine runnings, then bring to boil. Adds about 10-15 minutes and if it doesn't help me then I'll most likely be avoiding doing so unless necessary due to size constraints. Although I'm currently leaning more towards lower the batch size rather than raising the sparge volume, noone is going to know you only made 44 bottles instead of 48 bottles.


However I'm currently sitting on 5.5 gallons now, zero empty fermenters, and a severe lack of empty bottles so might be a couple weeks before I get to brew again