30 min mash Success!

[Gavin C]

She's two today and loves to help. So far she's just been on cleaning/sanitation duty, but she does a damn fine job.

Some weeks? Hopefully I'll post a pic on Saturday.

However, I always feel like pics of wheat beers are... well, not as cool as pics of other styles, simply because most of us aren't filtering them and they turn out looking like fizzy pinapple/orange juice, lol.

Cool. Look forward to seeing the results. I think wheat beers can look cool to with their creamy delicious foamy heads.

 

[Psylocide]

Cool. Look forward to seeing the results. I think wheat beers can look cool to with their creamy delicious foamy heads.

I won't argue that one bit... the head is just amazing on these. My last iteration (1.0) has the craziest HB lacing I've ever produced.

 

[TheCADJockey]

Agreed. No need to have crystal clear beer. I'm a fan of the cloudy yeasty wheats, or I used to be until I got all addicted to the IPA's.

 

[jump_xiii]

Wow that long? This is looking more and more attractive. I hate trying to chill.

24 hours in the kettle with the lid on. Then I drain out the tap on the kettle which has a hop filter. That aerates the wort plenty as it goes into the fermenter.

No chill is a legit technique- I think the amount of water required for chilling is wasteful IMO.

 

[JohnSand]

Adding to the heresy: I always "crush" in a blender. Only two of my dozens of grain batches were crushed in a mill. The first blender was a 1970s avocado green Waring, $5 at a yard sale. When it got quirky, I ponied up $14 to have another delivered, ebay. Identical to the first. I've slowly upped the speed, I now use "grate". I timed it once, took 15 minutes to grind 11lbs of grain. I weigh and grind while my water comes to strike temp. The blender cleans and stores easily. I use a scoop to add the grain, I've not measured how much at a time. I blend until I see no more whole pieces. My efficiency is mid seventies, my brews score mostly mid twenties to mid thirties at competition. No judge ever mentioned tannin.

 

[monkeyman1000]

I started doing the shorter mashes ( 30-45 ) minutes end of last year and so far my OG and FG have come out right on target. I started doing this thanks to RM-MN's posts and a few others. I just tried no chill this past weekend but I think I overcomplicated it. I sort of chilled no chilled. I put the pot in cold water and got it down to the 120's then put it in the bucket and let it sit until the next morning. I has been bubbling away happily ever since Monday night. I don't think I found it to be a time saver and kind of a hassle to come back later and resanitize my aeration stuff but I may continue to do it bc of the water savings. I also had to aerate and pitch before work on Monday so getting up earlier for that wasn't fun.

 

[Psylocide]

I started doing the shorter mashes ( 30-45 ) minutes end of last year and so far my OG and FG have come out right on target. I started doing this thanks to RM-MN's posts and a few others. I just tried no chill this past weekend but I think I overcomplicated it. I sort of chilled no chilled. I put the pot in cold water and got it down to the 120's then put it in the bucket and let it sit until the next morning. I has been bubbling away happily ever since Monday night. I don't think I found it to be a time saver and kind of a hassle to come back later and resanitize my aeration stuff but I may continue to do it bc of the water savings. I also had to aerate and pitch before work on Monday so getting up earlier for that wasn't fun.

There you go over complicating it.

I shake to aerate, so I don't have to sanitize anything additional, lol.

You'll notice a pattern here... I have the ability to go out and buy this stuff, but I'm brewing great AG beer without:

A proper mill
Wort Chiller
Aeration gadgets
Giving a flocc

 

[Gavin C]

There you go over complicating it.

I shake to aerate, so I don't have to sanitize anything additional, lol.

You'll notice a pattern here... I have the ability to go out and buy this stuff, but I'm brewing great AG beer without:

A proper mill
Wort Chiller
Aeration gadgets
Giving a flocc

How can you sleep at night?

 

[Psylocide]

How can you sleep at night?

Actually, the worst two nights of sleep I've had lately were when I did my overnight mash and the first night that I had a beer kegged.

So... I sleep much better now.

 

[TexasWine]

Yeah... I should mention that I use glass carboys, so I don't want to risk a break from thermal shock.

Also for anyone else that hasn't tried this... if you use a three piece airlock, it's going to drain whatever is in there as it cools. So make sure you've got starsan or vodka in there. S type would be better.

Sounds like you need to upgrade to some buckets

 

[Psylocide]

Sounds like you need to upgrade to some buckets

Spend money on more equipment?

Have you even been following this thread, brah?

 

[jump_xiii]

I no chill in the kettle which has a tap, so I aerate by transferring vigorously from that into a fermentation bucket below. Now I add my yeast at the same time so it gets well stirred up.

No extra equipment, no hassle!

 

[jump_xiii]

As I write this I'm 20 mins into a 30 min mash. Might as well give it a try!

 

[RM-MN]

As I write this I'm 20 mins into a 30 min mash. Might as well give it a try!

If you have iodine you can take a sample and test for starch conversion to sugar. A drop of iodine on a white surface like a plate, a drop of wort in it and if there is starch it will turn blue or black. If it doesn't change color you have no starch left to convert.

 

[FatDragon]

Did a 45 minute mash yesterday and dropped my BIAB pourover sparge from 8L (two separate 4L pourovers before bag squeezing) to 4L. My efficiency varies from brew to brew, but I definitely lost a couple points with these moves. I'll try another 45 minute mash with my next brew, but go back to the 8L sparge to see where that gets me, since I suspect that had the bigger impact on my efficiency.

Regardless of anything else, this was definitely my shortest brewday, but that's due more to other streamlining moves than just the shorter mash, including getting my strike water out of the hot tap with the water heater turned up to the max (water coming out at 61C), grinding my grains the night before (makes a difference when you hand-mill with a Corona), and better chilling practices, including faster chilling with higher flow rates and moving the chiller around more, as well as only chilling to within 3-4C of fermentation temp before pitching so that the ferm chamber can do the rest of the work during the lag time. All told, I was done with pretty much everything cleaned up (save a couple small implements in the sink that I washed last night with the dishes) in three and a half hours, which made the wife very happy - she's supportive of my brewing but she hates brewdays...

 

[RM-MN]

Did a 45 minute mash yesterday and dropped my BIAB pourover sparge from 8L (two separate 4L pourovers before bag squeezing) to 4L. My efficiency varies from brew to brew, but I definitely lost a couple points with these moves. I'll try another 45 minute mash with my next brew, but go back to the 8L sparge to see where that gets me, since I suspect that had the bigger impact on my efficiency.

Regardless of anything else, this was definitely my shortest brewday, but that's due more to other streamlining moves than just the shorter mash, including getting my strike water out of the hot tap with the water heater turned up to the max (water coming out at 61C), grinding my grains the night before (makes a difference when you hand-mill with a Corona), and better chilling practices, including faster chilling with higher flow rates and moving the chiller around more, as well as only chilling to within 3-4C of fermentation temp before pitching so that the ferm chamber can do the rest of the work during the lag time. All told, I was done with pretty much everything cleaned up (save a couple small implements in the sink that I washed last night with the dishes) in three and a half hours, which made the wife very happy - she's supportive of my brewing but she hates brewdays...

Can you tighten that Corona mill any more. I find that the tighter I have mine set, the higher the efficiency. You have to get the grain particles wet through to gelatinize the starches and convert them to sugars and you have to leach the sugars back out. With a very fine milling the gelatinization/conversion happen very quickly and it is easy to get most of the sugars leached out too. With BIAB there doesn't appear to be any downside to milling fine as there would be with a conventional tun.

 

[FatDragon]

Can you tighten that Corona mill any more. I find that the tighter I have mine set, the higher the efficiency. You have to get the grain particles wet through to gelatinize the starches and convert them to sugars and you have to leach the sugars back out. With a very fine milling the gelatinization/conversion happen very quickly and it is easy to get most of the sugars leached out too. With BIAB there doesn't appear to be any downside to milling fine as there would be with a conventional tun.

My last brew before this one came in at 92% mash efficiency, thanks to a very thin mash (it was a session beer) and big pourover sparge. This one was closer to 85%, not far from what I usually get with a grainbill this size, but still a bit of room to grow.

That to say that my grind is already pretty fine - most of the grain particles are no more than a couple millimeters across, with plenty of flour, of course. Closing the gap much more would mean grinding the metal plates together when I mill, and the tighter it goes, the longer it takes to mill as well.

 

[Psylocide]

My last brew before this one came in at 92% mash efficiency, thanks to a very thin mash (it was a session beer) and big pourover sparge. This one was closer to 85%, not far from what I usually get with a grainbill this size, but still a bit of room to grow.

That to say that my grind is already pretty fine - most of the grain particles are no more than a couple millimeters across, with plenty of flour, of course. Closing the gap much more would mean grinding the metal plates together when I mill, and the tighter it goes, the longer it takes to mill as well.

Lol... I'd like to get to a point where I'm not pleased with 85% mash efficiency.

Especially with a 30 min mash.

 

[FatDragon]

Lol... I'd like to get to a point where I'm not pleased with 85% mash efficiency.

Especially with a 30 min mash.

Not really displeased with 85%, but it's about consistency.

...and squeezing the EVERLOVING LIFEBLOOD out of the pathetic, slimy, insignificant grains! mwahaha! Mwahahaha! MUWAHAHAHAHA!

Actually, the main issue is that my 90% is everyone else's 77% in terms of grain to gravity ratio. I brew with cheap Chinese 2-row base because that's the main base malt available here in China and imported stuff like Weyermann costs three or four times as much, but the potential gravity is somewhere in the 1.031 range. Since I BIAB 6+gallon batches in a 9 gallon pot, it behooves me to squeeze as much as I can out of my grains, for capacity reasons.

 

[Psylocide]

Not really displeased with 85%, but it's about consistency.

...and squeezing the EVERLOVING LIFEBLOOD out of the pathetic, slimy, insignificant grains! mwahaha! Mwahahaha! MUWAHAHAHAHA!

Actually, the main issue is that my 90% is everyone else's 77% in terms of grain to gravity ratio. I brew with cheap Chinese 2-row base because that's the main base malt available here in China and imported stuff like Weyermann costs three or four times as much, but the potential gravity is somewhere in the 1.031 range. Since I BIAB 6+gallon batches in a 9 gallon pot, it behooves me to squeeze as much as I can out of my grains, for capacity reasons.

That's right... I remember you talking about that.

I guess I'm at the point where I figure a target and if I'm over, it's just a happy accident and if I'm under, well... no big deal. Consistency will come for me soon enough. Now that I've got ferm temps under control and have worked out some of the major bugs in my process, the next to tackle are the snakes in the grass regarding mash efficiency, and attenuation.

But this is my second all grain beer, and I nailed the flavor I was going for, got great conversion, great attenuation and shortened the brew day. It was a great success and a huge confidence boost. I'm heading in the right direction.

 

[FatDragon]

That's right... I remember you talking about that.

I guess I'm at the point where I figure a target and if I'm over, it's just a happy accident and if I'm under, well... no big deal. Consistency will come for me soon enough. Now that I've got ferm temps under control and have worked out some of the major bugs in my process, the next to tackle are the snakes in the grass regarding mash efficiency, and attenuation.

But this is my second all grain beer, and I nailed the flavor I was going for, got great conversion, great attenuation and shortened the brew day. It was a great success and a huge confidence boost. I'm heading in the right direction.

Indeed you are, and probably further down the road than I am - I still put out a stinker once every four or five brews, and brewday glitches abound almost every time I brew.

Reflecting on my last post, I might end up sticking with Sunday's process, including the lower sparge volume. Since I cold water sparge, adding another 4 liters of lukewarm wort to the kettle means waiting longer before reaching a boil. Between that and the 45 minute mash, I probably saved 25-30 minutes off the brewday. Then again, I could get the same effect from just heating the first 4L of sparge water while mashing.

Decisions, decisions...

Looks like my next brewday will be a 30 minute mash with a 4L hot sparge and a 4L cold sparge, because changing just one variable at a time is for boring people, like scientists and doctors. We kindergarten EFL teachers like to live our lives by the seats of our pants.

 

[Psylocide]

Indeed you are, and probably further down the road than I am - I still put out a stinker once every four or five brews, and brewday glitches abound almost every time I brew.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that... there's still plenty of room for mistakes and improvements, this is only my second AG, so it could be an extreme case of beginners luck.

Or, lots of research and just "going for it" paying off in a big way.

Reflecting on my last post, I might end up sticking with Sunday's process, including the lower sparge volume. Since I cold water sparge, adding another 4 liters of lukewarm wort to the kettle means waiting longer before reaching a boil. Between that and the 45 minute mash, I probably saved 25-30 minutes off the brewday. Then again, I could get the same effect from just heating the first 4L of sparge water while mashing.

Decisions, decisions...

Looks like my next brewday will be a 30 minute mash with a 4L hot sparge and a 4L cold sparge, because changing just one variable at a time is for boring people, like scientists and doctors. We kindergarten EFL teachers like to live our lives by the seats of our pants.

Let me know how it turns out.

Next brew day, I'll definitely be heating the kettle to boiling temp while sparging, which will save some time. That was one of those "DUH!" moments I had after a couple of people mentioned it.

I still think I'll mill my grains a day or two ahead of time, just because it's one less thing I have to do that day and I can't think of a possible ill-effect from doing that.

 

[Psylocide]

As promised... here is a pic of the final product. It's been in the keg a little over a 10 days and the carb is just about right. The head has developed a bit more in the last few days.

This wheat is very good... well balanced bitterness and a huge punch of citrus on the nose, orange, lemon, hints of grapefruit, and flows into the flavor of the beer. Another successful hopstand/dry hop for flavor test, I'm very pleased.

I think it needs a bit more time to condition, but I could drink these one after the other at this point.







Cheers.

 

[TheCADJockey]

It looks... so... MAGICAL

 

[Psylocide]

It looks... so... MAGICAL

Yeah... unfortunately, the head dissipated some due to getting the lighting right. I'm still a noob with my DSLR.

Tastes every bit as good as it looks though.

 

[Gavin C]

Great looking tasty beverage. Yum.

 

[FatDragon]

As promised... here is a pic of the final product. It's been in the keg a little over a 10 days and the carb is just about right. The head has developed a bit more in the last few days.

This wheat is very good... well balanced bitterness and a huge punch of citrus on the nose, orange, lemon, hints of grapefruit, and flows into the flavor of the beer. Another successful hopstand/dry hop for flavor test, I'm very pleased.

I think it needs a bit more time to condition, but I could drink these one after the other at this point.

Beautiful beer. They're still bottle conditioning, but my session IPA is that same color and cloudiness (I really need to get a ferm chamber capable of cold crashing...). Hoping they'll look that nice after the pour, but probably not.

 

[Psylocide]

Here's another angle from last night's debauchery, better shot of the head.

 

[TheCADJockey]

I like the last picture. The lack of focus really says something about society as a whole.

 

[Psylocide]

I like the last picture. The lack of focus really says something about society as a whole.