Adding water post mash?

[NorthernBrew]

Hi guys. Doing a BIAB 10gal batch, is it good or bad business using less than the prescribed amount of water in the mash? Because i recently had my sg and og too low. Probably because i put in maybe 0.5 gal too much water. So i thought better too over shoot the sg by using less water and being able to add water pre boil to hit the numbers exactly...

 

[thesemicullen]

It depends on how much less mash water you're talking about. However, I don't think you're going to improve your gravity readings by reducing your mash water and then adding plain water to the boil. In fact, this will probably cause you to have a lower OG than intended.

If you're not getting good conversion in your mash, it could be that your grains aren't crushed fine enough.

 

[billl]

Almost everyone mashes in less then the full volume of water. You don't just dump in plain water later though. You use the excess water to help wash out more of the sugars left in the grain. You can pour the water over the grain bag or you can dunk the whole bag into another pot that has the extra water in it.

As a practical matter, you goal should be to standardize your process so you can predict what the gravity is going to be based on the recipe, not just messing with the volumes. Adding variable amount of water means you hit your OG number but don't get the correct batch size. Your 10 gallon batch may turn out to be 9 or 11 etc.

 

[NorthernBrew]

Almost everyone mashes in less then the full volume of water. You don't just dump in plain water later though. You use the excess water to help wash out more of the sugars left in the grain. You can pour the water over the grain bag or you can dunk the whole bag into another pot that has the extra water in it.

As a practical matter, you goal should be to standardize your process so you can predict what the gravity is going to be based on the recipe, not just messing with the volumes. Adding variable amount of water means you hit your OG number but don't get the correct batch size. Your 10 gallon batch may turn out to be 9 or 11 etc.

I agree. The setup is coming along and using the beersmith i've thusfar been able to calculate my volumes and gravities very nicely. But being in a rural area and not being able to jump to the store if i need more grain i was just wondering if this was a viable option. I only get precrushed grains and probably was unlucky with the grain last time. I'm not messing with the volumes willy nilly but i'd rather have 9 gallons with the right og than 10 gal with the wrong

 

[billl]

If you are going down that route, be prepare to adjust hop additions etc on the fly as well.

Another option is to just keep some DME on hand while you are dialing in your system. That way you aren't altering any of your setup parameters and just have to worry about 1 efficiency variable.

 

[HaDaL]

What do you mean by "sg and og"?
What was your grain bill(names&weights)?
What amount of water did You use for mashing and sparging?
What was your pre boil volume and gravity?
What was your post boil volume and gravity?
If You give us answers of above questions We can help you better. However,It seems that your problem is low EE% (extract efficiency). If your EE% was good and You just had added more water to mash tun, so you could easily increase boil time to achieve right OG and right volume. If the OG (original gravity=post boil gravity) number you've achieved is lower than what recipe had wanted or what You had expected, It is likely due to the low efficiency.This is a common case because the extract efficiency depends on many factors and You must consider them to improve efficiency of your system.Therefore You gain your desired OG as the result of this improvement rather than adding or subtracting water.

 

[NorthernBrew]

What do you mean by "sg and og"?
What was your grain bill(names&weights)?
What amount of water did You use for mashing and sparging?
What was your pre boil volume and gravity?
What was your post boil volume and gravity?
If You give us answers of above questions We can help you better. However,It seems that your problem is low EE% (extract efficiency). If your EE% was good and You just had added more water to mash tun, so you could easily increase boil time to achieve right OG and right volume. If the OG (original gravity=post boil gravity) number you've achieved is lower than what recipe had wanted or what You had expected, It is likely due to the low efficiency.This is a common case because the extract efficiency depends on many factors and You must consider them to improve efficiency of your system.Therefore You gain your desired OG as the result of this improvement rather than adding or subtracting water.

By sg i mean my post mash pre boil gravity. By og i mean my boiled wort original gravity. I am not talking about a specific recipe but more a general practice. If for some reason the grain is not supplying me with the sugars it is supposed to, am i better off holding back a gallon or so in a 10 gallon batch and having the option of adding it back in post mash? Maybe running the water through the suspended grain bag towards the mash out