All-grain Curious

[jerrylotto]

How are you planning to heat your kettle? Brewing inside or outside? Propane or electric?

Brewing 5-5.5 gallon batches requires heating around 9 gallons of water in total, and boiling around 7 gallons down to 5.5-6 gallons.

Hrm - I mash and sparge in a Brewer's Edge "Mash and Boil" using a recirc pump but I transfer to a kettle for the boil. My 5 gal batches start with 7 gal of water, even the high grain bill mashes. I typically get at least 6 gal of wort after sparging. Then, I lose about 3/4 gallon in the boil and another quart to trub/hop matter. Why are your losses so much higher than my experience?

 

[Jag75]

Especially the desire to have shiny objects. Much money can be spent unnecessarily on shiny objects.

Oh how I love shiny objects lol

 

[tracer bullet]

There might be a "best" method to make beer, but if it exists many other methods come close enough most folks can't tell a difference. Or, a recipe can be adjusted to compensate. Not to rehash the whole thread but find a method that sounds good to you and try it. A bag isn't so much money and even if you change processes is still useful for other things in the future.

Personally I sparge, batch sparge, it's just too easy for me. Rinsing the grains while the first runnings are on the burner heating up is a tiny amount of work so why not.

 

[deuc224]

Wow I was buzzed when i wrote it but yes i mean FG. my numbers are always in order with brewfather but my yeast mostly eats more than it estimates. i wonder if a starter actually makes that big a difference.

 

[VikeMan]

Wow I was buzzed when i wrote it but yes i mean FG. my numbers are always in order with brewfather but my yeast mostly eats more than it estimates. i wonder if a starter actually makes that big a difference.

Do you mean... does a starter (and thus a bigger pitch) make a big difference in attenuation percent? IMO, only rarely. There are consequences to under-pitching, but under-attenuation isn't usually one of them in my experience. I will say that I quite often see posts that say something like, "I never make starters and I have no problems reaching my target FGs. Therefore starters aren't necessary." But I think that's missing the point.

 

[deuc224]

Vikeman, no like ill leave a starter and pitch the whole thing into some ready wort and it almost always finished super fast(3 days) and i have to cold crash it or i forget it and on the 5th day itll be over attenutated. Im sure it could be brewfather but its why i now check on day 3 where the beer is. I used to just let it go 7 days and check. ill make some notes of this upcoming brew tomorrow and make sure i check and tell everything so i can get some input on it.

 

[bleme]

Vikeman, no like ill leave a starter and pitch the whole thing into some ready wort and it almost always finished super fast(3 days) and i have to cold crash it or i forget it and on the 5th day itll be over attenutated.

If you want a higher FG, I would choose a different yeast or mash higher.

 

[VikeMan]

If you want a higher FG, I would choose a different yeast or mash higher.

...and/or mash shorter, and/or tweak the grain bill.

@deuc224, do you have a recent example of grain bill, mash temp, mash length, and yeast strain? If you can provide that, plus the OG you got, I could tell you approximately where I think the FG should have landed. Sometimes cases on "over attenuation" or "under attenuation" are really a matter of unreasonable expectations.

 

[fendersrule]

I'm not convinced mash times really have much significant value on FG from my experience, unless you are REALLY mashing long (overnight) and to be fair, you'll probably get a higher OG value as well.

Honestly, it's really more so in the grain, mash temp, and type of yeast used.

The easiest correction is to chose a yeast that attenuates at a lower percentage.

 

[jerrylotto]

Ultimately it is just a matter of chemical kinetics if you maintain a reasonable temperature range. alpha and beta amylase work best at different temperatures but the range in whcih they effectively convert starch to sugar overlaps and as long as you don't denature the enzymes (over 170 degrees) they will do their work. Stopping short of full conversion results in higher maltodextrine concentrations (4 to 20-mer polysaccharides) which will result in higher FG as yeast does not convert it to ethnol very well (about 3% efficient). Once you break down all of the polysaccherdes to simple sugars, more mashing won't impact your FG.

 

[VikeMan]

I'm not convinced mash times really have much significant value on FG from my experience, unless you are REALLY mashing long (overnight) and to be fair, you'll probably get a higher OG value as well.

I don't know your definition of significant, but it sounds like there might be more impact than you think. You might want to check out these experiments.

http://www.homebrewersassociation.o...pdf/2012/1616-04 Attenuation - Gregg Doss.pdf
http://braukaiser.com/documents/Effects_of_mash_parameters_on_attenuation_and_efficiency.pdf