BIAB, mashing out. How much can that increase efficiency?

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Elysium

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I have already brewed using my BIAB system. I got 65% efficiency, but didnt mash-out. Can anyone tell me what it is exactly for (the mashing out) and how much it can increase my efficiency?

Thanks.
 
Whether or not a "mash out" ( most homebrewers don't do a true mash out) will increase your efficiency depends on what conversion efficiency you're getting. If it's low, raising the temp at the end of the mash will help further gelatinize starches and may increase your efficiency. If your conversion efficiency is high, raising the temp won't help much, if at all.
 
Whether or not a "mash out" ( most homebrewers don't do a true mash out) will increase your efficiency depends on what conversion efficiency you're getting. If it's low, raising the temp at the end of the mash will help further gelatinize starches and may increase your efficiency. If your conversion efficiency is high, raising the temp won't help much, if at all.

^this. I sparge with all different temps of water and have mashed for various lengths of time, meaning my first runnings were at various temps when run-off...never changed my 80% efficiency one bit.
 
I do a mash out with my process. Whether it helps or not, I don't know...

I bring my mash up to 170 while stirring constantly. Takes about 10 minutes. Then I let the mash sit for 10 min. Then I pull the bag, let it drain a little, the place it in a bucket to drain more. Once the boil has gotten going, I will dump the bucket into the kettle to get the remaining drippings.

I don't know if it helps. Your wort will denature enzymes as it boils so that is not the purpose. I tend to think the higher temp mash and the stirring just dissolves more sugar.

It works for me but YRMV. I got better than 80% efficiency in my most recent batch.
 
I think that if you check charts of sugar solubility vs. temp you'll likely find very little, if any, benefit in terms of sugar dissolution.
 
I have already brewed using my BIAB system. I got 65% efficiency, but didnt mash-out. Can anyone tell me what it is exactly for (the mashing out) and how much it can increase my efficiency?

Thanks.

Do not always expect 80+% with BIAB. From my experience the efficiency you obtain will be effected by the FG of the beer. I recently did a RIS with FG of 1.106 and got only around low 60s%. For low gravity beers I expect 80+%.

I believe sparging to be more important than mashout with BIAB. But since it takes no more effort to raise the temperature for a mashout I always do it.
 
Do not always expect 80+% with BIAB. From my experience the efficiency you obtain will be effected by the FG of the beer. I recently did a RIS with FG of 1.106 and got only around low 60s%. For low gravity beers I expect 80+%.

I believe sparging to be more important than mashout with BIAB. But since it takes no more effort to raise the temperature for a mashout I always do it.

I am talking about normal ales (those are the ones I normally brew) with OG of 1.053. So I should be able to get 70-75% efficiency, instead of 60%.

I'll mash out next time and tea-bag with the mashbag. Thanks for the info/reply.
 
From my experience the efficiency you obtain will be effected by the OG of the beer. I recently did a RIS with FG of 1.106 and got only around low 60s%. For low gravity beers I expect 80+%.

Agreed 100%.
With my 1.100 Barleywine I got about 65%.
With my 1.035 Berliner Weisse I got 88%.

Your OG will overwhelmingly be your efficiency driver with other factors being secondary at best.
 
Is the general "efficiency" that everyone is referring to the "Ending Kettle Efficiency" (as in the OG and the Fermenter Volume)? I'm just trying to make sense of the numbers that Brewers Friend is giving me. My last batch my efficiencies were as follows:

Conversion: 96% (mash+sparge volume & total sugars possible)
Pre-Boil: 86% (pre-boil volume & gravity)
Ending Kettle: 83% (post boil volume & gravity)
Brew-House: 69% (fermenter volume & gravity)

So would I say I'm getting 96%, 83% or 69%? The loss between my BK and fermenter has been high (~1G) because of a large amount of trub & hop material (not using a hop bag for my pellets and using an ice bath slow cool method) so that accounts for the low Brew-House efficiency. Basically as you go down the list my efficiency goes down because of volume lost, not because I'm not converting sugars. 96% conversion seems pretty awesome to me!
 
I also tea bag. But you will get better efficiency if you squeeze the bag, and then place it in a pot with some water for a few minutes, just to further dissolve sugars into the water. This is especially true with higher gravity beers, such as the MidWest Bourbon Barrel Old Ale.
 
I also tea bag. But you will get better efficiency if you squeeze the bag, and then place it in a pot with some water for a few minutes, just to further dissolve sugars into the water. This is especially true with higher gravity beers, such as the MidWest Bourbon Barrel Old Ale.

Why does it have to be a seperate pot with water? How about after squeezing, putting the mash bag back in the oiriginal pot? Doesnt that help to increase efficiency too?
 
Why does it have to be a seperate pot with water? How about after squeezing, putting the mash bag back in the oiriginal pot? Doesnt that help to increase efficiency too?

No. Because the water doesn't have sugars in it to "stick" back on the grain. You want to rinse the grain of all of the sugars you can, not just submerge it in a sugary solution.

Just like when you use a washing machine. You drain the soapy water, and then rinse and agitate with clean water. You can't rinse effectively in the same solution.

I hope that makes sense.
 
No. Because the water doesn't have sugars in it to "stick" back on the grain. You want to rinse the grain of all of the sugars you can, not just submerge it in a sugary solution.

Just like when you use a washing machine. You drain the soapy water, and then rinse and agitate with clean water. You can't rinse effectively in the same solution.

I hope that makes sense.

It does. Thanks.
 
No. Because the water doesn't have sugars in it to "stick" back on the grain. You want to rinse the grain of all of the sugars you can, not just submerge it in a sugary solution.

Just like when you use a washing machine. You drain the soapy water, and then rinse and agitate with clean water. You can't rinse effectively in the same solution.

I hope that makes sense.
+

Yooper, do me a favour please and tell me what is the grain/water ratio for this type of rinsing of the grains? Thanks.
 
+

Yooper, do me a favour please and tell me what is the grain/water ratio for this type of rinsing of the grains? Thanks.

It doesn't matter. You can use as much as you need to reach your boil volume. You can even go without a sparge, but it does increase efficiency a bit.

If you have, say, 5 gallons of runnings after the mash with the BIAB, and you want to start with 6.5 gallons for your boil, you can use as little as 1.5 gallons so that you have the boil volume you need.

I'm not any sort of expert on BIAB, but I think many BIABers mash with the full volume and skip the sparging step if their pot is big enough.
 
It doesn't matter. You can use as much as you need to reach your boil volume. You can even go without a sparge, but it does increase efficiency a bit.

If you have, say, 5 gallons of runnings after the mash with the BIAB, and you want to start with 6.5 gallons for your boil, you can use as little as 1.5 gallons so that you have the boil volume you need.

I'm not any sort of expert on BIAB, but I think many BIABers mash with the full volume and skip the sparging step if their pot is big enough.

I hear you...but I wanna try this since I wanna increase my efficiency. :) Thanks for the info.
 
It doesn't matter. You can use as much as you need to reach your boil volume. You can even go without a sparge, but it does increase efficiency a bit.

If you have, say, 5 gallons of runnings after the mash with the BIAB, and you want to start with 6.5 gallons for your boil, you can use as little as 1.5 gallons so that you have the boil volume you need.

I'm not any sort of expert on BIAB, but I think many BIABers mash with the full volume and skip the sparging step if their pot is big enough.

Sorry to bother you with more questions...but there is one more thing I'd like to understand. For this "clean water and the mash bag" idea...what temperature shall I use? The mash or mash-out temperature?
 
Sorry to bother you with more questions...but there is one more thing I'd like to understand. For this "clean water and the mash bag" idea...what temperature shall I use? The mash or mash-out temperature?

It doesn't matter. Warmer is thought to increase solubility of the sugars, but it's pretty insignificant.
 
>>If you have, say, 5 gallons of runnings after the mash with the BIAB, and you want to start with 6.5 gallons for your boil, you can use as little as 1.5 gallons so that you have the boil volume you need.

1.5 gallons is reasonable. Depending on how much grain. I plop the bag in a pot and pour on around 1.5 gallons and let it sit a bit, while stirring occasionally. Get it all submerged if possible. Churn it so all the grains get exposed.


>.Sorry to bother you with more questions...but there is one more thing I'd like to understand. For this "clean water and the mash bag" idea...what temperature shall I use? The mash or mash-out temperature?

Ideally 168, but I plop the bag in water thats room temperature. The negative is it takes longer to get to boiling when I dump it in my kettle. I may try heating my water on the stove next time.
 
For me, good crush + stirring like mad every 15 minutes during the mash + squeezing the hell out of the bag = vast improvement in efficiency. I went from undershooting my OG by about ten points on two 1.070 brews to nailing a 1.090 just with those steps. I mashed out for the first two and didn't on the third which leads me to believe mashing out doesn't make a ton of difference. I did dunk the bag for the last brew, but from what I've read the difference is negligible for full volume BIAB. The only reason I sparged is because I had to hold about a gallon back because the mash volume was too much for my pot.
 
A few things to add. . .

While it is believed that a mash out can increase your efficiency, I believe it's more of a side effect of the intended purpose. . . which is to set the fermentability of the mash. On the level in which we do things (very small in comparison), it is pretty easy and quick to get things moving in a direction that will denature the enzymes (as in, starting to heat towards boil) and set the mash profile. At larger scale, where the practice was likely developed, it makes a lot more sense since it takes a while to transfer those amounts liquids. Someone probably said "well, if that is the way (insert your favorite craft brewery here) does it, I should too." My best advice, find what works best for you and your system. At this point I will share how I do it. . . even though I'm not a BIAB brewer. When I drain my mash tun after my mash time is completed I immediately put my BK on the burner and begin heating it up. This should denature the enzymes and set my mash profile, with the added benefit of shaving time off my brewday that I would otherwise spend waiting to collect the rest of my wort. I then sparge with hot water (~170F) with the idea of raising the grain bed temp near 168 but I'm never overly concerned with being exactly precise with that step. . . as long as it comes in slightly below 170 I am happy. Does it help? No idea, but it creates no extra work on my system.

If I were to BIAB I would likely go for full volume mash (adjusting the grain bill if needed to compensate for efficiency) and at the end of my mash I would raise the temp of the whole kettle to 168 (stirring while I did it). At that point I'd pull the grains and let them drip into the kettle until the boil started. At that point I would discard the grain.

Secondly, If you do sparge (or mash out) it is a generally considered a bad idea to do so about 170F as it can extract tannins from the grains that are usually considered undesirable in beer.
 
Secondly, If you do sparge (or mash out) it is a generally considered a bad idea to do so about 170F as it can extract tannins from the grains that are usually considered undesirable in beer.

I very much agree with all of your post but this. As long as the pH is OK, going above 170 produces very little risk of tannin extraction. If going above 170 was a problem in itself, then anyone who did a decoction mash would end up with undesirable tannins.
 
I very much agree with all of your post but this. As long as the pH is OK, going above 170 produces very little risk of tannin extraction. If going above 170 was a problem in itself, then anyone who did a decoction mash would end up with undesirable tannins.

Good point. You are exactly right. As soon as I read it I remembered learning that somewhere else once also. Now I just have to figure out what it is about 170F that sticks in my head.
 
Good point. You are exactly right. As soon as I read it I remembered learning that somewhere else once also. Now I just have to figure out what it is about 170F that sticks in my head.

I did extract brewing when I started and 170F was the magic number to not go above when steeping the specialty grains due to risk of tannin extraction.

Doesn't tannin extraction have something to do with volume of the grains? With the small amount of steeping grains used in extract, I always thought that was the reason it was easier to have tannins produced when going over 170?
 
A few things to add. . .
If I were to BIAB I would likely go for full volume mash (adjusting the grain bill if needed to compensate for efficiency) and at the end of my mash I would raise the temp of the whole kettle to 168 (stirring while I did it). At that point I'd pull the grains and let them drip into the kettle until the boil started. At that point I would discard the grain.

This is pretty much the preferred method for BIAB. The 'sparge' occurs after the mashout when you let the grains drain into the kettle.

Problem for me is, I don't have a large enough kettle to accomplish this unless I was doing 3 gallon batches which I don't like to do. So I use a two kettle system where I do the mash in a 7.5 gal kettle and then sparge in a 5 gal kettle to get my pre-boil volume up to where I want for a 5 gal batch.
 
I did extract brewing when I started and 170F was the magic number to not go above when steeping the specialty grains due to risk of tannin extraction.

Doesn't tannin extraction have something to do with volume of the grains? With the small amount of steeping grains used in extract, I always thought that was the reason it was easier to have tannins produced when going over 170?

http://***********/stories/item/126...me--reducing-tannins-but-not-flavor-mr-wizard
Second story in the above link implies that above ph 6 it is easier to extract tannins: Just as you said, with less grains and more water, the water is not lowered to as low a ph and so more tannin extraction is possible.
 
I did extract brewing when I started and 170F was the magic number to not go above when steeping the specialty grains due to risk of tannin extraction.

Doesn't tannin extraction have something to do with volume of the grains? With the small amount of steeping grains used in extract, I always thought that was the reason it was easier to have tannins produced when going over 170?

Yeah, that's true. Because you have less grain to lower pH, tannin extraction is a bit more likely. That's why I recommend people use a ratio similar to mashing for steeping.
 
I always raise my mash temp up to 168 at the end and then pull the bag as well. It seems to work well and I get good efficiency. And as everyone else has noted, efficiency varies with the OG, with low gravity beers getting my 80%+, and higher gravity around 70.

I pull the bag and rig up some kind of drainage system using a large flat container and a baking pan inclined inside of it. I just squeeze against the baking pan and the run-off collects at the bottom. Based on some of the comments, I may try to keep a little water back to use as sparge water. That seems like a good idea, as long as it doesn't lower the efficiency of the main pot.
 
So, this last brew I decided to do an experiment.

At the end of my mash time, I gave the mash a good stir and took a reading. 10.2 brix

I then raised the bag off the bottom, fired up the burner, and brought it up to 168 before pulling the bag. 10.8 brix

Squeezed the dickens out of the bag and dumped in the results. 10.8 brix

So, I realize that these are one time results, and that they do not prove that the increase in sugar is due to temperature rather than time. However, it is enough evidence for me to continue what I have been doing. It also would indicate that draining and squeezing the bag only increases volume not efficiency. However, since I get about another 1/2 gallon from that, I will continue to do it as well.

I plan to repeat this on my next few brews to verify my results. It's only a few drops more wort and a couple of seconds, so why not?
 
...

It also would indicate that draining and squeezing the bag only increases volume not efficiency. ...

I don't agree. If you squeeze you get more volume with sugar in it. Same for sparging. You can then evaporate this water and end up with a higher OG.

Squeezing + sparging give you more total sugar, though the sparge wort is weaker than the main wort. Which is why I don't mash in all the water, and instead hold some back.

Using BIAB take 15 pounds of grain and mash in 8 gallons. Then raise teh bag and take a reading.

Later on take mash 15 pounds in 6 gallons, pull out the bag, squeeze/drain, then put it in 2 gallons of water for 5 minutes, while stirring, pull out the bag, squeeze, and add in the runnings, and take a reading. I'll bet you the 2nd wort has a lot more sugar, even though both are around 6.5 gallons.
 
Later on take mash 15 pounds in 6 gallons, pull out the bag, squeeze/drain, then put it in 2 gallons of water for 5 minutes, while stirring, pull out the bag, squeeze, and add in the runnings, and take a reading. I'll bet you the 2nd wort has a lot more sugar, even though both are around 6.5 gallons.
I have also found that even ghetto sparge seems to result in less residual sugar left in the grain.

Lately I have been reserving a small percentage of the mash water, say a gallon for an 8 gallon batch and slowly pouring it over the bag as it is suspended over the kettle.

I don't have any hard evidence, but my spent grain no longer has a sticky feel to it...the grain bag seems better rinsed, that's the ultimate goal simply put. Even a couple quarts of cold water will work FWIW.
cheers!
 
i do the same thing. i use less water than i am going to need and i do the ghetto sparge. i use a colander to spread the water evenly across all the grains so i rinse them all off. i think if you dont do this then you are missing out on the sugar left on the grains. besides you need to add water to bring you up to your pre-boil volume so why not do it?
 
I don't agree. If you squeeze you get more volume with sugar in it. Same for sparging. You can then evaporate this water and end up with a higher OG.

Squeezing + sparging give you more total sugar, though the sparge wort is weaker than the main wort. Which is why I don't mash in all the water, and instead hold some back.

Using BIAB take 15 pounds of grain and mash in 8 gallons. Then raise teh bag and take a reading.

Later on take mash 15 pounds in 6 gallons, pull out the bag, squeeze/drain, then put it in 2 gallons of water for 5 minutes, while stirring, pull out the bag, squeeze, and add in the runnings, and take a reading. I'll bet you the 2nd wort has a lot more sugar, even though both are around 6.5 gallons.

Sorry, I didn't really think out what I was trying to say. My point was that performing a mash-out increased my pre-boil gravity, whereas squeezing resulted in an increased volume of the same gravity.

As far as sparging goes, it defeats my purpose for going BIAB in the first place. I am a firm believer in the KISS theory. A second vessel and additional steps kind of goes against that. Besides, when I'm running 85-95% mash efficiency, I don't see it being worth the effort.

Don't get me wrong...if it works for you, great...keep on making and drinking great beer. :D
 
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