Brewer's Edge Mash & Boil - 1st brew mixed results

[dukes909]

I received an M&B as a gift recently and tried it out this weekend with so-so results.

I brewed a simple pale ale using 10 lbs of Belgian pale malt. I started the mash with 3 gallons of water and 162F using the .3 gallons water per pound of malt reccy from Brewer's Edge. The mash was ok, I added a very small amount at a time to avoid doughballs and that worked well although the mash was very thick. I reset the mash temp to 151. The temperature on the display fluctuated wildly from as low as 140F to 170F. I guess this is normal???

After an hour I pulled the mash tube and let it drain. By the calculations on the instructions that came with the M&B I should have had to use no more than .75 * 3 gallons sparge water or 2 1/4 gallons. After adding the first gallon of sparge water the sparge got "stuck" and no liquid was flowing. I had to jam a long spoon down into the bottom of the mash tube to get some flow out of the tube. Over & over I had to do this and ended up using another gallon of sparge water entirely to barely reach 5.25 gallons

Anyone else have stuck sparges? Why did I need to use so much more sparge water?

I ended up getting around 67% efficiency vs nearly 80% that I usually get with doing BIAB.

Any recommendations / tips on using this?
Cheers

 

[bpgreen]

The temperature shouldn't fluctuate that much. I don't think it's supposed to fluctuate more than 5 degrees in either direction.

As for the amount of water, 3 gallons for the mash plus 2.25 for sparge is only 5.25 gallons total, shoo that's not really enough even before accounting for absorption by the grain.

Recirculating during the mash might help your efficiency, even if all you do is fill a pitcher from the spigot periodically and pour it back in. Many people use a pump. There's s guy named Tyler Brower who makes and sells a modification to make recirculating with a pump more hands off. I think he posts here, but I don't know his user name. There's a Facebook group for the M&B and he posts there frequently.

I haven't been getting great efficiency, either, but I'm still dialing things in. With a 10 lb grain bill you could probably do a full volume mash.

 

[Rev2010]

I don't have the Mash & Boil, I have the Robobrew V3, but I'm guessing they most likely have similar dead space under the grain basket. For the Robobrew the space under the grain basket is 1.25 gallons. Being my Robobrew has a recirculation pump I turn it on as soon as I start pouring the grains into the strike water. First time I brewed with it I made the mistake of leaving it off as I mashed in and the mash was very thick and drier than I've ever had. So I found turning the pump on immediately fixed that issue and doesn't leave 1.25G just sitting under the grains. Now, your Mash & Boil doesn't come with a pump so I would highly recommend buying one and use it to recirculate your mash.

*EDIT - forgot to add, when mashing in a cooler and boiling outside on a propane burner my previous efficiency was 86%. With the Robobrew I am getting between 81%-83% and that appears to be a result of having to use less sparge water as the boil off rate is much lower on my Robobrew. With the propane burner I used to boil off 1.5 gallons per hour on average and with the Robobrew I only boil off a half gallon in an hour. So it's one less gallon of sparge water to use.


Rev.

 

[Dancy]

I received an M&B as a gift recently and tried it out this weekend with so-so results.

I brewed a simple pale ale using 10 lbs of Belgian pale malt. I started the mash with 3 gallons of water and 162F using the .3 gallons water per pound of malt reccy from Brewer's Edge. The mash was ok, I added a very small amount at a time to avoid doughballs and that worked well although the mash was very thick. I reset the mash temp to 151. The temperature on the display fluctuated wildly from as low as 140F to 170F. I guess this is normal???

After an hour I pulled the mash tube and let it drain. By the calculations on the instructions that came with the M&B I should have had to use no more than .75 * 3 gallons sparge water or 2 1/4 gallons. After adding the first gallon of sparge water the sparge got "stuck" and no liquid was flowing. I had to jam a long spoon down into the bottom of the mash tube to get some flow out of the tube. Over & over I had to do this and ended up using another gallon of sparge water entirely to barely reach 5.25 gallons

Anyone else have stuck sparges? Why did I need to use so much more sparge water?

I ended up getting around 67% efficiency vs nearly 80% that I usually get with doing BIAB.

Any recommendations / tips on using this?
Cheers

Obviously a late response but maybe it’ll help somebody or I’ll receive some input. I too just did my first batch on the M&B yesterday and the same issue with water amounts. I had heard the manual’s water calculations may not be the best but I started with those with the idea I’d learn from it and modify as needed. My results (similar grain bilol, short of 10lbs) were like yours. I did not add more sparge water but simply added more to the kettle. The sparse ran slow but the bag may have been a factor I imagine.

Also, in spite of a double crush, I had to add a pound of DME. I should say I used a Wilser BIAB for the malt pipe. I also squeezed my bag over a colander.

My temp did not fluctuate like yours, just the expected 4-5 degree drop before kicking back up to the set temp.

 

[Coastalbrew]

@Dancy The M&B is a great system. It took me a few brews to get my process dialed in, but once I did I can't imagine doing anything else. I have found that 1.5 to 1.75 qt/lb is a pretty good water to grain ratio for me. The mash is thinner and easier to stir and I've been getting BH efficiencies in the low to mid 80's for all my recent brews. I do manual recirculation, about 1 G at a time in a Pyrex pitcher poured over the grain bed, and stir every 15 minutes during the mash. Typically my mashes end up being about 75 minutes, once the stirring and recirculation are factored in. This probably helps to up my efficiency as well. I also use a bag in my mash pipe, and would recommend always using one. I use a cheapo paint strainer bag, but I've heard good things about Wilser and the brew bag, and will probably pick one of those up at some point. Double crush is working great for me, but I'll say that not everyone's double crush is the same. I've had my grains "double crushed" at several shop mills and there has been a wide variation of coarseness and efficiency from these. I've started getting all my ingredients from atlanticbrewsupply.com and my consistency and efficiency have all gone up dramatically. My suggestion is, if you don't have your own mill, pick one shop and get all your ingredients from them so you can start to have consistency, then you can work on other aspects of your process to dial in your efficiency. If you have your own mill, check your gap, those things can creep. But remember good beer is the goal not high efficiency. The two are not necessarily related, and you can tweak the recipe to achieve your desired gravity based on the efficiency you get on your system.

I'm curious about the rest of your process and why your extraction was so low. When you say you just added water to the kettle, was that pre or post boil? Did you sparge at all? If not that could explain the low gravity reading. Lots of sugar left in the grain bed. If you added the water post boil, that would also explain the low gravity as the wort was diluted.

The only time to use the temp on the display is when you are heating up the strike water and for seeing how close you are to boil. Just ignore it during the mash. I will either keep a thermometer in the grain bed during the mash or will check the temp when I do my stirring and recirculation step every 15 minutes. In my experience, the grain bed is rock solid for the entire hour when I do a 5G batch and with the 3.25 G batches I've been doing lately it will lose about 1*.

Give it a little time and experimentation and you will get there.

Cheers!

 

[Dancy]

@ Coastalbrew - Thanks for the detailed reply. Prior to the BE M&B, I brewed full volume water with a BIAB to fit my 10 gallon Igloo (made by The Brew Bag, also excellent) then transferred to to my kettle sitting on an 1800 watt induction unit. I also double crush thanks to Atlantic Brew Supply as well. I’ll have to brew much more often to justify buying a grain mill. I live in a small condo which makes brewing and storage a challenge.
So using the manual’s calculations I used 2.9G of strike water rounding up to 3G and 2.18G of sparge water rounding down to 2. After the sparge and then squeezing the bag thoroughly, I was a tad under 4 gallons. I added 1.5G water to the kettle at this point to bring volume to nearly 5.5G. By the way, advice I have read about using a flashlight to read the gallon markings while the malt pipe sits on the support is a crock — couldn’t see a thing! I typically calculate for 5.5 G boils not 5.0 but failed to do so here. A 1/2 gallon of boil-off gave me 5G so at the end I also added 1/2G of pre-boiled water so I’d have 5.5G into the fermenter. At that point, gravity was 1.051, adjusted for 66 degrees F. With the 1lb DME added the sugar extraction doesn’t sound as bad as I initially thought given I added a total of 2G of water to the wort! I am confident I will dial it in as I did so quite well with my previous process. By the way, I stirred the mash frequently.
A couple of distractions — one being working height. I don’t want the unit on the floor as the instrument panel is too low with a bad back and knees; however, the 30+” kitchen cart height is too high — and awkward, even though I’m 6’3”. I am now looking for a lower cart. Also, I found out the hard way the Wilser Bag needed to be clamped to the malt pipe because when I poured the grain, it slid down and an ever so small amount of grain went down the side. I recovered and clamped it but those few tiny grains periodically clogged the M&B pump. Luckily, I could turn it off for a few seconds, turn it back on and it was fine for a bit until a piece of grain would find its way to the pump. Next time will be better with lesson learned about clamping the bag in place prior to pouring the grain. No hop trub to worry about as I used a hop spider.

 

[Coastalbrew]

@ Coastalbrew - Thanks for the detailed reply. Prior to the BE M&B, I brewed full volume water with a BIAB to fit my 10 gallon Igloo (made by The Brew Bag, also excellent) then transferred to to my kettle sitting on an 1800 watt induction unit. I also double crush thanks to Atlantic Brew Supply as well. I’ll have to brew much more often to justify buying a grain mill. I live in a small condo which makes brewing and storage a challenge.
So using the manual’s calculations I used 2.9G of strike water rounding up to 3G and 2.18G of sparge water rounding down to 2. After the sparge and then squeezing the bag thoroughly, I was a tad under 4 gallons. I added 1.5G water to the kettle at this point to bring volume to nearly 5.5G. By the way, advice I have read about using a flashlight to read the gallon markings while the malt pipe sits on the support is a crock — couldn’t see a thing! I typically calculate for 5.5 G boils not 5.0 but failed to do so here. A 1/2 gallon of boil-off gave me 5G so at the end I also added 1/2G of pre-boiled water so I’d have 5.5G into the fermenter. At that point, gravity was 1.051, adjusted for 66 degrees F. With the 1lb DME added the sugar extraction doesn’t sound as bad as I initially thought given I added a total of 2G of water to the wort! I am confident I will dial it in as I did so quite well with my previous process. By the way, I stirred the mash frequently.
A couple of distractions — one being working height. I don’t want the unit on the floor as the instrument panel is too low with a bad back and knees; however, the 30+” kitchen cart height is too high — and awkward, even though I’m 6’3”. I am now looking for a lower cart. Also, I found out the hard way the Wilser Bag needed to be clamped to the malt pipe because when I poured the grain, it slid down and an ever so small amount of grain went down the side. I recovered and clamped it but those few tiny grains periodically clogged the M&B pump. Luckily, I could turn it off for a few seconds, turn it back on and it was fine for a bit until a piece of grain would find its way to the pump. Next time will be better with lesson learned about clamping the bag in place prior to pouring the grain. No hop trub to worry about as I used a hop spider.

Other than your water volumes being to low to start and adding water in, it sounds like everything was on the right track. I use the strike water calculator on Brewer's friend and the sparge water calculator at more beer for my water calculations and they seem to get me pretty close. Is 66* the correct temp adjustment for your hydrometer? All the ones I've seen are calibrated to 60*. It's not a huge difference, but it will change the reading slightly. I agree it is hard to read the volume on the sides. The flashlight helps some, but I still have to lift the grain pipe to really see. I keep my unit on a wooden chair during the brew day. It's a good working height for me during the mash, and after the boil I just slide my fermenter bucket under the valve, open it up and let 'er rip. I've seen some people that use those folding scaffold platforms you can get at lowes hardware for their brew platforms. Seems to work pretty good too. I intentionally bought the unit with no pump so I wouldn't have to deal with the pump clogging, I'm sure the clamps will help out next time. I use those metal spring clips you can get at the office supply stores. They work pretty good, but can be a little sharp on the bag. I've seen on the M&B Facebook group there is a drain pipe modification you can get for the pump version that folks seem to like. Looks like it sets the unit up more like the robobrew or grain father. If you're not on the group already, you should check it out, there's a lot of good info and resources there.

Cheers!

 

[beer2d2]

I had one that I brewed several good beers on. I set mine up a bit differently though. I purchased a small dc pump and recirculated the wort out of the bottom valve and into the grain basket on top. I also purchased a Water Boiler . Once the mash was done I pulled the basket out and used the dc motor to pump hot water from the water boiler over the top of the raised grain basket. I was able to get 82 to 85 % efficiency this way. My only problem with it, is you cant make high gravity beers with the limited space available for grains.

 

[Snuffy]

I've brewed with an M&B basic no-pump unit for a couple of years now and there are some things I've learned that helped with getting the mash efficiency up. The only time I have not hit the expected OG was when I was buying grain kits from AIH. I had a couple that I really had to inspect to see that the grain had been cracked at all. Still made good beer. I've been buying from Great Fermentations for a little while now, and those folks have the mill set right. Good prices too.

I usually start out with 1.5 qt of water per lb of mash. Once I reach mash temp, I stir grain in slowly and then add some hot water to get the stirrable consistency I'm looking for - if necessary. Also, when the unit reaches mash temp, I flip it from 1600 watts to the 1000 watt setting to minimize the temp fluctuations. That seems to be the only reason they have that setting. I stir a lot at the beginning and then every 15 minutes or so I stir well again and Vorlauf about 3 times with a big pyrex measuring cup. At the end of mash I do it yet again and then raise the pipe. I sparge to boil volume by tilting the pipe enough to see the markings in the tank with a flashlight. I make sure I position the unit before filling so the marks are directly across and easy to see. You don't have to tilt it much. I use a rolling cart to set the unit on and it makes seeing the screen and the marks easy. Then I use a step stool to add sparge water. I'd rather climb than stoop.

(Remember to flip back to 1600 watts before boil)

I usually start boil a bit under the suggested pre-boil volume. I would rather top it up than have to boil off extra water. I use a hop spider for large volumes of hops. If it's something with a single early add I may just toss it in. If I add any extracts, or honey or additional sugar, I turn off the element and stir like hell to keep it from scorching and then turn it on again. I've only tripped the breaker on it once and that was when adding extract with the element on.

I have been happy with the M&B. I just bought a Grainfather from an individual and will begin brewing with it soon, but I plan to keep the M&B for now for the occasional extract brew and as a sparge water heater. It's been well worth the money. It takes some effort to get the best efficiency you can from it, but I usually get 70- 75% and have gotten 80% with smaller 3-gal batches. Probably because they're easier to stir and sparge.

 

[Dancy]

I usually start out with 1.5 qt of water per lb of mash, stir grain in slowly and then add some hot water to get the stirrable consistency I'm looking for - if necessary.

I usually start boil a bit under the suggested pre-boil volume. I would rather top it up than have to boil off extra water. I use a hop spider for large volumes of hops.

Thanks for sharing your experience! I feel very positive about the unit and know I’ll close in on my water numbers as I’ve successfully done that before with my previous process. I think I’ll like the recirc pump as long as I don’t spill any grain down the side of the mash pipe.

 

[Dancy]

Is 66* the correct temp adjustment for your hydrometer? All the ones I've seen are calibrated to 60*. It's not a huge difference, but it will change the reading slightly.Cheers!

Yeah, the paperwork that came with it indicates it is calibrated for 60F. I cool samples down as much as I can and then use a calculator which compensates for the sample temp being a few degrees to high.
Right now I’m feeling okay about the pump because next time I won’t spill any grain down the side. If I don’t use it, it isn’t a big deal as it isn’t an absolute necessity.
Overall, I feel good about the M&B and it WILL go more smoothly next time.