correct mashing procedure

[Mskin]

I'm following this recipe....

http://www.eckraus.com/blog/heady-topper-double-ipa-clone-recipe

I will say im happy with results thus far... i've attempted it twice. I'm unclear why my original gravity after the boil is 1.058 as opposed to the 1.078. I assume this has to do mash efficiency, but i'd like some input.

Im dealing with about 15.75 lb of grains. if i calculate 1.5 quarts per pound, i would need almost 6 gallons to mash. If i go with 1.25 quarts per pound, i would need about 5 gallons in the mash. I have read that an "oatmeal" consistency is desirable, I used 4 gallons in the mash - in at 175 and the temp leveled at 154 while dropping 2 degrees over the hour. i poured the remaining 3 gallons in at 200 degrees to bring the mash temp up to 175ish (not sure if this is apporpriate or not) - then slowly drained for about 1/2 hour. out of the mash the SG was 1.048. I boiled for an hour and ended with about 5 gallons in the fermentor at 1.058 sg).

Is this considered a poor efficient mash? how do i improve this?

 

[jojacques]

Subscribed - need to learn on this topic too.

 

[TriggerHappy]

Ok, so I know somone more scientific will jump on here and give you actual numbers and what not, I just have my experiences. First, what are you mashing in? When I mash I do a single infusion in an igloo cooler Mash/lauter tun. I usually mash with 1.25-1.5 qts/lb like you said. That means that amount of hot H2O goes in my tun then I add my grains slowly and stirring so there are no dough balls. When done adding grain I stir the heck out of it to make sure all the grains are wet and doing what they should be doing and I stir it up about 2 more times during the mash. After an hour I recirc my mash slowly filling pitchers and pouring them on top. I then have it flow slowly into my boil kettle while running hot H2O on top either by way of pitchers if at a friends or a suspended kettle if at home. I usually shoot for about 6.5 gal preboil and then boil vigorously for an hour. You are lower than you should be on your gravity, should be about 1.058 preboil and finish in the mid 1.060s. Hope this helps, like I said, someone will get you some great super-scientific info and some may tell you I am wrong. It is just my way of doing things and it makes wort so the yeast can make me some beer.

 

[kev211]

15.75lbs of what grains? Sounds like you didnt sparge but instead added additional water straight to the mash? I would definitely recommend sparging which essentially rinses the grains of any residual sugars after draining your mash. So that could be your first problem.

Second, I would strongly recommend a water calculator to calculate how much water you need for the mash and sparge. I usually run close to 1.5qts/lb and my efficiency is roughly 75-80% (not the highest in the world, but definitely not low)

 

[FirstAidBrewing]

I plugged the numbers into BeerSmith and to get an OG of 1.078, they are assuming an efficiency of about 68%. to have a SG of 1.058, you are more around 50, which is not that great, sorry to say.

The recipe called for a mash at 150, so at 154 you were a bit high, and therefore producing a less fermentable wort. Those 4 degrees make a big difference.

Based on your description, it looks like you also didn't sparge, which is basically leaving fermentables on the table.

That with the ever popular question of how well your grain was crushed probably all contributed to your low efficiency. But don't worry, it will still be beer!

 

[Mskin]

Grains:

8 lbs. American two-row malt
5 lbs. German pilsner malt
1 lb. Carapils malt
1 lb. wheat malt
.75 lb. honey malt

Vessel:
A converted 10galon cooler from home depot, with a ball valve and filter screen picked up from local brew supply

My process follows this exactly: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMHLqnWCNjE[/ame]

 

[kev211]

Grains:

8 lbs. American two-row malt
5 lbs. German pilsner malt
1 lb. Carapils malt
1 lb. wheat malt
.75 lb. honey malt

Vessel:
A converted 10galon cooler from home depot, with a ball valve and filter screen picked up from local brew supply

My process follows this exactly

Assuming you ended with ~5.5 gallons you were at 54% efficiency, which is low. But like FirstAidBrewing said, you will still have beer so thats good.

Based on your description you gave originally you didnt sparge. But the guy in the video did, so I dont know. I dont really understand why he adds the hot water towards the end of the mash. If it were me (sounds like a half-baked step mash), this is what I would do...


Mash:

-Strike Water: 6 gal, ~164degrees (will drop to about 152 once grains are added and it brings the cooler up to temp)
-Add grains, stir occasionally.
-Vorlauf (remove a few quarts of water and re-add to the mash to get rid of the particles) and continue to drain the mash til empty.
-Batch Sparge: Add 4 gal water @ 170degrees for 10-15 mins. Repeat vorlauf and drain into kettle with first mash wort.
-Boil

The batch sparge (or fly sparge if you prefer) essentially rinses the grains of any residual sugars that were left behind.

 

[Damocles74]

I've had similar problems with mash efficiency. The guy at the homebrew store told me he keeps grains mashing in the cooler for hours!

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1454438555.598787.jpg

I usually chaptalize with some DME if my all-grain efficiency is low.

 

[eric19312]

Adding hot water at the end of the mash is one way to do a mash out. As a beginner you don't need to worry about mash out or other step mash procedures.

You do need to sparge. You can either fly sparge or batch sparge. I'd start out with batch sparging cause your equipment is probably aready set up to do that.

Use an online calculator such as Brewers Friend to figure out the quantities and temperatures.

 

[doug293cz]

I'm following this recipe....

http://www.eckraus.com/blog/heady-topper-double-ipa-clone-recipe

I will say im happy with results thus far... i've attempted it twice. I'm unclear why my original gravity after the boil is 1.058 as opposed to the 1.078. I assume this has to do mash efficiency, but i'd like some input.

Im dealing with about 15.75 lb of grains. if i calculate 1.5 quarts per pound, i would need almost 6 gallons to mash. If i go with 1.25 quarts per pound, i would need about 5 gallons in the mash. I have read that an "oatmeal" consistency is desirable, I used 4 gallons in the mash - in at 175 and the temp leveled at 154 while dropping 2 degrees over the hour. i poured the remaining 3 gallons in at 200 degrees to bring the mash temp up to 175ish (not sure if this is apporpriate or not) - then slowly drained for about 1/2 hour. out of the mash the SG was 1.048. I boiled for an hour and ended with about 5 gallons in the fermentor at 1.058 sg).

Is this considered a poor efficient mash? how do i improve this?

Your volumes don't add up. To yield 5 gal to the fermenter with a 1 gal boil off, you would have needed 6 gal pre-boil volume. 15.75 lbs of grain is going to absorb about 1.97 gal of liquid at the typical 0.125 gal/lb absorption rate. You only used 7 gal (4 strike + 3 mash out) of water in your mash, so you could only have collected about 5 gal (7 - 2) of pre-boil volume. There had to be more water from somewhere, or your boil was incredibly weak and lost almost no volume.

Given your OG, and making some assumptions to get your volumes to be consistent, your mash efficiency was about 52%, which is quite low. Mash efficiency is equal to conversion efficiency times lauter efficiency. For a no-sparge process (which is what you used) with your grain bill and pre-boil volume, the lauter efficiency would be about 69%, leaving your conversion efficiency at about 75%. Conversion efficiency should be 95% or better for a "completed" mash. The information you got on thick mashes being desirable is incorrect. Kai Troester reports that thinner mashes (higher water to grain ratio) convert faster than thicker mashes, and often result in higher conversion efficiency.

Things you can do to increase your conversion efficiency:

• Crush your grain finer. Smaller grits convert faster and more completely than coarser grits.
• Mash with more strike water.
• Mash longer.
• Insure your mash pH is between 5.3 - 5.6 (check the Brew Science section of HBT.)

Grains:

8 lbs. American two-row malt
5 lbs. German pilsner malt
1 lb. Carapils malt
1 lb. wheat malt
.75 lb. honey malt

Vessel:
A converted 10galon cooler from home depot, with a ball valve and filter screen picked up from local brew supply

My process follows this exactly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMHLqnWCNjE

Actually, you didn't follow the video's process exactly. According to your OP, you left out the sparge step (you didn't add sparge [rinse] water after you drained the mash.) Sparging extracts more of the sugar from the mash than a no-sparge process. Had you sparged you could have upped your lauter efficiency to about 77% (from 69%), and your mash efficiency to 58% from (52%.) The chart below illustrates the lauter efficiency difference for no-sparge vs. sparge. For conventional MLT applications, you want to compare the bottom solid line to the bottom dot-dash line (0.12 gal/lb grain absorption rate.)



Brew on

 

[TriggerHappy]

After watching the video and seeing your description I would make sure and mash with the full amount of liquid. You can still mash out like he did, I usually don't do that step, vorlauf (I do more than 2 qts) and make sure and sparge, he batch sparged, I fly sparge, but make sure you rinse those grains.

 

[TexasWine]

I'm following this recipe....

http://www.eckraus.com/blog/heady-topper-double-ipa-clone-recipe

I will say im happy with results thus far... i've attempted it twice. I'm unclear why my original gravity after the boil is 1.058 as opposed to the 1.078. I assume this has to do mash efficiency, but i'd like some input.

Im dealing with about 15.75 lb of grains. if i calculate 1.5 quarts per pound, i would need almost 6 gallons to mash. If i go with 1.25 quarts per pound, i would need about 5 gallons in the mash. I have read that an "oatmeal" consistency is desirable, I used 4 gallons in the mash - in at 175 and the temp leveled at 154 while dropping 2 degrees over the hour. i poured the remaining 3 gallons in at 200 degrees to bring the mash temp up to 175ish (not sure if this is apporpriate or not) - then slowly drained for about 1/2 hour. out of the mash the SG was 1.048. I boiled for an hour and ended with about 5 gallons in the fermentor at 1.058 sg).

Is this considered a poor efficient mash? how do i improve this?

Just a suggestion, but it would be helpful to those assisting you with trouble shooting if you could take a few more measurements, your pre-boil volume being one of them. Also, if you really want to get to the root of your issue I would recommend getting a little more precise with your volume measurements. Being off my even 1 quart can mean a big swing in efficiency. Is about 5 gallons 4.75 or 5.25?

But as pointed out by others, actually doing a sparge is going to result in a nice bump in your efficiency. What you've effectively done here it seems is a full volume mash. Although even with that it's curious your efficiency wasn't higher. Lots of BIABers who do full volume mash get efficiency in the 80% range.

And.... I wouldn't worry about sticking with a specific qt/lb ratio. I'd recommend making your mash as thin as possible, within the volume restrictions of your mash tun. The thinner mash helps with conversion, and I suspect you're having conversion issues.

 

[Mskin]

Thanks Doug. I get it, I confused adding the strike water (the 200 degree add at the end) for sparging. A number of rookie mistakes and lack of understanding, next time will be better.

 

[Rev2010]

Thanks Doug. I get it, I confused adding the strike water (the 200 degree add at the end) for sparging. A number of rookie mistakes and lack of understanding, next time will be better.

Strike water is the water you add to start your mash. But for next time, when you're done mashing you want to collect what is called your "first runnings". You will drain the wort out of the mash tun and vorlauf (gently pour the wort back on top of the grain bed - usually better to pour along the mash tun walls). Then you will runoff again and repeat. Once you see that the wort you are collecting is relatively free or grain bits you can then drain out to your brew kettle. After that, you then add your sparge water and stir it up really good. I personally do two batch sparges (half volume each - so say 5G of sparge water would be two separate infusions of 2.5G of water, vorlauf, drain, repeat) but some here do just one with the full volume of sparge water.

The first addition of sparge water brings my mash temp to 168, which essentially also does a "mash out" (ie. stops any leftover conversion). A mash out really isn't all that necessary in general so don't worry about what the video taught you.

Best of luck with the next go!


Rev.