First AG batch questions

[Hallowed]

I wish I had thought to check these forums before I brewed my first AG batch last weekend, a Belgian-inspired amber ale. The only major problems I had were:

1) I infused 12# of grain with 18 qts of 164F water for a ratio of 1.5 lbs/qt. I had preheated my MLT (I use a r-maid cooler system), and only missed my mash-in temp by 1 degree, 154 instead of 153. I was able to maintain temperature throughout my 90" mash, while only losing a degree or two. However, when it came time to mash-out, ProMash told me I needed 4.34 qts of 210F water to hit my mash-out temp of 163... I ended up adding twice that much boiling water and still only hit 158F for mashout. What am I missing here?

2) I tried to start sparging, and grain had gotten around my false bottom and clogged my outlet. I ended up having to remove my mash to unclog the outlet, put everything back in, and then commence sparging. Everything worked great after all that, but how could I avoid the problem in the first place? I think the grain got under there when I was stirring, but I'm not sure that it didn't creep under throughout the process... my false bottom is connected to a ball valve using thermoplastic vinyl tubing. Could the tubing be floating from trapped air inside it, since I didn't run my preheat water out through it and dumped from the top instead? Should I look into weights of some kind to hold the false bottom down? Should I just run some water through it right before mash-in to eliminate air, and then hold it down with something during stirring? Or am I overlooking something else entirely?

Other than only getting 58% efficiency and subsequently hitting 1.050 OG instead of about 1.060 which I was shooting for (and the resulting hop bitterness that I didn't account for with a lower OG), the young beer tastes excellent. I just transferred to secondary last night.

Any help is appreciated greatly! Thanks!

Matt

 

[mbird]

You may consider a braided s.s. filter instead of a false bottom. I get good effeciency without any clogging problems. Also, your low efficiency may be a result of either your milling being too coarse or (if sparging) run off too quickly. Regarding mash out, I sparge with 180f. HL and by the end of the sparge the grains still only measure at 160f. or so. I'm not sure but, I think that the only way that you can achieve the mash out temp that promash states is if you stir the HL into solution but I try not to disturb the mash bed like that.
mark
Beer Diary...

 

[ajf]

First, the mash out temperature.

How did you transfer the mash out water to the MLT? If you ladle it, then you will lose a lot of heat to the ladle. If you just pour it in, you shouldn't lose much heat, but you will lose a bit of heat which goes to heating the cooler, and while stirring. I use Promash, have a rubbermaid cooler with a false bottom, and find the Promash water calculation for a mash out infusion comes out just 1 - 2 degrees low (and that I put down to the thermal mass of the cooler).

I have two false bottoms (plastic for the 5g MLT, and SS for the 10g).
With the SS one, I have never had any problems getting grain under it, but with the plastic one, I used to.
I found that adding strike water until it is a couple inches above the top of the outlet tube, and then draining out about 1 cup to flood the outlet before adding any grain, and then adding about 1 qt grain, followed by 1 (or in your case 1.5) qts water while stirring gently fixed the problem.

-a.

 

[blackshirtproud]

I am in the process now of mashing and today and to pre-heat my 10g RM mlt I instead of using hot water I used a hair dryer set on high and layed it in the mlt while the strike water has heating. Mucho quicker and allot more easy than the water method.

Disclaimer=(Use common sense with electricity and wet areas, that is all:cross

 

[Hallowed]

I transferred the mashout water by just dumping it in and stirring.

The more I think about it, the more I think my biggest problem with the false bottom was air trapped in the hose where I didn't run any water through it. Guess I'll find out next batch, huh?

I don't think the efficiency was my runoff, because I was careful to not go above 1 qt. every 2 minutes during recirculation, and I significantly lowered the runoff rate during sparging. I think I took about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes to complete sparging. The grain being too course might be a pretty big contributor, because I don't own a mill yet and had to have Northern Brewer crush my grain for me (I also don't have a LHBS here in WV). I'm going to try to order a mill the next time I get ingredients for a batch, but dunno if I'll have the financial ability.