Lauter gravity sampling

[L_A_Brewing]

I have scoured the internet and could not find what I was looking for, so if I’m touching on a topic that I simply didn’t use the right search criteria please point me in the right direction. For my question, how are you taking gravity samples during the lauter process? I ask, because I’m sure everyone knows that the important consideration during this process is to stop when the gravity hits 1.010 to keep from pulling unwanted tannins from the mash. The issue is, how do you know how you’re doing IN PROCESS. Otherwise we are beholden to taking a measurement at the start of the process and at the end when everything is done. This doesn’t give you any in situ status on how you’re doing. I’m tempted to start down a path of adding a grant to my system, but before I invest the time and money of it, I wanted to know what everyone is doing first.

 

[day_trippr]

I do fly sparge but I do not check runoff gravity "on the fly". I record the "last runnings" gravity and pH and rationalize what happened after the brew day is done, checking the yield and adjusting the recipe if needed to pad the grist a bit. In all the brews I've done over the years the percentage of brews that were close to dropping below 1.010 (or rising over pH 5.6) can't be much higher than 1 in 20. My brew house efficiency is around 78% which is a comfortable place to be - don't need to sweat much

Cheers!

 

[Sammy86]

I’ve done batch sparging and fly sparging over the course of my brewing career. Never once like @day_trippr have I measured the runoff on the fly.

Why you might ask because at our scale and level 1. I’m not sure I’ll get below 1.010 and two I’m not sure my pallet would be able to tell the difference if there was one.

 

[L_A_Brewing]

I’ve done batch sparging and fly sparging over the course of my brewing career. Never once like @day_trippr have I measured the runoff on the fly.

Why you might ask because at our scale and level 1. I’m not sure I’ll get below 1.010 and two I’m not sure my pallet would be able to tell the difference if there was one.

To put a finer point on why I’m interested in measuring gravity during the sparge, I recently brewed a high gravity beer and wound up leaving too much sugar in the mash. I’m thinking I would have preferred to continue sparring the mash until I gathered all the sugar and attempted to boil the larger volume in two or three pots to evaporate the larger wort volume back down to my planned volume. Do I sound like a crazy person or am I on to something? I just hate leaving sugar in the tun, especially after spending the $ on the extra ingredients.

 

[day_trippr]

bt/dt. I always check pre-boil gravity, and there have been times that it was low enough to justify extending the fly sparge and in turn extending the boil to get the "adjusted pre boil gravity" to the recipe's expectation. I can only speculate there was some sneak path through the grain bed that thinned the extraction with sparge liquor that had to be countered by increased volume and increased boil time.

I have had batches that did come quite close to breaching one if not both of the two metrics associated with astringent brews - too high a pH and too low an SG, which can result in excessive tannin extraction, plus drag in undesirable silicates. But they were always near misses and all turned out well..

I suppose that's just another "RDWHAHB"...

Cheers!

 

[L_A_Brewing]

bt/dt. I always check pre-boil gravity, and there have been times that it was low enough to justify extending the fly sparge and in turn extending the boil to get the "adjusted pre boil gravity" to the recipe's expectation. I can only speculate there was some sneak path through the grain bed that thinned the extraction with sparge liquor that had to be countered by increased volume and increased boil time.

I have had batches that did come quite close to breaching one if not both of the two metrics associated with astringent brews - too high a pH and too low an SG, which can result in excessive tannin extraction, plus drag in undesirable silicates. But they were always near misses and all turned out well..

I suppose that's just another "RDWHAHB"...

Cheers!

day_tripper

That’s a good point. Of course the beer nerd in my would still like the sampling ability associated with the grant, but I think I can hold off for now. Funny, I’ve been at this home brew business for about 15 years now, but seems like I’m always on the learning curve.

Cheers

 

[Dog House Brew]

I fly sparge too, and also do 10g + batches. I used to be concerned with over sparging. I’ve never been to the 1.010 range. I quit checking/worrying about it. On my big beers, I generally will mash thick and keep most of my water for sparging. I will also make sure that is is a slow sparge. If I sparge too fast, that’s when my gravity gets off on the big beers.

 

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

take refractometer readings every minute and plot the results on a graph - easy to see the curve levelling off - then as you suggest boil to reach target volume ? Or have I misunderstood the question ?

 

[odie]

To put a finer point on why I’m interested in measuring gravity during the sparge, I recently brewed a high gravity beer and wound up leaving too much sugar in the mash.

I don't think that's avoidable without excessive sparging and then lots of diluted wort to boil down.

I'll do a second run, about 1/2 a batch worth for a lower a lower ABV beer

 

[Sammy86]

Do I sound like a crazy person or am I on to something? I just hate leaving sugar in the tun, especially after spending the $ on the extra ingredients.

No you don’t sound like a crazy person, at least to me.

Unfortunately, higher ABV beers with more grain tend to have lower efficiency, so calculating and adjusting with DME to reach your numbers is more my style.

I haven’t brewed anything over 1.056 in a long time though.

 

[sibelman]

I try to sparge slow. Avoiding astringency is, for me, as simple as tasting the runnings when I'm nearing my desired pre-boil volume. If there's no discernable sweetness, there's little point in continuing.