buckeyebrewer
Well-Known Member
I talked with a local commercial brewer the other day and he was describing his mashing technique. He said that he rarely mashes longer than 30 minutes and one of his beers he only mashes for 12 minutes....yes 12 minutes. He said that the conversion is usually done within 30 minutes and there is no reason to waste our time mashing any longer than that. He comes from a respectable brewery from Columbus so I took his word for it. I brewed a batch of Goose Islands Sofie today and decided to track the conversion of my mash. I took a refractometer reading every 4 minutes for 1 hour. I stirred my mash right before I took each reading. Here is the grain bill:
9 lbs Breiss Pilsner Malt
1 lb Breiss White Wheat Malt
Here are the results.
0 Minutes - 1.000
4 Minutes - 1.022
8 Minutes - 1.055
12 Minutes - 1.064
16 Minutes - 1.073
20 Minutes - 1.075
24 Minutes - 1.077
30 Minutes - 1.081
34 Minutes - 1.082
42 Minutes - 1.086
46 Minutes - 1.087
50 Minutes - 1.087
54 Minutes - 1.089
60 Minutes - 1.089
First of all I was really surprised that after only 12 minutes I was at 1.064...that is a pretty fast conversion. I'm wondering if I should have kept going past 60 minutes to see if it plateaued at 1.089. According to brewing software I hit my numbers exactly according to volume and grain bill at 80% efficiency. Now my question is why a professional brewer would choose to stop mashing at 12 minutes. Do certain grains convert faster than others. It's always been a 60 minute rule but I've never questioned the rule. I wonder if he adds more grain to just get more sugar from his first draining. Is it a time is money thing? I can't imagine 48 minutes is worth 25 points of gravity....any ideas?
9 lbs Breiss Pilsner Malt
1 lb Breiss White Wheat Malt
Here are the results.
0 Minutes - 1.000
4 Minutes - 1.022
8 Minutes - 1.055
12 Minutes - 1.064
16 Minutes - 1.073
20 Minutes - 1.075
24 Minutes - 1.077
30 Minutes - 1.081
34 Minutes - 1.082
42 Minutes - 1.086
46 Minutes - 1.087
50 Minutes - 1.087
54 Minutes - 1.089
60 Minutes - 1.089
First of all I was really surprised that after only 12 minutes I was at 1.064...that is a pretty fast conversion. I'm wondering if I should have kept going past 60 minutes to see if it plateaued at 1.089. According to brewing software I hit my numbers exactly according to volume and grain bill at 80% efficiency. Now my question is why a professional brewer would choose to stop mashing at 12 minutes. Do certain grains convert faster than others. It's always been a 60 minute rule but I've never questioned the rule. I wonder if he adds more grain to just get more sugar from his first draining. Is it a time is money thing? I can't imagine 48 minutes is worth 25 points of gravity....any ideas?