Mash Thickness Confusion

[KayaBrew]

Why the heck wouldn't you do it all in one sparge?

All 3.8 gallons in one sparge? If that is a solid way to do it, then let me know because the water's heating as I type.

 

[KayaBrew]

All 3.8 gallons in one sparge? If that is a solid way to do it, then let me know because the water's heating as I type.

Too late now, I did 2 sparges. But how about for future reference?

 

[Denny]

Heck yes, why not? I often do 4-5 gal sparges. I average about 83% efficiency, so I'm not worried about getting more from multiple sparges. The only time I do more than one is if I'm using so much grain that I can't get all the sparge water in at once. As long as I can get it all in at once, I do only a single sparge.

 

[KayaBrew]

Heck yes, why not? I often do 4-5 gal sparges. I average about 83% efficiency, so I'm not worried about getting more from multiple sparges. The only time I do more than one is if I'm using so much grain that I can't get all the sparge water in at once. As long as I can get it all in at once, I do only a single sparge.

Cool. I'll try single batch sparging for the next few brews, as well as a thinner mash.

 

[Kaiser]

Lot’s of good info here. I’m glad to see that the thin mashing is stating to get some more traction. It has helped me a lot and made my brewing easier. I also only have 12 qt pot for heating sparge water which limits the amount of water I can sparge with if I don’t want to keep heated sparge water in a separate cooler

Here is some info from www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-6.html

The grist/water ratio is another factor influencing the performance of the mash. A thinner mash of >2 quarts of water per pound of grain dilutes the relative concentration of the enzymes, slowing the conversion, but ultimately leads to a more fermentable mash because the enzymes are not inhibited by a high concentration of sugars. A stiff mash of <1.25 quarts of water per pound is better for protein breakdown, and results in a faster overall starch conversion, but the resultant sugars are less fermentable and will result in a sweeter, maltier beer. A thicker mash is more gentle to the enzymes because of the lower heat capacity of grain compared to water. A thick mash is better for multirest mashes because the enzymes are not denatured as quickly by a rise in temperature.

I Palmer’s explanation is where most of the confusion around thin mashes and thin beers comes from. In my experiments I have not seen that relation and many text books agree with that. I’m not sure what John’s latest edition says on that subject. But even if that was the case you can always mash hotter to limit the additional b-amylase activity that you would be getting.

The opposite should actually be true. b-amylase is less stable in thinner mashes and as a result should be denatured earlier which should leave the wort from thin mashes less fermentable. In fact I have come across all 3 variants: wort from thin mashes is more, less or equally fermentable.

Aside from that, the other questions have been answered.

This 70-75% is best for your beer won’t die. I do respect Jamil a lot and he know his sh!t, but the recommendation that you should blindly shoot for 70-75% efficiency for the best beer is something that I have a hard time agreeing with.

What you gain in conversion efficiency, and that is what can be improved by thin mashes, won’t hurt wort quality. In fact, the reduced amount of sparge water will reduce sparging and improve your wort quality.

Kai

 

[jamilz]

I certainly don't say you should "blindly shoot for 70-75%." Where have I ever said that? I think you're getting worked up over nothing.

I do believe that you're fine if you're in the 65 to 85% range and I wouldn't even think about efficiency if that is the case. THINK about fermentation!

That is what I keep repeating.

My whole reason for mentioning efficiency is that there seems to be a bunch of people in search of high efficiency at the cost of beer quality. That just seems very foolish to me. All those folks boasting of 90%+ efficiency have the wrong focus when it comes to brewing quality beer.

 

[The Pol]

Lot&#8217;s of good info here. I&#8217;m glad to see that the thin mashing is stating to get some more traction. It has helped me a lot and made my brewing easier. I also only have 12 qt pot for heating sparge water which limits the amount of water I can sparge with if I don&#8217;t want to keep heated sparge water in a separate cooler



I Palmer&#8217;s explanation is where most of the confusion around thin mashes and thin beers comes from. In my experiments I have not seen that relation and many text books agree with that. I&#8217;m not sure what John&#8217;s latest edition says on that subject. But even if that was the case you can always mash hotter to limit the additional b-amylase activity that you would be getting.

The opposite should actually be true. b-amylase is less stable in thinner mashes and as a result should be denatured earlier which should leave the wort from thin mashes less fermentable. In fact I have come across all 3 variants: wort from thin mashes is more, less or equally fermentable.

Aside from that, the other questions have been answered.

This 70-75% is best for your beer won&#8217;t die. I do respect Jamil a lot and he know his sh!t, but the recommendation that you should blindly shoot for 70-75% efficiency for the best beer is something that I have a hard time agreeing with.

What you gain in conversion efficiency, and that is what can be improved by thin mashes, won&#8217;t hurt wort quality. In fact, the reduced amount of sparge water will reduce sparging and improve your wort quality.

Kai

I agree whole heartedly here. Getting near 100% conversion eff. and then nailing down an effective sparge process so that you can EVENLY sparge the grain bed will both drastically improve your eff. and wort quality.

I can have an ill designed manifold in my MLT and nail 65% eff... but I could also have a falsie or a properly designed manifold and increase my eff. and IMPROVE my wort quality.

If you have an ill managed lauter process you are very likely oversparging some of your mash and under sparging others, costing you wort quality AND efficiency. In this case, improving your conversion eff. AND your lauter eff. would actually increase your wort quality.(increasing the first wort volume AND reduction in OVERsparging areas of the mash) In a sense, improving your eff. by improving your process actually holds keys to improving your wort quality.

Pulling out dilute wort because 25% of the grain bed isnt even getting sparged while the other 75% is getting over sparged will give you 65% eff. perhaps, but low eff. is not an idication of wort quality, it could be quite contrary.

To this end... someone achieving 65% eff. could very well have poorer wort quality than someone achieving 85% efficiency, easily. The 85% guy is getting 100% conversion eff, mashing thinner, increasing the volume of first wort AND he is evenly sparging his grain bed. He is doing everything in his power to INCREASE wort quality IMHO. The 65% guy COULD have excellent wort, but loss of eff. means either poor conversion eff (thicker mash, less first wort volume) or poor lautering (over sparging some areas and under sparging others) both of which will not lead you to better wort.

 

[jamilz]

You're all putting too much emphasis on the mash parameters and not enough on the sparging and crush. The difference between pH and temp and water is not enough to make up for a crappy manifold. You won't end up with 70% because you have the right pH. For efficiency almost everything is determined by the crush and how effectively you can rinse the sugars. All of the other factors are so forgiving, that you really don't need to fret so much about them. If you get the crush and the wort collection right, then everything else is very forgiving. This is one reason batch sparging works so well for most home brewers that don't know anything about the other parameters. It is easy, don't make it hard.

 

[Kaiser]

Jamil,

Just giving a brewer the advice to crush finer, is oversimplifying the problem. When I ran experiments and published my work about efficiency it was to raise awareness that there is more to just crushing finer. In particular to provide a systematic approach for troubleshooting efficiency. In some cases a brewer may not be able to just crush finer. Either because he doesn't own a mill or would get a stuck sparge. In this case it is good to know how else efficiency can be improved and a how mash performance can be assessed.

The goal is not to get everybody in the upper 80s, just because I'm there. The goal is to give everybody enough knowledge about what affects efficiency so he/she can make their own decision what a good efficiency target is for a particular beer.

When it comes to pH, I don't think brewers should obsess about it. The window that is good for mashing is fairly wide. But at some point in their advancement in brewing they should at least be aware of its effects and test it. Low efficiency can be an indication of suboptimal pH which can easily be the cause of other problems.

Kai

 

[Denny]

I do believe that you're fine if you're in the 65 to 85% range and I wouldn't even think about efficiency if that is the case. THINK about fermentation!

That is what I keep repeating.

My whole reason for mentioning efficiency is that there seems to be a bunch of people in search of high efficiency at the cost of beer quality. That just seems very foolish to me. All those folks boasting of 90%+ efficiency have the wrong focus when it comes to brewing quality beer.

PREACH IT, BRO! AMEN!!!

 

[The Pol]

How do people risk wort quality to gain eff. though? That is the part that my simple mind cannot understand. I keep hearing it, but I have never head anyone explain how.

So far I have only heard about extended sparging, which hurts wort quality. Cmon. You are telling me that the difference between a guy getting 65% eff. and 85% eff. is a gallon of dilute 1.008 wort? I dont think the math supports that. Other than oversparging, what are brewers doing that is hurting thier wort quality?

I would agree that oversparging will hurt wort quality, but oversparing isnt going to increase your eff. either, still no correlation.

 

[Picobrew]

I do believe that you're fine if you're in the 65 to 85% range and I wouldn't even think about efficiency if that is the case. THINK about fermentation!

That is what I keep repeating.

I agree with this except that I still think about efficiency a lot because consistency is so important. I am still working out sparge techniques and volumes etc, so varying efficiency bites me often! I'm not looking for ways to boost it, just get it the same every time, without regard to mash volume. For example, right now I seem to get a 5-10% efficiency boost when doing 10G batches vs. 5G. I can account for this, but it would be nice to prevent it, so I am looking at the differences - 2 sparges in the case of 10G for example.

 

[Kaiser]

I do believe that you're fine if you're in the 65 to 85% range and I wouldn't even think about efficiency if that is the case. THINK about fermentation!

Who says we are not thinking about fermentation? This thread got started by mash thickness questions and, at my concern was to answer them and clear up some of the confusion which required touching on efficiency.

Kai

 

[Denny]

FWIW, I can see and agree with what I feel are the major points you're both making. JZ is saying that there is more to making good beer than simply efficiency. OTOH, Kai is definitely not saying that efficiency alone is the end all of good beer....just offering a way to diagnose if someone is having efficiency issues.

 

[mookie1010]

I agree with this except that I still think about efficiency a lot because consistency is so important. I am still working out sparge techniques and volumes etc, so varying efficiency bites me often! I'm not looking for ways to boost it, just get it the same every time, without regard to mash volume. For example, right now I seem to get a 5-10% efficiency boost when doing 10G batches vs. 5G. I can account for this, but it would be nice to prevent it, so I am looking at the differences - 2 sparges in the case of 10G for example.

That's what I've been concentrating on lately -- consistency. I think it really helps in evaluating your recipes if you can know ahead of time that you're gonna hit your numbers for that batch.

The last three batches have been 72%-75% though, so I think I'm kind of getting a process, and hearing that there's nothing wrong with being in the 70-80 range has always helped.

 

[Kaiser]

FWIW, I can see and agree with what I feel are the major points you're both making. JZ is saying that there is more to making good beer than simply efficiency. OTOH, Kai is definitely not saying that efficiency alone is the end all of good beer....just offering a way to diagnose if someone is having efficiency issues.

Thanks for settling this. I think the debate started to get a little too heated and was drifting off.

Kai

 

[bob1852]

FWIW, I can see and agree with what I feel are the major points you're both making. JZ is saying that there is more to making good beer than simply efficiency. OTOH, Kai is definitely not saying that efficiency alone is the end all of good beer....just offering a way to diagnose if someone is having efficiency issues.

I would pay good money to listen to Kai, Jamil, and Denny sit around a bar and discuss beer brewing principles, theories, and applications.

I learn a lot from reading your posts.

 

[KayaBrew]

You're all putting too much emphasis on the mash parameters and not enough on the sparging and crush. The difference between pH and temp and water is not enough to make up for a crappy manifold. You won't end up with 70% because you have the right pH. For efficiency almost everything is determined by the crush and how effectively you can rinse the sugars. All of the other factors are so forgiving, that you really don't need to fret so much about them. If you get the crush and the wort collection right, then everything else is very forgiving. This is one reason batch sparging works so well for most home brewers that don't know anything about the other parameters. It is easy, don't make it hard.

So I'll re-ask one of my questions from earlier in this thread:
Do I do a single batch sparge of say 3.8 gallons, or do I break it up into two 1.9 gallon sparges?

Please bear with me as I try to wrap my brain around this. I've done 6 AG brews so far, all with a double batch sparge according to BeerTools Pro. I'm not trying to win any comps, I just want to brew the best beer I'm capable of.

 

[Kaiser]

When it fits, go for the single sparge. It's less work and only sligtly less efficient.

Kai

 

[KayaBrew]

When it fits, go for the single sparge. It's less work and only sligtly less efficient.

Kai

Good enough!

BTW, this is a great thread to read through. Lots of info from some really reputable brewers. Thanks for the advice!

 

[mookie1010]

When it fits, go for the single sparge. It's less work and only sligtly less efficient.

Kai

What's the efficiency loss? I've been doing 2 and I have room for one.

 

[bob1852]

What's the efficiency loss? I've been doing 2 and I have room for one.

If you're trying to rinse soap suds out of a glass with a fixed amount of water (say 1 pint), how many rinses do you do?

3 rinses (1/3rd of a pint each) would probably get all the soap suds (=sugar left in the mash)

2 rinses (1/2 pint each) would get most of it and would be quicker

1 rinse (1 pint) would also get most if it and would be the quickest

 

[Kaiser]

What's the efficiency loss? I've been doing 2 and I have room for one.

Maybe 3-4 % based on this data: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph...nalysis#Effect_of_the_grist_size_.28weight.29

Kai

 

[dfohio]

But even if that was the case you can always mash hotter to limit the additional b-amylase activity that you would be getting.[/COLOR]

The opposite should actually be true. b-amylase is less stable in thinner mashes and as a result should be denatured earlier which should leave the wort from thin mashes less fermentable. In fact I have come across all 3 variants: wort from thin mashes is more, less or equally fermentable.

Could one vary the mash thickness to coincide with the set mash temperature and thus increase efficiency? Or are you saying your results haven't been conclusive for either way?

 

[joety]

I have a slightly different approach. I brew strictly 5 gallon batches in a 15 gallon kettle (I hate boil overs). For bigger beers I mash at 1.5 qt/lb and for normal beers I adjust the mash thickness so I have enough strike water to reach my kettle's thermometer so I don't have to futz with my hand held thermometer. Thank you Beersmith for making the temperature calculations for me.

My efficiency (fly sparger) is generally around 72% regardless of mash thickness. I could probably adjust my grain mill and increase that a bit but why risk shredded husks and the risk of increased tannins?

 

[homebrewer_99]

I would pay good money to listen to Kai, Jamil, and Denny sit around a bar and discuss beer brewing principles, theories, and applications.

I learn a lot from reading your posts.

The only problem is it would confuse you further as they are all right...

 

[bob1852]

Maybe 3-4 % based on this data: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph...nalysis#Effect_of_the_grist_size_.28weight.29

Kai

all of the sudden my soap suds and glass washing example doesn't hold much creedence any more

 

[bob1852]

The only problem is it would confuse you further as they are all right...

True - but that would be awesome confusion with a capital A!

I still think homebrewer's biggest issues with efficiency aren't the ACTUAL efficiency, but the errors in measurements; volume (how many of us rely on the marks on our Ale Pails?), gravities (temp corrected? calibrated?), and thermometers (calibrated?).

I know that's the case for me - the next brew I do - hopefully Monday; I'm gonna get really specific about volume, gravity, and temperature. And if I hit 54% again, I'm buying a barley crusher!

 

[mookie1010]

all of the sudden my soap suds and glass washing example doesn't hold much creedence any more

Haha. I read it a few times and wondered what you were trying to tell me. It clicked after a few, though.

 

[mookie1010]

True - but that would be awesome confusion with a capital A!

I still think homebrewer's biggest issues with efficiency aren't the ACTUAL efficiency, but the errors in measurements; volume (how many of us rely on the marks on our Ale Pails?), gravities (temp corrected? calibrated?), and thermometers (calibrated?).

I know that's the case for me - the next brew I do - hopefully Monday; I'm gonna get really specific about volume, gravity, and temperature. And if I hit 54% again, I'm buying a barley crusher!

I was doing a rye ale once where I brain farted and threw the rye in with the base and specialty malts before crushing it, and I should have crushed the rye separately. This was at the LHBS where I usually measure and crush myself just because I'm funny that way. So I sent it through the mill twice at the suggestion of the owner.

The double crush upped my efficiency from the mid 60's into the mid 70's. Dunno how you're getting grain, and I wasn't even trying to increase my efficiency at the time, but I double crush at the LHBS now all the time, and have been consistent since then.