mashing all at once

[EastTownBrewery]

This might be a dumb question....but why put 4 gallons of water in for an hour at 152 degrees and then another 4 gallons for 10-15 minutes. What would happen if I just put 8 gallons in at 152 for an hour. Any advice or words of wisdom would be appreciated

 

[Polboy]

thats no sparge, it will work but you will get low efficiency (you will extract and convert sugars but you will not wash all of them out of grains)

 

[upperNY01brewer]

There is a article in BYO addressing this month on this very subject.

 

[Wolfhound180]

There is a article in BYO addressing this month on this very subject.

And pretty darn interesting at that.

 

[captainL]

It can affect your water Ph. Good or bad??? Depends on your water and grain bill. Use EZ water calc or/and measure ph. Efficiency....I get a pretty consistent 70%. Good enough for me considering the time savings.

 

[RM-MN]

Put your grain in a bag made from fine mesh, add all the water at once (actually add the grains to the water) and mash. At the end of the hour, pull the bag of grain out and squeeze out as much water as you can. With the fine mesh bag, you can grind the grain quite fine which helps get better efficiency without getting a stuck sparge. Your efficiency should be in the mid-70's to mid-80's.

Somebody else came up with that idea, not me. They called it "brew in a bag". Use that term in a search and you'll learn a lot about it.

 

[eastoak]

no worries about ph, tannins, or long sparge times. the resulting beers have been the best i've ever made in terms of flavor. no sparge, fermentation temp control, and pure O2 have been the trinity that has gotten me over the hump as far as brewing quality beer.

 

[johnodon]

thats no sparge, it will work but you will get low efficiency (you will extract and convert sugars but you will not wash all of them out of grains)

Not an issue if most of us BIAB'ers hit 75% - 80% consistently doing full volume BIAB.

Higher efficiency does not make better beer. It is more important to have consistent efficiency so as to stay true to the recipe and achieving desired results. An efficiency of 60% will produce a beer just as good as 85% as long as the recipe is adjusted accordingly.

John

 

[EastTownBrewery]

Thanks for the help! I'm not sure if ill end up trying it that way or not. We are getting good results the "old fashioned way" and it would realistically only save about 15 minutes of time. I checked out that article....very interesting read!