Need help quick please.

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cyberjoey80

cyberjoey80

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Hi, thanks for responding ahead of time. I am just setting up for first AG and had a quick question. After I mash for about an hour, I take the grains out and put them in the next part (false bottom.) I don't use the water from the mash right. I just use about 6-6.5 gallons of 170F water and let that go through the sprinkler right? Thanks again.
 
You keep the "first runnings" from the mash - it's good stuff. It contains a lot of the sugars from the mash. The sparge water rinses more sugars out of the grain. Most of your OG will come from the first runnings.
 
NOOO, you HAVE TO use the water from the mash, it is totally loaded with your fermentable sugars!!!! Transfer all of it!

Brewpilot
 
Youd have posted tomorrow... "why was my efficiency so low??" he he... it is cool, have a homebrew and relaaaaxxxx. :drunk:
 
i may be reading your post wrong so forgive me. you dont take the grains out you drain the runnings after adding water to bring the mash up to 170 to do a mashout. then you recirculate the first runnings through the grain to clear them. then you run your sparge water through the grain bed to collect your second runnings and add to first runnings and boil everything. the false bottom should be below your grains that is what seperates your grain from the sugar and other goodness.
 
I think he is mashing in a separate pot... so that he can add heat, he did not mash his grains over a false bottom....
 
;) Exactly Pilot. I am mashing in a big, cheap ss pot and then adding the grains to the false bottom. I was thinking I was supposed to remove the grains and make a bed on the false bottom and could'nt remember what to do with the excess water. I guess I will just put all the mash on the false bottom and continue running more hot water through the sprinkler until I have about 6 gallons. Damn, I need to relax. I'm makin beer not a missle.
 
Yeah, relax... it is beer, it isnt rocket science :D I used to do what you are doing, then I built a mash tun out of a beverage cooler so that I can mash and sparge in the same vessel... OH SO NICE. If you ever do it, get a 10 gallon cooler though, then you can do multi step infusions! Fancy... heh...

Brewpilot
 
Yeah I am already starting to see I will need much bigger pots/ kettles. This is going to be a FULL boil (up to the edge full!!) Thanks for the help everyone:mug:
 
I have a 32 qt brewpot and when I brewed my 1.061 OG stout this past weekend, I ran out of space... I collected 6.5 gallons and the runnings were still at 1.018!!! I could have pulled out another gallon!!! I have NEVER had that problem before, ever....

Brewpilot
 
Joey, I'm sure you will but let us know how it goes.
What vessel are you using for sparging? Can you not convert it for the mash and use the SS pot for a water boiler?
 
Hi all. Well thanks again for the quick responses. I really appreciate it. That first batch of AG can be a little nerve racking, but much more fun than extract. Finally I am free of DME and UmE's. Yeah. To answer your question Orfy, no I cannot use my sparge bucket for anything else. The beginning ag kit I bought is basically two bottling buckets with spigots. THe top one holds the sparge water, then drains (through about 2 ft of clear bottling type hose) to the basic little copper sparge arm below, which spins faster as you open the valve on the sparge bucket further. This water comes out of the sparge arm, through grain and down to false bottom. All this is just plastic and cannot be anyhwere near the burners. In time, as I am sure you all have, I will probably upgrade to much better (surely bigger) kettles and equpment. I am just happy to be in the ag world. I don't think I will ever go back. Ag is not near as complicated as I thought it would be. Sure the garage floor is as sticky as a giant velcro strip, but floor can be cleaned, steam burns will heal (don't ask) and the cat's hair is sure to grow back. :mug:
 
Captain Willard said:
You keep the "first runnings" from the mash - it's good stuff. It contains a lot of the sugars from the mash. The sparge water rinses more sugars out of the grain. Most of your OG will come from the first runnings.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize I had a twin.
 
Quick question:

When you mash in a cooler or any other vessel that you can't add heat to, do you guys start out with a slightly lower water/grain ratio, so that you can safely add heated water in order to bring the heat up if it falls? Or does the cooler pretty much eliminate temp drop?

I've been using a kettle to mash in so that I can add heat if necessary, then I dump it into my big 50L SS MLT w/ false bottom for draining & sparging. The only thing is, obviously, there's more thermal loss with a kettle than with a cooler. I also have an old cooler that I could mash in, but since I have this big nice MLT, I don't see the point in fashioning a whole new setup. So, would it be wise to clean out the cooler with PBW, etc., then mash in it, rather than the kettle? I'd mash right in the MLT, but the diameter is so big, there's just way too much liquid that sits below the grains during the mash, underneath the false bottom. Plus, the spigot handle is plastic, so adding heat to it gets a little dicey.

Thoughts?
 
I did some reading, saw what strike temp others recommended and it worked for me. Never needed to adjust in any of my brew sessions. I loose around 1-2°c over my full mash time. It's simple.


Beersmith and other software will work it out for you if you need to.
 
I mash in a 5 gal. beverage cooler (start with a 10 gal cooler kids, trust me), which leaves little room for "extra" water for most recipes. I never lose more than 1 degree F over the course of a 1 hour single infusion mash. My advice is to plan leaving some extra room for water during the first couple of brew sessions, until you get a feeling for the thermal characteristics of your setup. There are a lot of variables that will have an impact on your mash temp. How you get the strike water into the mash tun, the "thermal mass" of your tun and grain, ambient temp, etc.

When using a cooler for infusion mashes, what you probably need to concentrate on is getting the mash temps right at infusion time - the cooler will do a great job of maintaining that temp. Pre-heating your cooler mash tun with hot water prior to mashing will help you maintain your temps. A lot of people recommend filling the cooler with boiling or near-boiling water before you mash. I'm too lazy to take the time to heat that much water, so I just fill my tun with hot water from the tap in my kitchen. I do this first thing when I start setting up to brew, so the tun ends up heating for 20-30 minutes before I'm ready to mash. My hot tap water runs at about 120 deg.F.

I usually have to heat my strike water up to ~20 deg. F over the desired mash temp in order to hit my numbers. This is a lot higher than most of the recipes I've read - most people seem to shoot for 8 deg. over. This is just due to the peculiarities of my setup, which is pretty primitive.

Long sory short, allow some room to adjust your temps until you get used to your setup. Keep track of the temp drops so you can dial your routine in next time.
 
My experience is that if you preheat the cooler and stick to the temps BeerSmith recommends, you'll be pretty close. I make sure to have cold water in the fridge and boiling on the stove, but after a couple batches, you'll have it dialed in pretty well.
 
Captain Willard said:
I usually have to heat my strike water up to ~20 deg. F over the desired mash temp in order to hit my numbers. This is a lot higher than most of the recipes I've read - most people seem to shoot for 8 deg. over. This is just due to the peculiarities of my setup, which is pretty primitive.
Click to expand...


I'm with you, Captain - I use a 5 gallon round "Drinking Water" cooler, and I usually heat my water to ~170 deg. F for 10LBS grain. I have a thermometer built into the cooler, and I usually find that the temp will rise a little over the course of the 60 min mash. I guess the thermometer is a little "slow" :)
 
Brewpilot said:
I think he is mashing in a separate pot... so that he can add heat, he did not mash his grains over a false bottom....
Click to expand...

oh yeah i forgot you can mash that way as well tried it once and never tried it again. so used to using my cooler so much easier for me.

Don't go to HD go to Walmart you can get basically the cooler for about 6 dollars less if you are looking for the 5 gallon round cooler. I suggest and this is from personal experience you should consider and research the rectangular coolers with the spigot or buy the 10 gallon round cooler which HD does sell for just under forty. having a 10 gallon capacity will help if you plan to do bigger batches in the future
 
Coolers are great, I routinely do 2step mashes in my 5 gallon cooler, but the 10 will make it alot easier indeed. Temp drop is not an issue. I mashed my Fat Tire clone for almost 2 hours, and it dropped 2F.... whoohoo

Brewpilot
 
i have actually done overnight mashes in the round coolers and lost only a couple degrees over 8+ hours.
 
Yeah, it saves you time on the BREW day... mine ran 2 hours becuase I was at Uhaul getting some LP. Had 78% eff. so it wasnt a BAD thing.

Brewpilot
 

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