opinion on mash process

[Todd820]

I have been toying with changing my process to mash in the bag with a more traditional AG water to grain ratio and then adding water at 180 or so at mash out to get to full volume. Hoping the add of 180 water will get my mash temp around 170 where I can hold it for 10 minutes or so prior to pulling the bag. Have not confirmed the water add temp yet so don't get hung up on the number there. Hoping to take advantage of the thicker mash for better enzymatic action while still realizing the benefits of BIAB.

Any opinion on this out there? Thanks in advance!

 

[pricelessbrewing]

I have been toying with changing my process to mash in the bag with a more traditional AG water to grain ratio and then adding water at 180 or so at mash out to get to full volume. Hoping the add of 180 water will get my mash temp around 170 where I can hold it for 10 minutes or so prior to pulling the bag. Have not confirmed the water add temp yet so don't get hung up on the number there. Hoping to take advantage of the thicker mash for better enzymatic action while still realizing the benefits of BIAB.

Any opinion on this out there? Thanks in advance!

Interesting idea. Not sure how this will affect efficiency but I would imagine it would be similar to a sparging method, maybe a bit lower.

Why are you stay on with traditional mash thickness? Preference or do you know some study/data I don't?

As usual, I recommend using my calculator. By using the one at pricelessbrewing.github.io/mash/imperial and adding the sparge water to the mash volume you can make sure to stay within the size of your pot.

 

[doug293cz]

I'm with Priceless on this. Why do you think you'll get better enzymatic action with a thicker mash? Do you have quantitative experimental data available, or are you just going with conventional wisdom? A lot of conventional wisdom has been shown to be mythology in recent years. But, some is valid, and now has research backing it up. Which is this?

Brew on

 

[DurtyChemist]

I'm with Priceless on this. Why do you think you'll get better enzymatic action with a thicker mash? Do you have quantitative experimental data available, or are you just going with conventional wisdom? A lot of conventional wisdom has been shown to be mythology in recent years. But, some is valid, and now has research backing it up. Which is this?

Brew on

Brew Your Own magazine ran an article about this and their quantitative experimental data said with a thicker mash the Alpha and Beta Amylase activity is higher because they don't have to travel as far to find the sugars to break down. I honestly forget what they said the difference was for having extra water but the article was presented quite neutrally. I don't know what conventional wisdom says for BIAB besides double crush it to flour and buy an extra pound or two of grain to make up for lost efficiency.


To the OP, Plenty of people here do what you're considering, and there is nothing wrong with doing it. It's a modified form of a batch sparge and it goes along with squeezing the bag as hard as you can to get as much wort out as possible. People have claimed they get better efficiency. I just mashed 13 lbs of grain this weekend in two different keggles using 5 gallons and both hit 79% efficiency. One was a step mash and the other was single infusion at 155. Previously I was struggling to get close to 75% and most of my batches were around 65-70% regardless of crush. I didn't add hot water I just filled a bucket with a few gallons with the only goal being the correct pre-boil volume. It worked so well I'm going to make it a regular part of my brew.

I know nothing of your brewing equipment however we used a hanging plant holder to hold the grain bag above the keggle while heating the wort and pouring water over the grain bag. It was easy enough and I just can't pour the water too fast otherwise it will run out of the grain and on to the lip of the keggle. One advantage of this I personally saw was my mash pH was down to 5.4 much faster and I didn't lose as much heat during my mash.

 

[Todd820]

Brew Your Own magazine ran an article about this and their quantitative experimental data said with a thicker mash the Alpha and Beta Amylase activity is higher because they don't have to travel as far to find the sugars to break down. QUOTE]

I read the same article and this was why I was considering it. I get about 70-75% efficiency now which is not too bad. Honestly just thought this would save me a little time and would take advantage of whatever benefit I could from the more traditionaly thicker mash. I can start heating the water i need to get to full volume as my mash time winds down instead of firing up and heating the full volume at mash out to get to 170. I have another pot that will hold enough to do the trick and then I don't have to worry about burning the bag or anything. Puring all that hot water may be more trouble than it is worth though.

Hoping to brew this weekend so I will give it a shot and report out. cross your fingers I am not hospitalized with 3rd degree burns . I will try and hold off on enjoying a beer until AFTER I pour gallons of scalding water into my grains.

 

[RM-MN]

Brew Your Own magazine ran an article about this and their quantitative experimental data said with a thicker mash the Alpha and Beta Amylase activity is higher because they don't have to travel as far to find the sugars to break down. I honestly forget what they said the difference was for having extra water but the article was presented quite neutrally. I don't know what conventional wisdom says for BIAB besides double crush it to flour and buy an extra pound or two of grain to make up for lost efficiency.


To the OP, Plenty of people here do what you're considering, and there is nothing wrong with doing it. It's a modified form of a batch sparge and it goes along with squeezing the bag as hard as you can to get as much wort out as possible. People have claimed they get better efficiency. I just mashed 13 lbs of grain this weekend in two different keggles using 5 gallons and both hit 79% efficiency. One was a step mash and the other was single infusion at 155. Previously I was struggling to get close to 75% and most of my batches were around 65-70% regardless of crush. I didn't add hot water I just filled a bucket with a few gallons with the only goal being the correct pre-boil volume. It worked so well I'm going to make it a regular part of my brew.

I know nothing of your brewing equipment however we used a hanging plant holder to hold the grain bag above the keggle while heating the wort and pouring water over the grain bag. It was easy enough and I just can't pour the water too fast otherwise it will run out of the grain and on to the lip of the keggle. One advantage of this I personally saw was my mash pH was down to 5.4 much faster and I didn't lose as much heat during my mash.

I'm sorry but I think that their article is bunk! Over many brews I get 85% efficiency with nearly full volume and it doesn't take much time to do so. At 20 minutes my mash is full converted as evidenced by the OG and FG of the beer and the fact that the beer clears which it wouldn't if I had unconverted starch in it. I've even been trying a few 10 minute mashes and the initial results suggest that even that short is fine.

 

[Todd820]

I'm sorry but I think that their article is bunk! Over many brews I get 85% efficiency with nearly full volume and it doesn't take much time to do so. At 20 minutes my mash is full converted as evidenced by the OG and FG of the beer and the fact that the beer clears which it wouldn't if I had unconverted starch in it. I've even been trying a few 10 minute mashes and the initial results suggest that even that short is fine.

Bunk huh? And it was so sciency and convincing

Maybe I will just stay the course then and avoid the potential blisters! More votes in opposition than in support.

 

[doug293cz]

Brew Your Own magazine ran an article about this and their quantitative experimental data said with a thicker mash the Alpha and Beta Amylase activity is higher because they don't have to travel as far to find the sugars to break down.

Can you provide a link to the specific BYO article. They have lots of different articles on mashing. I found one that talked about mash thickness effects on amylase activity, but there was no experimental data presented.

Brew on

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Bunk huh? And it was so sciency and convincing

Maybe I will just stay the course then and avoid the potential blisters! More votes in opposition than in support.

This. Present the research and those who are convinced that they are right will just filter it out. "I don't believe it so it's bunk" doesn't convince me that you're sincere in advancing the BIAB gospel. I love the simplicity of BIAB but I'm not so enamored with its adherents.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Can you provide a link to the specific BYO article. They have lots of different articles on mashing. I found one that talked about mash thickness effects on amylase activity, but there was no experimental data presented.

Brew on

I will do my best to find it. I. Isn't even use some Google scholar or I might go with what professional breweries do since they're in this to make money.


To the OP have you considered stirring your mash every 10 minutes to increase efficiency?


To the one getting 85% efficiency do you crush to flour or double crush? I hit 80% stirring with the grain mill set at 0.035". Pilsner recipe from BYO and the wort was crystal clear.

 

[RM-MN]

I will do my best to find it. I. Isn't even use some Google scholar or I might go with what professional breweries do since they're in this to make money.


To the OP have you considered stirring your mash every 10 minutes to increase efficiency?


To the one getting 85% efficiency do you crush to flour or double crush? I hit 80% stirring with the grain mill set at 0.035". Pilsner recipe from BYO and the wort was crystal clear.

I use a Corona style mill set as tight as it will go and stir the grain into the water. This is the only stirring I do during the mash. After 20 minutes I pull the bag out and let it drain a bit before setting the bag of grains into a colander that is in a plastic bowl. At that time I will turn the heat on under the pot to begin heating the wort for the boil. Then I return any collected wort to the pot, squeeze out any more that I can and return that. Looking at the quantity of wort in the pot, I estimate how much water I need to sparge with to reach my pre-boil amount, then pour that into the bag of grains, stirring it so the water soaks in instead of running over the side. Any wort collected goes into the pot and then I squeeze out the rest and add that to the pot.

 

[iBrewR]

I'm curious. What does BMC do? These companies have been pursuing profit for a long, long time. I'd think that if a super fine grind and really short mash time could produce their beers, they would have discovered it and developed a process for implementing it on a large scale. So, does anyone know what the big boys are doing when it comes to mash time and crush?

My gut tells me there's something wrong with taking this to the extreme that some are suggesting. But then, my gut has lied to me before.

 

[TexasWine]

I haven't read the BYO article, but I have read that thinner mash = better efficiency. Of course there's a point of diminishing returns.

A quote from the braukaiser link below (emphasis added): "The brewhouse efficiency of the tick mashes remained almost constant between 58 and 60% over the temperature range of the experiments, but the brewhouse efficiency for the thinner mash showed a strong dependency on the temperature and was always better than the efficiency of the tick mash."

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph...ity_and_efficiency_in_single_infusion_mashing

 

[jbob7171]

I don't really have an opinion on this, but I just wanted to share something from the most recent BYO (December 2014 issue, page 24)... This was in the "help me Mr. Wizard" section and the question was about the no sparge method and if there are any disadvantages. It's a long response, but I'll stick to the point about enzymatic activity...

"When mashes become progressively thinner, enzyme stability decreases. Most beer in the world is brewed using a mash thickness somewhere between 2.6 parts water to 1 part malt (weight/weight basis) on the thick end of the spectrum to 4 parts water to 1 part malt on the thin end of the spectrum. Your last brew (relating the question posed) used 9 gallons or water and 8 pounds of malt, or 9.4 parts water to 1 part malt. That is an extremely thin mash and the enzymes in such a a mash are much less stable than enzymes in a thcker mash. The rate of the enzymatic reaction is also slower because the concentrations of both enzyme and substrate are reduced as the mash becomes more diluted (for more information on the subject read about Michaelis-Menten kinetics). This has a direct bearing on your particular problem and that problem is low wort fermentability. You are successfully extracting wort solids, mainly sugars, from the malt added to the mash, but those wort sugars are not all fermentable. The result is a high finish gravity"

The Michaelis-Menten kinetics mentioned is way too much science for me, but I put the wikipedia link below for those interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelis–Menten_kinetics

 

[Jdaught]

I agree with TexasWine and would also say that there is a sweet spot in water to grist ratio. Too thick is just as bad as too thin. Braukaiser's site pretty much lays it all out and has data to back it up. Out of curiosity, what kind of attenuation are you getting when mashing for 10-20 min? I would think it would be really low. Sure all the starch has been converted to sugar in that time resulting in complete conversion but most of that conversion would be in the form of complex (unfermentable) sugars since not enough time was given to break those complex chains down to simple (fermentable) sugars. I've never done BIAB so I'm also curious as to why a mash out step at 170 is done, since it is traditionally done to help thin and set the grain bed for lautering during a conventional mash process?

 

[RM-MN]

I agree with TexasWine and would also say that there is a sweet spot in water to grist ratio. Too thick is just as bad as too thin. Braukaiser's site pretty much lays it all out and has data to back it up. Out of curiosity, what kind of attenuation are you getting when mashing for 10-20 min? I would think it would be really low. Sure all the starch has been converted to sugar in that time resulting in complete conversion but most of that conversion would be in the form of complex (unfermentable) sugars since not enough time was given to break those complex chains down to simple (fermentable) sugars. I've never done BIAB so I'm also curious as to why a mash out step at 170 is done, since it is traditionally done to help thin and set the grain bed for lautering during a conventional mash process?

Mash out is really just to stop conversion and it really only applies to fly sparging where it might take nearly an hour to complete the sparge with the grains at mash temperature and conversion continuing. When you heat the grains to 170 and keep the temperature that hot for 10 minutes you denature the enzymes so conversion stops. Using a "mash out" in any other method is only with the thought that hotter wort dissolves more sugars and holding the "mash out" temperature for less than 10 minutes won't stop conversion, only denaturing the beta amylase which is more temperature sensitive than the alpha amylase.

 

[Todd820]

I will do my best to find it. I. Isn't even use some Google scholar or I might go with what professional breweries do since they're in this to make money.


To the OP have you considered stirring your mash every 10 minutes to increase efficiency?


To the one getting 85% efficiency do you crush to flour or double crush? I hit 80% stirring with the grain mill set at 0.035". Pilsner recipe from BYO and the wort was crystal clear.

I do stir, but not that frequently. Like to just leave the mash alone to work as well as hold the temp. I also probably need to hold at mash out longer so I will give both a try and see if I end up with a higher number. If I can get to 75% regularly I would be happy with that. Still only a few batches in with BIAB

 

[Todd820]

I don't really have an opinion on this, but I just wanted to share something from the most recent BYO (December 2014 issue, page 24)... This was in the "help me Mr. Wizard" section and the question was about the no sparge method and if there are any disadvantages. It's a long response, but I'll stick to the point about enzymatic activity...

"When mashes become progressively thinner, enzyme stability decreases. Most beer in the world is brewed using a mash thickness somewhere between 2.6 parts water to 1 part malt (weight/weight basis) on the thick end of the spectrum to 4 parts water to 1 part malt on the thin end of the spectrum. Your last brew (relating the question posed) used 9 gallons or water and 8 pounds of malt, or 9.4 parts water to 1 part malt. That is an extremely thin mash and the enzymes in such a a mash are much less stable than enzymes in a thcker mash. The rate of the enzymatic reaction is also slower because the concentrations of both enzyme and substrate are reduced as the mash becomes more diluted (for more information on the subject read about Michaelis-Menten kinetics). This has a direct bearing on your particular problem and that problem is low wort fermentability. You are successfully extracting wort solids, mainly sugars, from the malt added to the mash, but those wort sugars are not all fermentable. The result is a high finish gravity"

The Michaelis-Menten kinetics mentioned is way too much science for me, but I put the wikipedia link below for those interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelis–Menten_kinetics

Jbob - thanks for finding this! - This was the article that sent me down this road.

 

[TexasWine]

I don't really have an opinion on this, but I just wanted to share something from the most recent BYO (December 2014 issue, page 24)... This was in the "help me Mr. Wizard" section and the question was about the no sparge method and if there are any disadvantages. It's a long response, but I'll stick to the point about enzymatic activity...

"When mashes become progressively thinner, enzyme stability decreases. Most beer in the world is brewed using a mash thickness somewhere between 2.6 parts water to 1 part malt (weight/weight basis) on the thick end of the spectrum to 4 parts water to 1 part malt on the thin end of the spectrum. Your last brew (relating the question posed) used 9 gallons or water and 8 pounds of malt, or 9.4 parts water to 1 part malt. That is an extremely thin mash and the enzymes in such a a mash are much less stable than enzymes in a thcker mash. The rate of the enzymatic reaction is also slower because the concentrations of both enzyme and substrate are reduced as the mash becomes more diluted (for more information on the subject read about Michaelis-Menten kinetics). This has a direct bearing on your particular problem and that problem is low wort fermentability. You are successfully extracting wort solids, mainly sugars, from the malt added to the mash, but those wort sugars are not all fermentable. The result is a high finish gravity"

The Michaelis-Menten kinetics mentioned is way too much science for me, but I put the wikipedia link below for those interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelis–Menten_kinetics

Ah I see now. This person was using 4.5 qts/lb. Holy smokes that's thin!

To the OP, I would only take this article to say that if you're much outside the normal range of 2.6 to 4 parts water to one part malt, which is 1.25 to 2 qts/lb, then you might have some problems. BIAB folks oftentimes exceed the upper end of that range without issue. But this article was addressing someone at 4.5 qts/lb, which is way out of range.

So I'd say you'll probably see no difference as long add you weren't in crazy town with the guy doing 4.5 qts/lb.

 

[ong]

Oops, sorry, misread earlier post.

 

[wobdee]

I don't seem to have any problems with 5 gal water and 5 lbs of grain for my 3 gal BIAB batches. Beer has been turning out great.