Simple Single Stage Infusion Mash Question

[Mutilated1]

I'm planning my first All Grain brew day coming up in the near future. I want to brew 3 beers that day, and I've choosen recipes that I can do with a single stage infusion type mash because I want to keep it simple.

If I want to mash at say 150F for an hour, does that mean that I heat the water and grain both to 150F and then let it sit in the Mash Tun for an hour, or do I put the grain in the mash tun and add water thats hotter than 150F so that after its mixed with the grain the temp I arrive at is 150F ?

What would be the simplest easiest way to go about doing this ?

I've looked at some pictures online and read the wiki, even watched a video and I'm a bit confused by the apparently conflicting advice.

I was hoping I could get the water hotter than 150F add it to the grain already in the mash then just stir it up and wait, but the folks at my local home brew store tell me its not that simple.

Help me out.

 

[FlyGuy]

I think we all do exactly what your LHBS told you not to do. Just get your water hotter than your rest temp, and it will heat the grains, and equilibrate down to the right temp. You may also have to heat your mash tun, as well, because it will absorb some heat (unless you preheat it with a couple quarts of near-boiling water, first).

Here are some handy tools to help you compute the infusion temp so that you end up at your saccharification rest temp:

http://www.brewheads.com/tempchange.php
http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

Of course, brewing software like Beersmith or ProMash will do this as well, among lots of other handy calculations. Highly recommended.

 

[Mutilated1]

Ah so if I have a Mash Tun made from a rubbermaid cooler then I need to put some 150F water in there for a while first and let it get pre-heated while I get all the other stuff ready ?

Then judging by the numbers I get on those calculators - I look at where it says "Mash Water Needed" and heat it up to the "Strike Temperature" and when its ready, I can just dump the pre-heating water out and put the grain and mash water in there and then stir it up and then wait and hour ?

 

[FlyGuy]

I think there are two common ways:

Calculate your strike temperature to include the amount of heat required to raise your grain to the rest temperature. Assumes you have pre-heated the mash tun with very hot water (say a couple quarts @ 190F) and then discarded that water just prior to mashing.

Calculate the strike temperature to raise both the mash tun and grains to desired rest temp.

Both ways work, but often the online calculators assume you have pre-heated.

 

[FlyGuy]

By the way -- hope your first AG batch goes well! You sound VERY ambitious to be brewing three beer recipes on the first try. Despite it making for a long day, it might actually be a good learning experience since you will do each one back-to-back, and hopefully, learn at each step/recipe. Let us know if you are able to get your way through all three!

So what's your time estimate for three AG brews? Just curious.

 

[jdoiv]

I would suggest getting one of the software programs out there. I use ProMash and it has calculators for strike temp.

I heat the water to the strike temp and then add the grains into the strike water in 3 parts. I'll add a third of the grains and then stir for a couple of minutes to break up any dough balls that form. I then repeat until all my grain is in. I think it helps eliminate hot spots and reduces the size and number of dough balls that form.

 

[Bobby_M]

Ok, first, there is no way in F@($#& hell you're going to pull off 3 of your first all grain brews in one day unless you mean 24 hours on your feet.

To get your intial infusion temp right, there are two things to consider; grain temp/amount and MLT heat capacity. It's not easy to figure out on paper.

I like to take the MLT heat capacity out of the equation by infusing with much hotter water. In general, you want your water to settle in at about 165-168 or so. That means putting it into a cold MLT at about 175F and waiting 10 minutes will likely get you there. Then you mix in your room temp grains to settle in at around 154. The advantage to this is that you just don't drop the grain in util you get that water down to your desired strike temp. Stirring with the lid open drops it for as long as you'd like.

 

[Mutilated1]

Time estimate ?

Well I'm planning on starting about 5am since I want to do it outside on my screen porch and I wanted to get it done in the morning before it gets too hot ourside. I was figuring that if I had to let the grains mash for an hour or so, that should give me time to do other things like boil and cool the wort and heat up the next batch of water while I was waiting. I was thinking I'd be finished by 12:30-1:00 or so before it gets too hot outside, then I'd drink some beer and take a nap and clean everything up and put it away in the evening when its cooler.

Going to use the turkey fryer outside to boil the wort, and the gas stove inside for heating up the water, so I'm hoping by the time I get the first beer boiled and ready to chill, that the second beer will be ready to come out of the Mash Tun and boil for a while, which will make room in the Mash Tun for the last batch to get started mashing if I still feel up to it.

Does that sound possible or am I way underestimating the effort it will take ? It seems to me that most of the work is in setting everything up, cleaning it up afterwards, and putting it all away so I figure why not just do three at once and get the most from the effort ?

I'm planning on making EdWort's Bee Cave Kolsh recipe, A "clone" of Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale that Beerriffic guessed the recipie for, and I figure for only $20-$25 worth of ingredients I might as well take a stab at making some kind of beer up from scratch just for funsies.

 

[Mutilated1]

Time estimate ?

Well I'm planning on starting about 5am since I want to do it outside on my screen porch and I wanted to get it done in the morning before it gets too hot ourside. I was figuring that if I had to let the grains mash for an hour or so, that should give me time to do other things like boil and cool the wort and heat up the next batch of water while I was waiting. I was thinking I'd be finished by 12:30-1:00 or so before it gets too hot outside, then I'd drink some beer and take a nap and clean everything up and put it away in the evening when its cooler.

Going to use the turkey fryer outside to boil the wort, and the gas stove inside for heating up the water, so I'm hoping by the time I get the first beer boiled and ready to chill, that the second beer will be ready to come out of the Mash Tun and boil for a while, which will make room in the Mash Tun for the last batch to get started mashing if I still feel up to it.

Does that sound possible or am I way underestimating the effort it will take ? It seems to me that most of the work is in setting everything up, cleaning it up afterwards, and putting it all away so I figure why not just do three at once and get the most from the effort ?

I'm planning on making EdWort's Bee Cave Kolsh recipe, A "clone" of Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale that Beerriffic guessed the recipie for, and I figure for only $20-$25 worth of ingredients I might as well take a stab at making some kind of beer up from scratch just for funsies.

 

[krispy d]

looking back at my first all grain brew (all 8 hours of it) I'd say it is going to be very difficult to do three! But, do not be discouraged by this barrage of naysayers! brew on friend, brew on!

 

[Mutilated1]

Ok, first, there is no way in F@($#& hell you're going to pull off 3 of your first all grain brews in one day unless you mean 24 hours on your feet..

Really ? It takes 8 hours to brew a five gallon batch ?

I was under the impression that it took maybe 3-4 hours and that enough parts of it were basically waiting so that I'd be able to batches in parallel.

Well you may be right - we shall see. I was kind of thinking I'd plan on doing 3, but depending on how things were going I might save the last batch for another day.

But you've kind of thrown down the gauntlet now - ha ha ha - I've gotta do it

 

[Bobby_M]

I understand why it seems like a half day's work in your head but I promise you this kind of undertaking would be difficult with a 3-burner single tier system with an experienced all grain brewer at the helm. I'm relatively settled in to the all grain process and even when I setup the night before, I'm dog tired after a single batch. I'd suggest running a single batch on that day. See how it goes. If it's cake, schedule the next available brew day and brew two batches. If you use the same yeast, you can split the slurry from the first batch into the primary of the next two.

 

[Bobby_M]

Have you chilled 5 gallons yet?

1. Heat initial strike water - 30 min
2. Heat MLT and wait for temp to settle 10
3. Dough in - 10
4. Mash - Heat Sparge water- 60
5. Vorlauf and drain-10
6. Batch 1 Sparge infusion, stir, vorlauf, drain-15
7. Batch 2 Sparge infusion, stir, vorlauf, drain-15
8. Time to acheive boil on last runnings-15
(start step #1 for next batch here)
9. Minimum 60 minute boil - 60
10. Chill -30

255 minutes or 4 hours, fifteen minutes on a single batch minimum.

Technically you can begin step one on batch two when you're on step 8 of batch one but that's only cutting 90 minutes off the additive time.

4:15 x 3 = 12:45 - 3:00 = 8:45 theoretically if you have absolutely no problems. No temperature issues, nothing.

 

[FlyGuy]

looking back at my first all grain brew (all 8 hours of it) I'd say it is going to be very difficult to do three! But, do not be discouraged by this barrage of naysayers! brew on friend, brew on!

BARRAGE of naysayers? Oh come on. I simply asked what his time estimate was.

Now that I know what his time estimate is, I will be a REALIST and say to Mutilated1 that he should plan to get one or two done by noon. I think encouraging him to do three recipes by noon on his first attempt at AG brewing is only going to lead to utter disappointment.

Anyways, seriously -- just focus on making one good brew, and have a second waiting in the wings if you are still feeling energetic and ambitious. I think you could end up rushing things too much if you try to do multiple recipes simultaneously in that short a period of time. Inevitably, it will lead to mistakes. And there is no better way to turn off a new AG brewer than to experience mistakes or failures on the first few batches.

Take your time, make a great simple brew (sounds like that is what you have designed already), and soak up as much about the process as you can so that you know where to improve your next batch. Best of luck man -- hope things go really, really well!!

 

[Beerthoven]

As a new AG brewer (I've only done 2), I would recommend you do just one brew for your first time out. The process is easy to learn, but hard to master. Trying to juggle 3 batches on the first day seems like a recipe for disaster.

Both of my AG batches have taken me 5-6 hours to complete. It takes a lot longer than you think it will to heat water, conduct the mash-vorluf-sparge, bring the wort to boil, and cool it down again.

Not trying to rain on yer parade; I commend your energy. I'm just saying it might be more work than you are bargaining for.

 

[Orfy]

My last two brew days have been 3 brew days but I would not recommend it to an inexperienced brewer.

My last one took 10 hours with a BBQ as well.
My first one took 12 hours with shopping, dog walking and the pub.

 

[krispy d]

BARRAGE of naysayers? Oh come on. I simply asked what his time estimate was.

I jest, I seem to have forgotten my " "

 

[Mutilated1]

hmm - well I'm not going to treat it like a race or anything

If I'm done by 12:30-1:00 fine, if it takes a couple hours longer than I was anticipating well thats fine too

I figured I'd do EdWort's Kolsch first since it has a defined recipe and instructions, and since it sounds to me like I'd probably like to drink that beer.

Then I was thinking I'd do the "Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale" recipe that Beerriffic guessed at for me. Since he just guessed at the recipe ( https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=36544 ) I won't be terribly disappointed if its not perfect, but I'm confident it will be good to drink.

I guess it won't be the worst thing in the world if I don't make all three recipes, and one thing about me is that personally if I'm not having a good time doing it anymore then I'll just quit and do something else. If you can't have a good time while doing it then its just not worth doing.

I won't have a problem with realizing I bit off more than I can chew and backing out and waiting for another day if I need to, but seriously I think I can pull it off. I'm the kind of person who'll plan it out ahead of time and have a contingency plan for if something goes wrong anyway. Besides brew day is still a couple weeks away because I want to get a secondhand deep freezer to control the fermentation temps, and also because I promised to drink up some of the beer I already brewed before I make any more.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Beerrific]

Also, when you are using a lot of pilsner malt as in the Kolsch, you might be advised to boil for 90min to drive off as much DMS as possible. My first AG was a hefeweizen and I boild for only 60 mins and I can taste some DMS (no else can but I swear its there). I boiled my second for 90 minutes and it is not there. Also, DMS production happens at any temp above 140F, so you need to chill as fast as possible.

Good luck. I am at AG batch number 5 and I would not do 2 at once or back-to-back. But, that's me.

 

[FlyGuy]

I jest, I seem to have forgotten my " "

LOL - actually, so did I!

 

[ScubaSteve]

I think there's something to be said for taking it in steps. What if you have some error in your process, and you make 3 batches of bad beer? It's always better to write the events of your brew-day, ferment it out, then taste it. That way you can streamline the process and get better each time. If you do 3 batches at once, you miss out on the experience you'd gain from doing 3 separate batches.