starch conversion

[bsheldon91]

I recently brewed my first all-grain batch. After reading some other recipes, I'm beginning to think that I didn't mash the grains long enough to get a complete starch conversion. How would this affect the taste?
I mashed at 125 deg for 30 min and then brought it up to 152 deg for 45 min. Any thoughts would be great thanks.

 

[MrBrewEsq]

Couple of things.. What OG did you end up with? What was your grain bill, total #, batch size, amount of sparge water used & temp,? What was ths OG you expected. How much mash water did you use? Okay, that's more than a coupe of things, but it all plays into getting gravity and batch size your are targeting.

Cheers

 

[bsheldon91]

My OG was 1.050 and I was expecting 1.053. I wasn't sure if the starches that didn't get converted would still bring my OG to where it needed to be or not. I used 10# of gleneagle maris otter for a 5 gal batch. I followed the steps in the complete joy of home brewing book for step mashing. I don't have it on me currently but is something like 1.5 gal at 130 deg and then another 2 gal at 200 deg was added to bring it to 155 deg. from there I sparged with 4 more gal at 175 deg.

 

[MrBrewEsq]

Sounds like your efficiency was pretty good, only missing your target by 3 points. You might try a couple of things next batch..
1. Try a mashout. Thats were you raise the grain bed temp to around 160-165°F at the end of the mash. Hold this temp for 5 or 10 minutes. This will raise your efficiency by helping rinse out your extracted sugars. You may have to remove liquor from your mash and heat it separately, if you can't heat the mash tun, then return it back to the mash.
2. Try a single infusion mash next time. Add your grain to the mash to stablize at between 150-158°F. With the low amount of water and grain you have, heat your water to about 165°F before you add your grain. This might take a little practice to get it dialed in. Step mash's are fun and have their place, however with the highly modified grains we have these days, really not necessary.

Good luck...

Cheer, Dave

 

[MrBrewEsq]

Follow on to my last post... When figuring your water to grain ratio, use .25 gallons (1 quart) of water per pound of grain in your grain bill. The grain will absorb about half the water... So, for 10# of grain you will mash into 2.5 gallons of water. You will recover 1.25 gallons of that. Sparge with 4.5 gallons of sparge water, which should give you 5.75 gallons to boil. You should be just about where you need to be for volume at the end of your boil.

Hope that helps.