This weekend we tried our first step mash by means of separate boiling water infusions. We have a RIMS using a keggle + a jaybird false bottom and stand.
I expected things to go awry / some "learning opportunities" to be had, but I'm still a bit miffed on the lessons to take from the experience. We went all-in with a 5-step mash re: doppelbock mashing suggestions on BYO (probably unnecessary, sure, but it's fun to play). We used the Brewer's Friend mash infusion calculator.
Off the bat, I noticed the calculator didn't account for deadspace in the mash tun. I added our deadspace (0.875gal / 3.5qt) on by means of toying with the water/grain ratio to get to the thick 0.5qt/lb ratio suggested by BYO + our deadspace.
I noticed the calculator called for 103*F water to reach an initial rest of 95* with 16lb of grain. I thought that was a bit low based on other experiences of temp drop in normal single-infusion strike water with our system and tried 110*F. And we did overshoot here. Generally the thick first step ended up somewhere between 99*F and 105*F through the mash. One thing - I had expected to lose temp, but no matter how much stirring I did and leaving the lid off, this temp seemed to stay pretty constant. Most of the mash was in the 100-104*F range by the end of the 60min step.
For step two (30min @ 113*F), calc called for 2.7qt of boiling water. We went back on the spot and recalculated since we had overshot the first step, called for a little less water. Anyways, we add boiling water...and the temps are around 103*F pretty uniform in the mash. This is one "learning opportunity" I didn't understand...did not expect to add boiling water and have nothing happen to the temp (using a Thermoworks calibrated unit + coupled probe, also another cheaper probe also read about the same). From here on out we struggled to reach step temps with the levels of water on the calculator / even after adding more boiling water. I don't know if it's a matter of our deadspace and a lot of the boiling water going straight down there and hanging out below the grain? We were stirring like crazy throughout the whole deal.
I had intented to start recirculating at the 4th step (149*F) as the mash thickness would finally be thin enough for that, but instead we tried at the third step to try to have the element help heat things up so we didn't end up with a crazy amount of first wort due to how much water we were adding. Well, we had flow issues all the way through trying to recirc. Second question: some people have said they have used keggle-sized BIAB bags in their recirc systems to avoid some particulate matter getting through their false bottom and clogging up the works. For those people, has this affected your flow rate? I tried to get a keggle-sized bag before the brew but they didn't have one that big at the LHBS. Not sure how much it would have helped in this case I guess - I think all the continuous stirring we did throughout all the steps killed any lautering ability the grain bed may have had as when we finally drained, the mash looked like a cake with just a little channel of flow all the way on the outside (during recirc, I would stir quite a bit, start the pump again, and get decent flow to start but over a couple minutes it would taper off as the bed would eventually set like this).
I expected things to go awry / some "learning opportunities" to be had, but I'm still a bit miffed on the lessons to take from the experience. We went all-in with a 5-step mash re: doppelbock mashing suggestions on BYO (probably unnecessary, sure, but it's fun to play). We used the Brewer's Friend mash infusion calculator.
Off the bat, I noticed the calculator didn't account for deadspace in the mash tun. I added our deadspace (0.875gal / 3.5qt) on by means of toying with the water/grain ratio to get to the thick 0.5qt/lb ratio suggested by BYO + our deadspace.
I noticed the calculator called for 103*F water to reach an initial rest of 95* with 16lb of grain. I thought that was a bit low based on other experiences of temp drop in normal single-infusion strike water with our system and tried 110*F. And we did overshoot here. Generally the thick first step ended up somewhere between 99*F and 105*F through the mash. One thing - I had expected to lose temp, but no matter how much stirring I did and leaving the lid off, this temp seemed to stay pretty constant. Most of the mash was in the 100-104*F range by the end of the 60min step.
For step two (30min @ 113*F), calc called for 2.7qt of boiling water. We went back on the spot and recalculated since we had overshot the first step, called for a little less water. Anyways, we add boiling water...and the temps are around 103*F pretty uniform in the mash. This is one "learning opportunity" I didn't understand...did not expect to add boiling water and have nothing happen to the temp (using a Thermoworks calibrated unit + coupled probe, also another cheaper probe also read about the same). From here on out we struggled to reach step temps with the levels of water on the calculator / even after adding more boiling water. I don't know if it's a matter of our deadspace and a lot of the boiling water going straight down there and hanging out below the grain? We were stirring like crazy throughout the whole deal.
I had intented to start recirculating at the 4th step (149*F) as the mash thickness would finally be thin enough for that, but instead we tried at the third step to try to have the element help heat things up so we didn't end up with a crazy amount of first wort due to how much water we were adding. Well, we had flow issues all the way through trying to recirc. Second question: some people have said they have used keggle-sized BIAB bags in their recirc systems to avoid some particulate matter getting through their false bottom and clogging up the works. For those people, has this affected your flow rate? I tried to get a keggle-sized bag before the brew but they didn't have one that big at the LHBS. Not sure how much it would have helped in this case I guess - I think all the continuous stirring we did throughout all the steps killed any lautering ability the grain bed may have had as when we finally drained, the mash looked like a cake with just a little channel of flow all the way on the outside (during recirc, I would stir quite a bit, start the pump again, and get decent flow to start but over a couple minutes it would taper off as the bed would eventually set like this).
