Thick mash to gain better efficiency?

[badlee]

After listening to a recent MBAA podcast with brewers from St Arnold I was wondering how thick one could go with a mash without it being too dry.

The gist was, that the thicker the mash, the more water is held back to sparge with, thus a more efficient mash.
Any thoughts?

 

[Trail]

I am not an expert, but this sounds screwy. If the mash is thicker because it's got more grain, it's going to take more sparge water to remove a given volume of sugar at a given saturation, right?

Thin mashes are supposed to be more efficient, and at the lower gravities/smaller grain bills I can't see it making a meaningful impact on the amount of water available for sparging. Maybe at the higher gravities.

 

[SpeedYellow]

IIRC, the prevailing wisdom is that for single batch sparging, you want your 2 wort volumes equal. I.e. First runoff = sparge water volume.

So probably the only way that a thicker mash could increase efficiency is if you do 2 batch sparges, which is known to increase efficiency a couple points.

When folks say "a thinner mash increases efficiency," they're only referring to conversion efficiency, which is only half the story. So the statement can be misleading.

 

[lump42]

From what I've read, it's a balancing act. Going slightly thicker forces the enzymes and starch together in a smaller space, but more of the sugars will be left behind after the first runnoff. If the mash is too thin (I have no idea what is considered 'too thin'), the starch and enzymes are less likely to bump into each other so the conversion will be slower/lower, but more of the converted sugars will be removed from the mash.

And the important thing for homebrewers is does it matter at the mash thickness that most people would find practical, and will we even notice?

 

[doug293cz]

IIRC, the prevailing wisdom is that for single batch sparging, you want your 2 wort volumes equal. I.e. First runoff = sparge water volume.

So probably the only way that a thicker mash could increase efficiency is if you do 2 batch sparges, which is known to increase efficiency a couple points.

When folks say "a thinner mash increases efficiency," they're only referring to conversion efficiency, which is only half the story. So the statement can be misleading.

All correct. If people would talk about conversion efficiency and lauter efficiency separately, things would be a lot clearer. Mash efficiency equals conversion efficiency times lauter efficiency.

Thinner mashes increase conversion rate, so if conversion is not 100% at the end of the mash (often the case with coarse crush) have a higher conversion.

More sparges increases lauter efficiency. A fly sparge (if done without channeling) is like an infinite number of very small sparges, so can have the highest lauter efficiency.

Brew on

 

[GoeHaarden]

I came across this xBmt a while ago, and now I focus more on what works best with my setup...

http://brulosophy.com/2016/02/15/the-mash-standard-vs-thin-liquor-to-grist-ratio-exbeeriment-results/

 

[Qhrumphf]

Pretty sure the podcast the OP refers to is exclusively continuous (ie fly) sparging, as that's the standard at commercial scale (the speed gains of batch sparging don't apply at that scale).

 

[badlee]

They were talking of single sparge and single sparge plus a small second sparge.
This had me confused, as I was under the impression that all bigger brewers were running a fly sparge set up.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I'm not familiar with St. Arnold's setup, but that'd definitely be unusual.

Pilot system perhaps? I double batch sparge small batches in a similar manner (maybe 45%, 45%, 10% of wort volume in each subsequent runoff) because it's faster and easier and gets almost the same efficiency as fly sparging.

However that's mashing relatively thin (1.5 qt/lb).

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I came across this xBmt a while ago, and now I focus more on what works best with my setup...

http://brulosophy.com/2016/02/15/the-mash-standard-vs-thin-liquor-to-grist-ratio-exbeeriment-results/

Going from 1.25:1 to 1:1 was hardly a significant mash thickness change from the perspective of the grist. This Brulosophy exbeeriment should be repeated with identical batches mashed at 2:1 and 1:1.

 

[GoeHaarden]

Going from 1.25:1 to 1:1 was hardly a significant mash thickness change from the perspective of the grist. This Brulosophy exbeeriment should be repeated with identical batches mashed at 2:1 and 1:1.

Not sure if you read the same article as me, but the link I posted the xBmt compares a 2.5:1 to 1.25:1 ratios. Unless, I missed something...

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Not sure if you read the same article as me, but the link I posted the xBmt compares a 2.5:1 to 1.25:1 ratios. Unless, I missed something...

Ah, you are indeed correct.

 

[GoeHaarden]

Ah, you are indeed correct.

I honestly had to re-read it, sometimes I miss the point entirely. lol

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I honestly had to re-read it, sometimes I miss the point entirely. lol

In the beginning he sets the stage by mentioning 1.25 going to 1.00. This in the end proves to be just word filling to pad out the exbeeriment.

 

[GoeHaarden]

In the beginning he sets the stage by mentioning 1.25 going to 1.00. This in the end proves to be just word filling to pad out the exbeeriment.

Ah, I see. Not that I base my brewing around xBmts, I do like to see some of my own curiosities worked out by someone willing to spend the time and money. Like brulosopher.

Either way, with this one I quit worrying about grist ratios because I always operate within the tested parameters. On my scale (5 gallons), I don't worry much about efficiency as adjusting my recipes isn't too expensive if I need more fermentables.