Too thin mash?

[canyonbrewer]

What are the negatives for mashing in too thin? What is too thin?

 

[Stauffbier]

If you're way too thin, you won't have the ability to use much sparge water. I think a lot of people like to be in the range of 1.25-1.5qts per lb of grain. I have read of a few people pushing it to 2qts per lb, but that's to thin for my liking. I try to stay around 1.25 usually...

 

[KoedBrew]

A thin no-sparge mash can produce higher quality malt taste than a thick mash with a long slow sparge...
See Brew your Own Magazine Article November 2011

 

[Buckshot]

I noticed my thinner mashes didn't hold the temperature as well. I mash in a 10 gallon Igloo. I measure temp at mashin as well as mashout/pre-sparge. The thinner mash appeared to drop 5-7 degrees over the hour.

 

[canyonbrewer]

thanks guys...but i am talking about beer quality. any negatives from a thinner mash?

 

[Stauffbier]

I noticed my thinner mashes didn't hold the temperature as well. I mash in a 10 gallon Igloo. I measure temp at mashin as well as mashout/pre-sparge. The thinner mash appeared to drop 5-7 degrees over the hour.

That's strange. Usually a thinner mash will hold temp better because of the extra volume of hot water..

To the OP; I would think the quality of the finished beer would be very good with a thin mash as long as you're hitting your gravity numbers..

 

[bobbytuck]

I've switched completely to no spare and routinely do upwards of 2.7 to 3qt/lb mashes. It's easily the best beer I've ever brewed. My sense is that all the concerns about thick versus thin mashes are hogwash. YMMV

 

[Stauffbier]

I've switched completely to no spare and routinely do upwards of 2.7 to 3qt/lb mashes. It's easily the best beer I've ever brewed. My sense is that all the concerns about thick versus thin mashes are hogwash. YMMV

I've been thinking about giving this a try..

 

[bobbytuck]

I've been thinking about giving this a try..

In fact -- to add my post above -- I've got a full eHERMS system -- and my initial goal was to fly-sparge and do the normal mashout. As most folks eventually notice, the mash out is largely unnecessary in a homebrew environment. However, what really opened my eyes was the *flavor* difference in sparge versus no-sparge. The no-sparge malt flavor is intense -- much more so than any fly-sparge/mashout combination. True, my efficiency takes hit -- I went from 85% to 65% in no-sparge -- but I routinely scale up recipes by a third or so, and I'm able to reliably hit all the numbers.

Plus, I shave off an hour or so in my brewday. I know folks think there's some relationship to the mash thickness to the mouthfeel -- or to the FG -- but I detect absolutely no change in mouthfeel or fermentability. In fact, my mashes are more stable temp-wise due to the large (10+ gallons of water for a 5.5 gallon batch) amount of water in my MLT.

This all came about because of the BYO article about no-sparge brewing last fall. The change from fly-sparge to no-sparge has been one of the best things I've done for my beers. As I say, YMMV, but for me it's something I wish I'd done years ago (better than batch-sparging, too!)

 

[Stauffbier]

bobbytuck, have you tried doing an all night mash with a no sparge? I did that recently with a 2.5gal batch of SMaSH.. It's still in the fermentor, so the verdict is still out. I also hit about 65% efficiency on it..

 

[bobbytuck]

bobbytuck, have you tried doing an all night mash with a no sparge? I did that recently with a 2.5gal batch of SMaSH.. It's still in the fermentor, so the verdict is still out. I also hit about 65% efficiency on it..

I've not done an all night mash, but I have done extended six hour mashes. The resulting wort has been nicely fermentable but not overly so. Conversion happens quickly with most mashes, and I know there's little difference from, say, a 1 mash compared to a two hour mash. In other words, there's a diminishing return in terms of ultimate fermentability versus time. My mash tun isn't insulated -- but I do recirc during entire mash -- so I'm able to keep a rock solid temp. I use a lot of rice hulls in every mash -- five, six handfuls -- and I suspect my thin mashes, liberal use of rice hulls, and recirculation means there's not a lot of temp difference once everything settles down after mash-in. I have three temp probes -- MLT-in, a ranco probe I drop in from the top, and the normal dial temp on the Blichmann 15-gal kettle -- and they're always in agreement five minutes or so after mash-in.

But in terms of lengthy mashes, I've noticed no taste difference. Perhaps the longer mash has been a drier beer -- but I'm clearly not remembering any drastic difference. When I was fly-spargeing -- and then ramping from, say, 154F mash to 170F mash out -- my issue was that my beers weren't dry enough. The ramp up was slow -- about a degree a miniute -- so there was a 16min ramp up time and a 10 min mash out. I suspect I was altering the fermentaability profile with this slow ramp up, so I abandoned the mash out. That was the first good thing I did. The next thing -- a couple weeks later -- was skipping the sparge. These two things were key -- and I ain't going back to doing either!

The only potentially concerning thing was the slight rise in pH with the thinner mashes. Before I got, say, 5.3, now I was getting 5.5 or 5.6. But 1ml of 80% phosphoric acid easily (and quickly) knocked the 5.6 to a 5.45 @ room temp pH -- exactly where I want to be for most brews. So, yeah, the thin mash did impact the pH -- that was the only thing I noticed. But phosphoric acid (not lactic) easily fixed that. (But obviously, if you add acid to tweak the pH, you have to be *really* careful. A little bit of 80% phos goes a *long* way. It plummets the pH like crazy -- and within minutes).

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

I add as much water as I can and never sparge.

 

[Catawampus]

Just chiming with bobbytuck...

I've always done no-sparge, so my water/grist ratio is almost never lower than 2.5 qt/lb and is sometimes at 3.5 qt/lb, depending on grain bill. There are no ill-effects as far as I can taste, but I'm a no-sparge brewer.

 

[Stauffbier]

I add as much water as I can and never sparge.

Just chiming with bobbytuck...

I've always done no-sparge, so my water/grist ratio is almost never lower than 2.5 qt/lb and is sometimes at 3.5 qt/lb, depending on grain bill. There are no ill-effects as far as I can taste, but I'm a no-sparge brewer.

What kind of efficiency do you guys get?

 

[Catawampus]

I generally get 75 percent (this is my average--I have gotten 80 percent before). The exception is grain bills heavy on wheat. If I'm making I make a hefe, an american wheat, and a 100% wheat. On these the efficiency is more like 65-68%. I guess the gum holds more in or something, I dunno.

 

[bigdongsr94]

I am not sure if all of you make water adjustments but I started brewing doing full volume no sparge based on others success. I was just starting and doing low OG beers. This left not enough grain to bring down the pH of the mash. The outcome was dumping 5 gallons of astringent beer. I have read a lot and often time see people mention >2 qt/pound grain and not mention the ill effects this can produce if not doing a darker beer or making water adjustmensts accordingly. Maybe you dont have the problems but my water gives me a bitter batch without making adjustments if i go above 1.5 qts/lbs. Just trying to prevent others from making this mistake.

 

[Denny]

thanks guys...but i am talking about beer quality. any negatives from a thinner mash?

None that I've noticed. I've gone from 1.25 to 1.6-1.75, even as high as 2 qt./lb. for my ratios with no loss of beer quality.

 

[bobbytuck]

Do you mean by "bitter" your pH was too low -- i.e., acidic? Before I started making on-the-fly adjustments to my water I was finding that my pH was too high -- and the resulting beer out of the fermenter and in the bottle was bland. Hops and malt just didn't mesh. The pH meter was -- and is always -- important -- probably critical -- for any brew, but for no-sparge brews it's a definite necessity (especially if you don't have a water profile from either your city or Ward Labs.)

Once I started zeroing in on pH -- and using the Bru'n water spreadsheet to figure my gypsum and calcium chloride adjustments ahead of actually mashing in, I'm able to always hit the optimum range (for medium to dark beers, at least) of 5.4 to 5.5 pH at room temperature. (And thanks to AJ in the brewing science forum, I was able to wrap my head around how to measure mash pH -- and how critical mash pH *temperature* is.)

Or do you mean "bitter" in the sense that there's too much gypsum -- or too many minerals in general -- with your initial water? I mean, I've made beers that are too acidic -- 5.2 at room temp out of the mash for a stout I once made, for example, due to my using too much phosphoric acid -- and this beer was indeed a bit on the sour side. I wouldn't call it bitter -- although I guess it's possible that too much acidity can lead to bitter flavors -- although I've found that sourness is the culprit of too low a pH -- at least in my case.

BTW -- I've seen no evidence that super thin mashes (i.e. 2.75 to 3qt/lb for a no-sparge 1.065+ beer) have any impact whatsoever on the finished beer. I'm not sure why folks don't advocate thin mashes in the first place -- for no other reason that to make your mash much more thermally stable. More water means more temp stability. (Again, the only issue I see with thin mashes is pH -- but this is easy to adjust and requires -- at most -- a pH meter, a spreadsheet, and -- in most cases -- a bottle of either phosphoric or lactic acid. Most warnings against thin mashes zero in on mouthfeel or fermentability. I suspect what "mouthfeel" and "fermentability" mean in this context is really an out of whack pH.)

 

[cyclonite]

I use the BIAB method and usually have 3+ qt/lb and get great results. If there were issues with mashing too thin, I don't think anyone would use BIAB.

 

[RJS]

I dont measure qt/lb. Just half and half. So if i need 13 gal pre boil then i split it, half for mash and half for sparge. Works for me

 

[Stauffbier]

I dont measure qt/lb. Just half and half. So if i need 13 gal pre boil then i split it, half for mash and half for sparge. Works for me

This is what I usually try to do as well..

 

[Darwin18]

I routinely do 1.75 - 2.00 qts/L. A thinner mash makes more sense to me than a thicker mash. The addition of more water allows for greater solubility of sugars into solution. I do a single batch sparge to rinse the grains and I'm pleased with how my beer turns out. I've never had an issue with astringency from pH, but I don't measure my pH either.