36 replies to this topic

[zymot]

Sometimes I skip step 3. Doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. The water I would've added for this mash out step is added to the sparge.Also, I start heating the kettle after step 4.

+1 more or less.My outline is to reflect the batch sparge 101 conventional wisdom approach.There is a hypothesis that says "maximum efficiency in batch sparging comes when your two drain steps (steps 4 & 6 in my example) are of equal volume." If you take that as gospel, then pretty much any practical size recipe, infusion ratio and boil volume require you to add water in step 3. My step 3 is not to satisfy a mash out, but to get enough water into the grain and masuhtun to get half your boil volume. I have done batches where my step 4 drained considerably less than half of the boil volume. I start to panic and worry "Oh my God. I blew it big time. My efficiency is going to suck!" Then I make up for the shortage during steps 5 & 6 and I get very good efficiency. Like in the >83% efficiency instead of the poor efficiency you should get when you miscalculate steps 1 through 4.I have since done quite a few batch sparges where I short the volume of wort drained in step 4 on purpose. Then made up for it using more sparge water in step 5. My results are not conclusive. Efficiency bounced around less than expected, to as expected to better than expected.My anecdotal conclusion, do not put much effort into the half and half bath sparge rule. This appears to basically agree with Mtn's comment.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

There is a hypothesis that says "maximum efficiency in batch sparging comes when your two drain steps (steps 4 & 6 in my example) are of equal volume."

I believe there is a lot of wiggle room on how close those two drains are. If I remember correctly the efficiency graph is pretty flat around the area where the 2 volumes are equal and you have to move far away from this mid point before any serious loss in efficiency happens.

[HVB]

Here is the cliff notes version:1- Mix water and grains in mashtun2- Wait and allow for conversion of grains from starch to sugar3- Add more water to mashtun4- Drain wort from mashtun5- Add water to mashtun6- Drain wort from mashtun7- Begin boil

I have started to take the amount of water in step 3 and just split it bewteen my strike and sparge water. Seems to be working. Still making beer!

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I have started to take the amount of water in step 3 and just split it bewteen my strike and sparge water. Seems to be working. Still making beer!

why not just add all of step three water to your strike water? I believe a thinner mash might yeild slightly better efficiency and you'll still be draining approx equal amounts.

[Mynameisluka]

I have to say...I plan on going all grain in the near future (probably within the next couple of brews) and this post has helped me big time.

[shaggaroo]

1- Mix water and grains in mashtun2- Wait and allow for conversion of grains from starch to sugar3- Add more water to mashtun4- Drain wort from mashtun5- Add water to mashtun6- Drain wort from mashtun7- Begin boil

This is what I do; but my Step 3 IS a mash out. I've had a couple of stuck sparges without it when brewing with wheat, even when using rice hulls. Since religiously doing a mash-out (knock on wood) no stuck sparges, even with 50% wheat and no rice hulls.

[HVB]

why not just add all of step three water to your strike water? I believe a thinner mash might yeild slightly better efficiency and you'll still be draining approx equal amounts.

I run a really thin mash to start with to make sure my recirculation works with no issues. I am usually around 1.4 qts/# to start with. Not really sure why I decided on splitting it up the way I did. This weekend I will throw it all in at the beginning and see what comes of it.

[davelew]

wouldn't the longer mash make it a little more fermentable?

Most of the fermentability of wort comes from the actions of beta amylase, and beta amylase has a half life of about 10-15 minutes at mash temperatures (closer to 15 minutes at 149, closer to 10 minutes at 155). Mashing 90 minutes instead of 60 minutes doesn't really affect the fermentability, because so little beta amylase is be left. The return on longer mashes declines pretty rapidly, so an 8 hour mash will be more fermentable than a 1 hour mash, but 1 and 2 hour mashes will be pretty similar.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I run a really thin mash to start with to make sure my recirculation works with no issues. I am usually around 1.4 qts/# to start with. Not really sure why I decided on splitting it up the way I did. This weekend I will throw it all in at the beginning and see what comes of it.

I'm surprised you have all that much "step 3" water to begin with if you are going for a thinner mash.

[zymot]

why not just add all of step three water to your strike water? I believe a thinner mash might yeild slightly better efficiency and you'll still be draining approx equal amounts.

To do that, you would use a strike ratio that is thinner than most homebrewers tend to use.For a 8 lb recipe and an 8 gallon boil volume, you would use >19.5 qts or a ratio of 2.44 to 1.The math8(boil volume)/2 = 16 qts.16 qts + 3.84 qts (water retained by grains) = 19.5 qts strike waterWhen it comes to batch sparging this is what I my empirical knowledge tells me.Do not get distracted by the 50-50 rule. Make a reasonable effort to get in the neighborhood. Measure how much you collected after your first mashtun drain. Subtract that amount from your desired boil volume. This is how much water you need to for your last water addition, Step 5 in my previous post.Do not worry about mash out. When I use Palmer's calculations, it is hard to add enough boiling water to get to mash out temps.I batch sparge because it is simple, easy and fewer worries. The equipment required is cheaper and easier to build. Add water, stir and drain. Do not make it too complicated or let it inspire anxiety, if you do, you are defeating the purpose of batch sparging.Relax and make some beer.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

To do that, you would use a strike ratio that is thinner than most homebrewers tend to use.For a 8 lb recipe and an 8 gallon boil volume, you would use >19.5 qts or a ratio of 2.44 to 1.The math8(boil volume)/2 = 16 qts.16 qts + 3.84 qts (water retained by grains) = 19.5 qts strike waterWhen it comes to batch sparging this is what I my empirical knowledge tells me.Do not get distracted by the 50-50 rule. Make a reasonable effort to get in the neighborhood. Measure how much you collected after your first mashtun drain. Subtract that amount from your desired boil volume. This is how much water you need to for your last water addition, Step 5 in my previous post.Do not worry about mash out. When I use Palmer's calculations, it is hard to add enough boiling water to get to mash out temps.I batch sparge because it is simple, easy and fewer worries. The equipment required is cheaper and easier to build. Add water, stir and drain. Do not make it too complicated or let it inspire anxiety, if you do, you are defeating the purpose of batch sparging.Relax and make some beer.

I should note that I've never checked for the ratios for what I was suggesting. My spread sheet works it out for me so I hit 1.25 qt/lb ratio and my drains are very close to the same. I do the same steps you do. I add in the "step 3" water boiling b/c even then it's not enough to raise mash temps to a level to be conerned with. It does however loosen things up a bit I think which has benefit.

[HVB]

I'm surprised you have all that much "step 3" water to begin with if you are going for a thinner mash.

Sometimes I do not. Really depends on the size of the beer and the batch size.

[Malzig]

To do that, you would use a strike ratio that is thinner than most homebrewers tend to use.For a 8 lb recipe and an 8 gallon boil volume, you would use >19.5 qts or a ratio of 2.44 to 1.

More often than not, I just:-Stir grain into mash water at whatever ratio will give me ~1/2 the runoff volume.-Stir, vorlauf and drain at 60-90 minutes.-Add 1/2 the needed water as ~170F sparge water, stir, vorlauf and drain.If I was mashing 8# of grain for a 1.038 beer, I'd be mashing in at ~4.25 gallons, or ~2 qt/# (to get 6.5 gallons pre-boil and 5.25-5.5 gallons post boil), which is at the top end of the 1.5-2 qt/# thickness I roughly aim for. Pretty typical for a German brewery, though, from what I've heard, if a little thin for a British brewery. Thickness is a pretty minor concern.If I needed more water pre-boil, and was nervous about mashing that thin, I'd just move more to the sparge. Equal volumes does make a difference, but it's pretty slight. 1-2 gallons difference on a 5 gallon batch only affects efficiency by about 1-2%.

[denny]

I know fly-spargers like to refer to the "sparges" in batch sparging as rinses so I will call them rinses. Anyway, I mash and then do two rinses with about 3 gallons for number 1 and then about 2 or 2½ gallons for number 2. I'm probably late to the party here, but have any of you been doing just one rinse as opposed to 2 separate ones? I would have plenty of room in my MT for all of the rinse water. I thought I remember hearing that this could effect efficiency or whatever... so what's everyone doing for this? Is there a reason to do 2 rinses? Cheers.

99% of the time I do only one sparge addition (I _refuse_ to call them rinses!). I've tried doing more than one and found that there's so little increase in efficiency that it isn't worth my time or effort. I average 85% efficiency with only a single sparge. The only time I do more than one is if I use so much grain that I can't fit all the sparge water in the cooler at one. See my article in the latest Zymurgy for more info.

[denny]

Ken,Have you seen any benefit to mashing longer than 60 minutes? Typically I mash for 45 at my sach rest temp and then ramp up to 165-168 over 15 minutes for a mash out. Just wondering under what parameters you decide to go to 90.

I'm not Ken, but I've recently started doing 90 min. mashes with a higher liquor/grist ratio (at least 1.65 qt./lb., sometimes more). I've found that it slightly increase my efficiency (better conversion efficiency as opposed to extraction efficiency)and gives me a much more fermentable wort, which I like. I find that too often homebrew is too thick and dextrinous, and this helps with that.

Edited by denny, 25 August 2010 - 10:06 AM.

[denny]

I believe there is a lot of wiggle room on how close those two drains are. If I remember correctly the efficiency graph is pretty flat around the area where the 2 volumes are equal and you have to move far away from this mid point before any serious loss in efficiency happens.

Agreed. I've found that if the runoffs are within a gal. of equal it's close enough.

[strangebrewer]

I'm not Ken, but I've recently started doing 90 min. mashes with a higher liquor/grist ratio (at least 1.65 qt./lb., sometimes more). I've found that it slightly increase my efficiency (better conversion efficiency as opposed to extraction efficiency)and gives me a much more fermentable wort, which I like. I find that too often homebrew is too thick and dextrinous, and this helps with that.

You just blew my mind. Well actually you just blew my volume calcs to pieces. I often end up leaving my mash go for greater than 60 minutes just because I'm doing other things and the mash can always sit. I'll try this and see if I get a bump in efficiency.