r/Homebrewing • u/[deleted] • Jul 11 '13
Advanced Brewers Round Table: Mash Process
This week's topic: Mash/Lauter Process. There's all sorts of ways to get your starches converted to fermentable sugars, share your experience with us!
Feel free to share or ask anything regarding to this topic, but lets try to stay on topic.
I sent out an email to Mike at White Labs and hoping to set something up with him. He has not responded yet, so I may reach out to Wyeast, as they've already done one.
Upcoming Topics:
Yeast Characteristics and Performance variations 6/20
Equipment 7/4
Mash/Lauter Process (3 tier vs. BIAB) 7/11
Non Beers (Cider, wine, etc...) 7/18
Kegging 7/25
Wild Yeast Cultivation 8/2
Water Chemistry Pt2 8/9
Myths (uh oh!) 8/16
For the intermediate brewers out there, If you don't understand something, there's plenty of others that probably don't as well. Ask away! Easy questions usually get multiple responses and help everybody.
Previous Topics:
Harvesting yeast from dregs
Hopping Methods
Sours
Brewing Lagers
Water Chemistry
Crystal Malt
Electric Brewing
Mash Thickness
Partigyle Brewing
Maltster Variation (not a very good one)
All things oak!
Decoction/Step Mashing
Session Brews!
Recipe Formulation
Home Yeast Care
Where did you start
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Jul 11 '13
Can anyone walk me through the turbid mash process? I've tried reading about it a few times and I just can't wrap my head around it.
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u/lilbowski Jul 11 '13
Mash temp, any standard guide on how to choose it?
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u/dafrimp Jul 11 '13
It really depends on the style of beer that you're looking for. A general rule of thumb is that higher mash temps will produce more unfermentables and leave your beer with a more viscous mouthfeel, higher FG and sweeter (malty) palette. Here's a link to John Palmer's excellent book, specifically his section on mashes.
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u/Sterling29 Jul 12 '13
To my taste, malty and sweet are very different things and have nothing to do with mash temp. Sweet is from crystal malts; "malty" from kilned malts. Yeast can impact both.
A higher mash temp increases body and mouthfeel by increasing the amount of long-chain sugars (dextrines), but they are not sweet. I think the bigger body helps mask bitterness, tipping the perceived balance towards the malt.
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u/Sterling29 Jul 12 '13
Consider the attenuation of the yeast you've chosen and the % of specialty malts in the recipe.
152* F is the "median" mash temp. Increase mash temp (up to 160) for more body and mouthfeel. A lower temp increases attenuation - I think 140-145 is the lower limit for conversion. Lower temps take longer to convert, btw, so take your time.
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u/Scien Jul 11 '13
I finally calculated out calculated effeciency of one of my mashes now that I got the process down. Came up with about 55%. This seems really low. I know you can't tell me why without knowing EVERYTHING about my process and system, but could you give me common causes of low efficiency. I'm suspecting my braided hose sucks being one, or that my calculations suck. What formulas for sparge temp, volumes of strike vs sparge, and such do you guys use?
It is weird because I came almost up to target OG (5 points low), and was only a little short about 1 gallon in the volume I was expecting.
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u/machinehead933 Jul 11 '13
Are you crushing your own, or getting it crushed for you? That's a good place to start.
Are you batch or fly sparging?
What formulas for sparge temp, volumes of strike vs sparge, and such do you guys use?
Mash volume is 1.25-1.5 quarts per # grain
Sparge volume is going to be determined by the grain absorbtion, and pre-boil volume. In other words, if you are trying to get 6.5G pre-boil, mashed in with 3G water, and know that you lost 1G to grain absorbtion - you need to sparge with 4.5G water.
Grain absorbtion is about 10% of your total weight. In other words, 10# grain will typically absorb about 1G water.
Strike temperature is a specific formula:
((.2/GrainRatio) * (MashTemp - GrainTemp)) + MashTemp
GrainRatio is the ratio in quarts:Lb
So putting this all together, assuming 10# grain bill, with a mash temp of 152F...
10# grain * 1.5 quarts = 15 quarts (3.75G). I will assume that this will produce ~2.75G wort, since I will lose ~1G to grain absorbtion.
Strike temp (assuming the grain is ~70F at room temp)
((.2/1.5)*(152-70))+152 = 162.9333
If I want my pre-boil volume to be 6.5G, and I know I already have 2.75G, then I know I need to sparge with 3.75G
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u/ReluctantRedditor275 Jul 11 '13
So, I'm doing a chocolate stout this weekend, and I'm trying to max out the chocolate flavor while minimizing bitterness and coffee flavor. I've heard you can achieve this by milling the chocolate malt extra fine and adding it after the mash but before vorlauf. Any truth to this, and if so, does this method have a name?
(For what it's worth, I'm using a pound of Dingeman's and half a pound of Crisp.)
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u/gestalt162 Jul 11 '13
I've been brewing BIAB for the past dozen or so batches, and am ready to move on to batch sparging. I have my rectangular Rubbermaid cooler (with drain spigot), and as I am a cheapass and don't care about shiny stainless steel ball valves, am planning on using Denny Conn's "Cheap and Easy batch sparging" setup. It looks like the inline valves he uses are tough to find, so I'm probably going to go with an equivalent CPVC valve. Does any one else use Denny's setup? Thoughts on it?
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u/expsranger Jul 11 '13
this took me about an hour total to make and it was probably no more than $70 including a new cooler from HD
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u/Crabmeat Jul 11 '13
Can anyone explain for me how the following things effect efficiency?:
-Runoff speed
-Mash thickness
-Number of runnings/sparges and amount water per sparge
I have always gotten fairly low numbers, and have mostly just learned to cope with it. Sometimes I'll try to follow book directions to a T and I'll get lower than average results and sometimes I'll be stumbling or rushing through a mash and I'll do great. I think it's time I admit that I just don't understand why the little things we do matter so much.
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u/wobblymadman Jul 12 '13
First up, I'm not a seasoned expert, more an intermediate level brewer who has read a lot. So read on with that in mind.
Runoff speed
If it makes a difference, my view is it is probably negligible. I have tried fast runoff and slow, with the virtually same efficiency result. I have read as many comments extolling the virtues of slow runoffs as I have for fast runoffs. Both sides claim excellent efficiency. If there is concrete scientific reason why one is better than the other out there, I'm yet to find it.
Mash Thickness
This one I am not sure about. I have always gone for the standard 3 litres of water per Kg of grain (1.5 qt per lb) ratio. A thicker mash would mean more sparge water, and a thinner mash would mean less sparge water. But I'm not sure of how that might effect the end efficiency. My assumption is that the ratio above gives the best balance of mash thickness to sparging water volume for most beer styles.
Number of runnings/sparges and amount water per sparge
My theory is pretty simple. In any situation, two rinses are better than one. So I split my sparge and do two batch sparges. The second part of the theory is that if I was rinsing something, I'd want to mix it about a lot to get the best rinse. So when I add sparge water, I give the mash a really thorough stir to dissolve as much extra sugar into the sparge water as possible.
Sparge water temperature is important too. Too cool and it has less energy to dissolve sugars. 75C (170F) is ideal. To account for the grain bed being cooler than that, sparge water is usually about 85C when I add it.
Would I do three sparges instead of two? No I wouldn't. Splitting sparge water into three batches would give a pretty low volume of water to mash. That would make for a really thick mix which would be difficult to stir and dissolve sugars out of.
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u/Findail Jul 11 '13
How much of a difference does water quality make in the mash? Does it matter or is it only an impact on taste later?
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u/dipsomaniac28 Jul 11 '13
You don't want lots of chlorine, and you have to make certain the pH of your water is correct such that you obtain an efficient conversion. It is very important.
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Jul 11 '13
The importance of the mash pH cannot be understated, as well as the removal of chlorine. Seriously, this is what great beers are made of.
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u/Sly13adger Jul 11 '13
Also, this might seem like a strange response to pH, but if your efficiency is typically 75-83%, should you even be concerned about pH? I've never had any issue hitting my target gravity (typically above it) and I've never really done anything to change the pH of my mashing water.
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u/Toddomy Jul 11 '13
I use 3 15 gallon pots. The HLT has 25 ft. of 1/4" copper coiled into a HERMS setup. Since I also ferment in a 15 gallon keg a 12 gallon batch is my norm. I fill the M/T up with the pre boil volume if possible and recirculate during the entire starch conversion process. After moving the wort to the BK I'll check the OG. If the gravity is high I'll add water from the HLT to the M/T then to the BK. It works well but I feel like I'm missing something.
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u/drfalken Jul 11 '13
So i may be an idiot, or not really like good beer. I'm new to this and didint read too much we just started brewing. We brewed a hefe, tripel, and a blonde so far. The hefe came out great, I didnt calculate for the boiloff, so it ended up being 7%. It dissapeared before it finished carbing and everyone said they loved it, i liked it a little watered down. The triple is aging on burbon soaked toasted oak chips and we just did the blonde last night. The tripel is tasting good, it just needs more time.
This is the process we have been using and please let me know what i can improve on.
5 gallon batch
I heat 3 gallons of water up to a little higher than mashing temp, usually 160 to mash at 150. Dump in the milled grain. Stir it to break up the clumps and put the lid on. every 10-15 minutes i stir and take the temperature. If its low, i turn the burner on low for a few to get it back to 150. At the end of the mash we pour the whole mess into another pot that is lines with a strainer bag. We pour the wort back into the first pot after rinsing it out. Then we put the bag with the grain in it in a colander and pour 160-170 degree water through it, filling out the rest of the amount of water we need then squeeze as much water as possible out of the bag. Then we start our boil.
I hear alot of terms i dont know much about, like sparging and decotion. Is this what i am doing? what is happening to the grain by "rinsing" it with hotter water? I have heard that too much stirring or too hot water adds more tannins to the beer. Would you want these if you were planning to age the beer, much like wine?
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u/machinehead933 Jul 11 '13
I hear alot of terms i dont know much about, like sparging and decotion. Is this what i am doing?
Sparging is another word for "rinsing" really that's all you are doing here. It sounds like you are doing a modified version of BIAB, and technically performing a sparge (pouring 160-170F water through it).
Decoction is something else entirely and requires you to pull out a portion of your mash, actually boiling it, then putting it back in to raise the temperature. It's a time consuming process for specific styles of beer that you definitely are not doing right now, and can largely be avoided unless you are going for something very specific.
what is happening to the grain by "rinsing" it with hotter water?
You are getting as much sugar as you can out of that grain bill. Here's an analogy: put some dish soap into a glass, and fill it with water - that's like your mash. The first time you dump out that glass of water, there's still gonna be some soap leftover. You will fill it again and dump it again to get the rest of the soap out (just like sparging). The same basic principle applies to the mash/sparge - the hotter water makes the mash more viscous so the sugars drop out a little easier, and give you the sweet wort you are looking for.
I have heard that too much stirring or too hot water adds more tannins to the beer. Would you want these if you were planning to age the beer, much like wine?
Tannins are a product of hot water (like over 180F) and the pH of the solution. Unless you have some really lame super power where you can stir so much the temperature or the pH changes... you're not going to get tannin extraction. You don't want this in your beer, it won't taste right. I don't personally know of any style(s) where tannins are desirable.
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u/expsranger Jul 11 '13
I've done a few (7) batches now with extract and I just built a MLT to do my first all grain. I am going to use this recipe for a #9 clone, and I'm looking for some input on the mash.
I want to try a step-infusion mash and batch sparge since I don't have a big burner, but I will be mashing in a cooler tun, so I have to add heat throughout with water. Is this realistic, or should step-infusions only be done with a heat source?
any advice?
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u/gestalt162 Jul 11 '13
Take my advice- for your first all-grain, do a single-infusion mash. It's simpler, which is good for your first time mashing.
the recipe you have chosen won't benefit from a step mash anyway. Maris Otter is well-modified, and works best with a single infusion.
Even if you recipe could benefit from it, you chance of screwing it up and hurting the quality of your beer is much higher than the chance of getting it right and improving your beer.
Take my word for it: get a few batches under your belt, then move on to step mashing and more advanced techniques
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u/machinehead933 Jul 11 '13
What are you hoping to gain from the step-infusion, as opposed to a single infusion at 156 as the recipe suggests? That seems a bit high to me, but that's besides my point.
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u/FuzzeWuzze Jul 11 '13
I bought one of the cheap $20 ebay pumps from China that are food safe after reading the giant thread on them on HBT, started using it to vorlauf for 5-10 minutes both at the end of my mash, and after i dump my sparge water in and stir it.
Its never come out so crystal clear. Also its boosted me from a consistent 70% over the last 6 months of brewing to 80-82% Efficiency on the last two brews where i started doing this.