Bru n Water and Mash out

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barry44

Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by barry44 » Wed Aug 24, 2016 1:24 pm

Hi all,

now that my university degree is over i have gotten back into brewing with a centennial mosaic IPA at the weekend which finished up 3 points short of the 1.060 target leading to an efficiency of 66%.

With this figure in mind i have decided to change my technique to include a mash out step where i intend to add water at almost boiling point to the mash to raise it, vorlauf and drain it followed by a single sparge. Currently i drain the mash tun and batch sparge in 2 stages.

My query relates to where the mash out belongs in bru n water, is it part of the mash, thus increasing the volume of mash water and therefore mash salt, etc or is it part of the sparge?

Does anyone carry out a brew in this fashion?

BenB

Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by BenB » Wed Aug 24, 2016 2:11 pm

It should be part of the sparge water. If you add it to the mash volume your mash chemistry may be off.

Are you talking 66% mash efficiency or brewhouse? (assuming you're using Beersmith)....

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Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by BrannigansLove » Wed Aug 24, 2016 3:15 pm

I concur with treating it as sparge water.

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Kev888
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Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by Kev888 » Wed Aug 24, 2016 3:37 pm

FWIW mashout generally gains very little at homebrew scales (and there is some risk of extracting astringent flavours if you overdo the temperature), though I realise its popular over the pond. So whilst I don't wish to curtail your experiments, its absence is deeply unlikely to be any significant contributor to low efficiency.

The likely cause is hard to guess without knowing if you are referring to brewhouse efficiency or mash efficiency and your method of mashing and sparging. For some methods 66% mash efficiency would be good, for others it would be poor even for brewhouse efficiency.
Kev

barry44

Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by barry44 » Wed Aug 24, 2016 6:04 pm

Hi guys, thanks for responses.

The 66% efficiency is the brew house efficiency as calculated by beersmith once the session data is entered. It also corresponds when redoing the recipe with the lower efficiency value.

My current mash and sparge is 60 minute mash followed by two equal batch sparge of circa 80° water to get my pre boil volume, rather than circa boiling to raise the temp of the grainbed. Interestingly I always get in excess of the anticipated gravity at pre boil stage so there may be something awry in the boil.

With this in mind, I think my boil off may be incorrect, using default 10% rather than a specific volume so I need to take a look at that.

Would having an actual greater boil off than that calculated not result in higher og? I've carried out a hand calc based on surface area and it looks to be a little more. If I was to give that a trial run with water, would you suggest that I boil a typical volume, circa 28 litres, in order to get a decent idea or can I do a lesser volume, say 10 litres and still attain an accurate value?

Apologies for going off track but your input is always welcome and gratefully received.

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Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by Jocky » Wed Aug 24, 2016 6:07 pm

In beersmith I'd add it as an infusion step, although as Kev has said it's unlikely to affect mash efficiency much.

It's useful for halting enzymatic activity if your wort is going to be sitting around a bit, but even that's questionable on a home brew scale.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

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Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by Jocky » Wed Aug 24, 2016 6:13 pm

Yes, it sounds like your boil off rate needs tweaking.

Ultimately what you need to aim for is having a predictable system that gets you to your desired volume and OG within a little margin.

If you increase your boil off rate in Beersmith it will compensate by telling you to add more water in the sparge.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

barry44

Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by barry44 » Wed Aug 24, 2016 6:37 pm

Jocky,

do you think i'll need to do a full volume boil to work out the boil off or should it be the same with other volumes?

I dont want to do it with my next brew as it will be difficult to assess the effects of the hops, etc.

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Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by Jocky » Wed Aug 24, 2016 8:02 pm

Less water will boil off a little more. I'd just do a full boil to be sure. Personally I worked out the boil off rate based upon the energy going in and the energy required to turn water to steam, and then I adjusted from there.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

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Re: Bru n Water and Mash out

Post by Kev888 » Thu Aug 25, 2016 10:45 am

Yes, measure a normal boil quantity sometime - volumes before and after, and adjust according to how long you boiled for in order to get the rate. The losses to evaporation won't change your actual efficiency, since the sugars become concentrated rather than being lost. But if you've entered slightly inaccurate volumes and gravities into the software it will give you slightly incorrect calculations.

Any losses to dead-space or hops in the boil kettle will affect your actual/real brew-house efficiency though, as well as the software calculations, because these losses include sugars. So its worth getting a handle on those too. Until you have these sorted its perhaps too early to judge what your real efficiency is, it may turn out to be fine.
Kev

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