Improving mash efficiency

[Andy]

Following on from des's slow runoff thread and talk about mashing techniques.....

With my first all grain mash I reckon I got a pretty poor efficiency and was thinking of what I can do to improve it.

When I doughed in I stirred the mash well, popped the coolbox lid on and pretty much left it alone for the 90 min mash period. I then recirculated a couple of litres of wort and then started the runoff/sparge.

Some thoughts:-

1. Would it be worthwile stirring the mash periodically during the mash period. May equalise temperature hot/coldspots and generally encourage better extraction (?)
2. Is it worth stirring the mash before the recirculation and runoff ? There was talk of a 10 minute "stand" period in the other thread, presumably this allows the grain bed to settle after stirring ?
3. I tried to keep the water level below the top of the grain bed when sparging, good technique ?

I think I'll try and slow down the runoff/sparge but with phils sparge arm I've got limited room for adjustment as too slow a flow stalls the rotation.


Comments on the above and other suggestions welcome.....

[jean-yves]

my thoughts:
never stir the mash during the mash period , breaking the mash bed can cause cloudy beer and haze, will allow the T° down, and will bring the little particles of the grist at the bottom of the mashtun and block up the false bottom (stuck ?) when the run off.

when I sparge I bring the water at 1 cm above the grain bed to keep the mash floating, it's important because this help the water to go in all part of the grain bed, also avoid the mash to compact.
don't sparge to much to avoid to over diluting the wort.
sparge slowly: maximum 1 liter/mn

[Andy]

Thanks all!

I'll revise my technique slightly then and try to slow down the sparge/runoff and
keep the sparge liquor level slightly above the grain bed.

Think I'll repeat my previous recipe (Caroline's Ale) and see how things differ.

[jean-yves]

if you repeat the same recipe, does that mean the beer was good?
is 47 IBU not to much

[Andy]

It is good JY but I ended up about 5 litres short of my target volume.

Hence it is a little bitter!

[jean-yves]

i've check my stout, made saturday, 1015 and still bubling (OG 1050), it's very fruity, the nottingham yeast looks very good B)

[BlightyBrewer]

Jim, don't you stir your mash every 15 mins? Do you get any haze problems? I thought it was okay to stir to even out the temp?

[Andy]

I was surprised to hear comments about stirring potentially resulting in beer haze. I would have thought that as long as sufficient first runnings were recirculated at the end of the mash then all would be well.... Unless stirring somehow releases something else into the wort which then causes haze - unlikely ?

[James]

While stirring the mash would equlize temperature it would equalise ALL the mash at a LOWER temperature and favour beta amylaise. In addition, removing the lid, adding a cold spoon, and just the action of stirring would all also lose heat from your mashing vessel. For the purposes of heat retention only, I think leaving the mash vessel alone would be best.

JC