So I have been dabbling with the use of my sous vide immersion heater for maintaining a perfect mash temperature (it's pretty unbelievable how efficient and accurate these guys are). I have only been doing smaller batches (~3 gallons) up until now. As I have looked to go bigger I have tried to find polycarbonate food bath containers that are large enough, but without much luck. Then it hit me...my MoreBeer Buckets are food grade up to 180 degrees! So, …
I want to do step mashing in my kitchen by only using a 15Amp 120V outlet. It seems like the most efficient heat transfer from electricity to wort would be directly heating a tube, either stainless or copper. Yes this is a lot like a RIMs, but a flat coil directly laid on an induction hot plate is about as easy a build as you can get, and hopefully would also give very even heating (no scalding). The plan would …
I’ve made a few recipes with different ratios of Water to Grain for mashing in partial mash recipes. Some seem to have too little water such that the grain bag is hardly submerged. Others are higher. What is the optimal ratio for partial mash recipes specifically and do the different ratios accomplishing anything?
This is probably a newbie minor detail but this matter is bothering me! When the wort is boiling, due to natural convection, the tun should have a pretty homogeneous temperature. No problem here! But while Mashing, where should I take my readings? Should it be near the bottom of the tun, so I have the maximum temperature and don't over cook my wort? Should it be on the top? Middle?
I am a few all-grain brews in using the Robobrew (poor mans Grainfather) and they have actually turned out great!. One thing I haven't been able to figure out though is how to improve efficiency. People say not to worry about it, but it is frustrating having 5.5 - 7kg of grain and then still only producing a 4.5-5.5% abv beer. Also becomes an economical issue - spending more on grain than necessary. So far I have had the stores …
The following grains have been mixed together: 1.5 Lb. Maris Otter 10 oz. Vienna 8 oz. Carapils 4 oz. Munich 8 oz. Crystal Can I mash these together @ 150°F for about 45 minutes then increase the temperature up and let them steep at 165°F or so to gain a higher conversion in the specialty grains? This will then be brewed with X lbs. of extract.
I'm a new home brewer. Since Christmas I've brewed 5 beers, all of which have been drinkable. The first I didn't have a hydrometer, the second I accidentally put in twice as much carapils as I was supposed to, but the last three have all given me the same anomaly in that og and fg are much lower than stated in the recipe. I can understand og being lower, and am aware of causes of mash inefficiency, some of which …
I’m asking this because I’m thinking it might be possible to reduce the cost of my grain bill if the resulting mash efficiency can be increased to compensate for the fewer grains. The idea would be to then liquor back post boil to get to the same batch volume desired. I understand there is a limit to this saving because there will be a limit to the amount of fermentables in a grain. However increasing from say 60% to 85% …
I'm wondering if it's possible to test the mash during mash for an all grain batch to determine concentrations of calcium, magnesium, etc. Or if that is better determined by pre-mash calculations. What do commercial breweries use? Does anyone know of an off the shelf test?
I am planning on doing some veggie brews and would be interested to know what the gelatinisation temps are for potato, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, beetroot, etc...
I've been wondering for a while, and not least now that I've found a post here about how to solve my calibration issues on the Sestos S1D PID, whether the ambient temperature surrounding the mashing container will effect the container in such a way that I may need to recalibrate depending on season? I live in Iceland and I usually brew on my balconies. This means that I'll be brewing in temperatures ranging from -5°C to maybe +15°C. I have …
I am planning to brew sahti, which is supposed to have clove (phenolic) and banana (esters) flavors. They are said to be possible to make with baker's yeast, which I believe is possible for the moment. My question is whether I should make a ferulic break during mashing to enhance phenols from rye malt (which is about 30% of fermentables) or is this technique only viable with wheat malts? In other words: does rye malt can be source of ferulic …
I have normally mashed out at 172F/77.8C while fly sparging. I switched to batch sparging without adjusting my mashout-water-addition temperature, and have been mashing out at 180F/82C. Are there any consequences to mashing out at a higher temperature than 172F? All the homebrew I've made since switching to this method have been bad.
I'll use a real life recipe for my lambic that I've been brewing over the years to allow for an answer that posts both the methodology and mathematics while also providing the calculated quantities I would need to follow for my recipe. For my lambic recipe: Batch size: 11 gallons Est. Efficiency: 85% Est. Original Gravity: 1.054 Boil Time 120 minutes Boil Loss: 1 gallon/hour For the grains, nothing too out of the ordinary (yes, only a quarter of it …
I've brewed all grain for a couple years now, using a single infusion mash. I intend on researching at length, but I can't seem to find the simple answer to what step mashes are useful for. What are the top couple reasons for doing a step mash?
Maths was always my worst subject.... I have a fixed lauter-grill/filter at the bottom of my mash tun so i can't stir anything that falls through it = the gas burner gives me a burnt bottom :( Thoughts about adding hotter water to the mash to raise the temp rather than using the gas, or a combo of both? If you think doable, please help me work out the numbers for say a 500 litre mash :) Equation something like: …
I am using 60kg undermodified 6 row barley for 300 litres, I performed 60 minutes rest at 64°C and 30 minutes rest at 72°C, but I got 12°Plato original gravity (1.048) after boiling. Please help me to get a higher gravity.
I was playing around with step mashing to get slightly better efficiency in my biab batch and for better control of the beer body. I am very new to home brewing and this was probably too much too soon. In addition I still haven't determined my efficiency to know what my target OG would actually be. I started mashing at 148°F. The plan was to mash for 20 minutes at this temperature but my specific gravity seemed really low so …