I am using Palmers no sparge theory for the first time. With a thinner mash… Is there any concern with conversion. Will I need a longer mash time or does it really matter? Will 60 min be enough???
No concerns on conversion. I find that a 10-15 minute rest in the mid-160s at the end of the mash helps boost efficiency.
I am using a cooler… Plus I have a little 6-Row in the mash to help with conversion. I have my Eff set to 57% based on Palmers calculations.
[quote=“Zip100473”]I am using a cooler… Plus I have a little 6-Row in the mash to help with conversion. I have my Eff set to 57% based on Palmers calculations.[/quote]Mash with 2/3 of the water then add the final 1/3, boiling, to boost the temp (if you want to try this out). 57% efficiency is way low for no-sparge, ought to get at least 65% with a big grain bill and up around 80% for small beers.
Interesting. Looking at the calculation thats what I came up with using excel. It seemed to jive with others that I read. Well I’ve already gotten the grain so its a strong northern brown. http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/buckwheat-in-a-headlock
No-sparge efficiency is simple to estimate. Assuming 100% conversion in the mash (which you should get unless you screw up the pH), and 0.125 gallons of wort absorbed per lb of grain, it’s just (gals wort in kettle) / (gals water in mash) where the wort in the kettle is the total water used minus lbs of grain divided by 8. So if you mashed 12 lbs of grain with a total of eight gallons of water, your efficiency is (8 - 12/8) / 8 = 6.5/8 = 81%.
I use the full amount of water in my mash, usually in the range of 3.5qt/lb. I get 70-75% efficiency, and it takes 90 minutes or so to convert completely.
Thats interesting… I mean even Denny Conn notes that your extraction rates can be as low as 50%… Perhaps the issue is crush of the grain. I guess its experimentation time. I will give this a try with my current setup. I will post an update with pre boil and post boil gravity. Isnt science fun!
Denny makes all those high gravity beers (he thinks 1.060 is a session ale), the efficiency goes down with more grain taking up more water as a percentage of what you’re draining off.
The crush can make a big difference. Earlier this year I brewed two batches that I ran through my grain mill twice. One got a 15% higher O G then expected and the other was 17% higher.
I usually crush twice… I have had slow runoff with a bazooka tube but the weaved homemade smaller mashtun has not…
The older I get, the more the OG of my beers comes down! FWIW, the last beer I did was a 1.064 Am. brown and I got 86% efficiency in the fermenter. That holds true for gravities well into the upper 70s. However, neither of those were no sparge. I do a no sparge BW with an OG around 1.100 and usually get somewhere around 65% for that.
and you think it’s not? :lol:
The older I get, the more the OG of my beers comes down! FWIW, the last beer I did was a 1.064 Am. brown and I got 86% efficiency in the fermenter. That holds true for gravities well into the upper 70s. However, neither of those were no sparge. I do a no sparge BW with an OG around 1.100 and usually get somewhere around 65% for that.[/quote]
My northern brown will be a Little strong… Oh well!
