I did my first small batch all-grain/BIAB for a 1 gallon batch size (I know small, but thats all I have room for at the moment, plus I like to experiment )
Here is my basic setup and process:
Heated water to 168F and poured it over the grain (2.4lb was my grain bill size) in a 2 gallon cooler (http://www.amazon.com/Coleman-Gallon-Pa … 00363PRFG/) lined with a 5-gallon painter strainer bag. After stirring and making sure the grain was well mixed, I made sure the temp was at 155. I put the lid on, wrapped it with towels and put it in the oven (not turned on obviously).
I then took the bag with the grain in it and dipped it into water I heated to 170. I think I probably made a mistake by not keeping it at 170 for 10 minutes (it decreased in temp to about 145 pretty quickly). Combining the mash and the sparge together and then boiled the wort for 60 min (adding in my hops).
My efficiency wasn’t all that great at 62% but I figured this was my first time so probably not too bad.
Couple of questions:
When testing the 2-gallon cooler temperature over 60 minutes with just water at 155, it slowly decreased to 145 over 60 minutes. Is that going to be a major factor in the Mashing process? Meaning should I open up the cooler from time to time to add hot water or should I just leave it alone and the decrease in 10F not significant.
When sparging at 170 should I put the burner on low heat and try to maintain that temp? Or is just the initial temperature of washing the grain important?
Looking forward to prefecting the process for these small batches.
When testing the 2-gallon cooler temperature over 60 minutes with just water at 155, it slowly decreased to 145 over 60 minutes. Is that going to be a major factor in the Mashing process? Meaning should I open up the cooler from time to time to add hot water or should I just leave it alone and the decrease in 10F not significant.
When sparging at 170 should I put the burner on low heat and try to maintain that temp? Or is just the initial temperature of washing the grain important?
Looking forward to prefecting the process for these small batches.
-Cameron[/quote]
I would just find something like a sleeping bag or blanket that will help insulate better. It’s much less of a hassle than adding water and trying to hit a perfect temp.
The temp of the sparge isnt too important here. The only thing you really want to worry about here is tannin extraction and that is more an issue with too high a pH which as long as your water isn’t very high in bicarbonate you should be fine.
Something I’ve done with a 1-gallon AG mash, I used a mesh bag to hold the grain in a large pot, and once at the correct temperature I set the oven to 170*F and just left the whole pot in the oven for an hour. I had a temperature probe in the mash, so if it started getting too warm I just turned off the oven. It actually held temp really well over an hour - only went up a degree or two. I turned off the oven after about half an hour and let it sit at that temperature. Might be something to try.
Keep in mind that most malts have so much diastatic power these days that mash temp matters a lot less than it used to. I recently mashed the same recipe at 153 and 168 and got identical results. Now, that’s only a single data point and I want to look into this further, but it’s an interesting observation.
Denny, what was the grist you used in that experiment? That’s a huge temp difference! It definitely flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Very interested in hearing more about it. :cheers:
Conventional wisdom comes from the past and we no longer live there! It was for my American mild. Grist was 50% Best Munich, 25% Rahr pale, and 12.5% each carapils and C60. Like I said, I have only one data point at this time but I hope to find time to experiment more to see what’s up.
Maybe the high % of crystal malt reduced the overall impact of mashing with a higher temperature? With something like an APA or IPA grist that is supposed to have a fairly dry finish, I wonder if there would be a noticeable difference.
And then there’s this…An interesting note…in his book “Homebrew Beyond the Basics”, Mike Karnowski relates an experiment he did. He brewed 2 versions of a recipe, one mashed at 146 and the other at 164. The low mash temp batch finished at 1.006 and the high mash temp finished at 1.016. In a tasting with 10 commercial brewers and judges, 9 of them chose the low temp, low FG batch as having more body. So, does mash temp and FG really matter that much?
Diastatic power is the ability to convert starch to sugar.[/quote]
So what is it about these days that makes the grain have more diastatic power than before? Is it the type of grain that is harvested or is it how its processed? I’m curious as to what factors contributed to making the malts have more than they used to.
[quote=“CameronBrews”][quote=“Denny”][quote=“CameronBrews”]What is diastatic power?
interesting discussion by the way. [/quote]
Diastatic power is the ability to convert starch to sugar.[/quote]
So what is it about these days that makes the grain have more diastatic power than before? Is it the type of grain that is harvested or is it how its processed? I’m curious as to what factors contributed to making the malts have more than they used to.
Cheers![/quote]
Both, but primarily the processing. The malting companies will pay more for certain varieties of barley (or perhaps will only buy certain varieties that work well for malting), but automation and computerized control of the mashing process has made optimization of the malt properties much more achievable and repeatable than it was in the past. These days, you have to search to find malt which isn’t fully converted and has high diastatic power. And sometimes you will want undermodified malt if you are trying to recreate historic beers.
RC I think it goes even further than that. The technological adavancment from seed producers capable of isolating superior producers to farmers understanding soil composition and fertilization and all the way to proper processing.
[quote=“CameronBrews”]So what is it about these days that makes the grain have more diastatic power than before? Is it the type of grain that is harvested or is it how its processed? I’m curious as to what factors contributed to making the malts have more than they used to.
Cheers![/quote]
The way it’s processed. Grain is much more fully modified these days than it used to be. That saves commercial brewers time and money.
I’m sure you are right. I don’t know too much about industrial farming, but I know about process control and just what that can mean for something like malting of grains.
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