Am I mashing incorrectly?

[wtaylor3]

Was watching some YouTube videos and they were discussing calculating water volume and some said 1qt/lb of grain and some said 1.5qt/lb and that's not what I do at all.

I heat up 5 gallons of strike water and put it into the mash tun and once the mash is complete I run that to BK and then I batch sparge 3 gallons (ish) and run that into my 3 gallon pot and then I pour just enough of the sparge wort into BK to top off to the 6.5 gal mark.

Is there anything wrong with this method? My beer tastes great, but now I worry about efficiency since I'm brewing blind (broke my hydrometer and lhbs was out)

 

[Braufessor]

Well, it might be close to what you do.... if you have 5 gallons of strike water and you use 15lbs of grain you have 1.33 quarts per lb of grain....

From there you are doing a batch sparge to collect your wort. How is that different than what you have seen/read?

 

[kh54s10]

IDK. I start with about 1.25 quarts per pound. I then sparge with a little over half of the difference to the preboil amount. I collect the rest in the second sparge, then boil.

I suggest a new hydrometer or a refractometer or both for testing during the brewing process.

 

[Hamaki]

I gather that every brew does not have the same grain bill so why not go with a set number of quarts per pound rather than a fixed mash volume? Calculate needed sparge volume and, if you know your efficiency & boil off rate, you can hit your targeted OG pretty close every time. I'd still replace the hydrometer as soon as you can.

 

[Cyclman]

It isn't simple, here's a great article on mash thicknesses: https://byo.com/stories/item/1110-managing-mash-thickness

 

[Braufessor]

I brew almost all of my beers with "round numbers" in terms of gallons. Generally, if I am using more than 10lbs of grain, I use 5 gallons of water in tun (I lose almost a gallon to dead space). If I am using less than 10lbs, I use 4 gallons...... I am not that precise, but it still works out to that 1.25 qrts. per gallon - give or take a bit.

 

[Singletrack]

Yes, you are not mashing incorrectly. But what do you do with leftover sparge wort? That is delicious sugar from grain that gave its life so that you may drink beer. You don't want to waste wort. You could improve your process to get better efficiency with just a few calculations. Take that next step.

 

[Natdavis777]

I use brew365's calculator and change the ratio to 1.4qt/lb. Thats my constant. I change my trub loss and equiptment loss to .5gal bc the BK has little dead space. I can figure it on the fly for my system (I know I get 47% of my total mash water volume from my mash, so I can figure out my sparge volume from that value) but the brew calculator is a click away so I just use that

 

[wtaylor3]

Honestly, I'm not sure why I started the 5 gal thing, I know that it seemed wierd for a beer like co3c that uses 12 lbs of grain according to the 1 qt/lb rule that's only 3 gallons of strike water...that just seemed low to me as I'm attempting to get to 6.5 gallon boil volume. Maybe I'm over thinking this.

I have however only brewed 2 beers with this method, and with no hydrometer, before that it was BIAB.

I have drove the 40 min to lhbs to purchase a hydrometer and both times they were out of stock. I hate brewing without it.

 

[Natdavis777]

I have drove the 40 min to lhbs to purchase a hydrometer and both times they were out of stock. I hate brewing without it.

One word... "Amazon"

If you dont have Prime, and/or worried about shipping, pick up some addtl things you need to justify the rate.

 

[Braufessor]

1 qt/lb is low...... I would shoot closer to 1.5 before 1.0. So, you are probably relatively close to where you want to be anyway.

*Mail order your hydrometer

 

[wtaylor3]

I thought about mail order, lhbs is usually cheaper tho.

However, I suppose it doesn't matter if they're out of stock. There is another hbs that's actually only 20-25 min away and very close to my dads house. They aren't stocked very well though and I never seem to catch them open with my schedule.

 

[Singletrack]

You don't need no stinkin' hydrometer. You can brew like a cave man. Your beer tastes good, so why do you care about gravities? But no cave man would waste wort. Just strike with 3.25 gal plus 0.12 gal per lb of grain plus, say, 0.25 gal of dead space in your tun. Then batch sparge with 3.25 gal. Does that give you 6.5 gal preboil? If not, then adjust a bit the next time. If you get too much wort, boil a little longer. Too little, boil less.

If you must check your mash thickness, then do so. If it is between 1 and 2 qts per pound, all is good. If not, all is probably good.

 

[adamranders]

Why not call the lhbs before going there and see if they have a hydrometer in stock and/or can order you one and hold it for you.

 

[doug293cz]

It isn't simple, here's a great article on mash thicknesses: https://byo.com/stories/item/1110-managing-mash-thickness

Found that article very disappointing. It's almost devoid of actionable information. The article pretty much boils down to: "here are a bunch of variables that affect the mash outcome." There are no specific recommendations about how to adjust a particular variable, or combination of variables, to create different mash outcomes, other than the well known "mash lower for more fermentable, higher for less fermentable."

Brew on

 

[Singletrack]

Try this one: http://braukaiser.com/documents/Effects_of_mash_parameters_on_attenuation_and_efficiency.pdf

Page 17 has shocking results for mash thickness.

 

[doug293cz]

Try this one: http://braukaiser.com/documents/Effects_of_mash_parameters_on_attenuation_and_efficiency.pdf

Page 17 has shocking results for mash thickness.

Not at all shocking, since I had seen some of that before. I'm a big fan of both Kai and Brulosopher, who both take on conventional wisdom thru experimentation, and publish results for the rest of us to make use of. The problem with a lot of theoretical predictions is that they ignore some of the competing processes occurring simultaneously with the processes that are considered in the predictions. This can lead to erroneous conclusions. That's why experimental confirmation of theoretical predictions is necessary. If the experiments don't confirm the theory, then the discrepancy needs to be resolved. This can be done by modifying the theory if that is where the problem lies, or doing better experiments if they are the source of the conflict. It is sometimes difficult to tell where the fault lies. But, it's not settled science until agreement is reached.

And, thanks for the .pdf link. I have been reading the web page version of that, but having the .pdf filed away could be useful.

Brew on