Noob Questions

[jmswarts]

We did our third brew day yesterday in our new to use Spike 15 gal kettle and new mash tun as an all grain BIAB. We are working on an Adnams Broadside clone which is an English porter.

1. We did not use the provided false bottom in the kettle, would we have seen any difference with using the false bottom?

2. Our initial OG reading was 1.035, we sparged with 3 gallons of water that were near boiling, is the sparging with 170-degree water a solid rule?

3. After the boil, do you filter out the hops or leave the hops in the wort to ferment?

 

[RM-MN]

1. A false bottom is to provide a substrate for the grain husks to settle onto and provide a filter bed to keep the grain particles out of the boil pot. With BIAB the bag serves the same purpose with much less chance of getting grain in your wort or a stuck mash.

2. Sparging is only rinsing the sugars from the remaining grain. It can be done with cold water or hot. The problem with hot is if the pH of the wort gets too high (over 6.0) you can leach out tannins from the grain. If you always sparge with cooler water you avoid that possibility.

3. Yes. Your choice. I leave the hops in, others use a hop sock or something similar to filter them out.

 

[mongoose33]

+1 to ^

One thing I'm wondering--an OG of 1.035 is pretty low. If it was before you sparged, the final result was really low. Wondering what your target was.

One issue with all-grain brewing is the crush you have. If the crush leaves some grain that is still intact, that grain cannot give up its starch to the enzymes to convert to sugar. Where did you have your crush done?

The other question I'd have is at what temp your mash was done?