Re: Re: Thoughts on Sparging..... - mba

19 Nov 2003

Jim, Paul, Mike and others:
After brewing extracts and Coop's for some three plus years, it is a lot of fun to
take a stab at all grain brewing.  A lot more time and effort are involved but a lot more
interesting.
Jim, my ratio of water to grist was a little on the heavy side 1.88 qrts per lb.  I raised
my strike water temp to 175 thinking it would drop quickly when I poured it into the mash
tun.  Next time I will take some temp readings during the sachrification rest to see how
much heat is lost.
I did skip the vorlauf.  Will give this a shot next time.  After sparging, should I take a
SG reading before I return the brew pot to the boil?
With the loss of wert and water during the boil, when transferring to our primary
fermenter to chill down before pitching the yeast, if we top this off with water to 5 gal,
will this dilute the wert too much??
The very first time I brewed, a good friend of mine told me that beer is
forgiving.......in its creation......and in its consumption!  He is sooo true!
Jim Voosen
Stillwater, Mn
...
 Hi Jim,
I'm not sure what you mean, so I'll take a couple of stabs.
What was your ratio of strike water to grist?  1.5 qrts per
lb is typical...  stiffer/drier and looser/wetter mashing
will slightly alter the sugar distribution in the wort (in theory).
A warmer sachrification rest (say 158^F) favors the production of
unfermentables. A low temp mash (say 140) should result in
a more fermentable wort.  Stiff/loose also has an effect
on fermentability, but it is smaller than the temp effect.
Did you skip the vorlauf (sp)?  That is the recirculation
of runnings through the mash bed until clear.  I used to
skip the "recirculation" but a Siebel trained brewer convinced
me that clear runnings were worth the hassle.  This also pushed
me back to a slotted copper pipe manifold (in a cooler) for mashing.
In my experience, the slotted pipe lauter tunn clears quicker/quickly.
The drawbock (nice slip there)   The drawback of using, boiling
cloudy runoff is too much protein  in the kettle and in
the brew. That can lead to "stability" and clarity issues
in the finished product.
Not all runnings are created equal.  First runnings have lots
of color and extract.  SG of 1.100 or higher is possible.
Later runnings are thinner, lighter.  If you're trying to
make an "all grain" barley wine, you'll take just the first runnings.
(on a side note, adding some carmel or carapils to the mash
for character, you can use the 2nd runnings for a 2 penny beer.
E.g. the renfest brews.  45 lbs of malt yielded 6 gallons of 1.130
OG wort that became Old Bed Spinner.  Adding some carmel and
sparging yieled 20+ gallons of 1.036 or so Bi'ah for the Renfest.)
I'm w/ Mike on the efficiency issue.  It's a hopbby and grain is
cheap.  Repeatability is another issue.  I'd rather be repeatable
at 25 pts/lb than "efficient" at 28-32 pts per pound.
Cheers,
Jim
On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 09:08:02AM -0600, jvoosen(a)usfamily.net wrote:
  Last weekend I brewed up an all grain Nut Brown
Ale.  After heating the water to 175 degrees I poured it into my 6 gal plastic lautertun
bucket and wraped it in blankets to save heat for one hour.
 Yes, I did use the famous "Phil's Floating Phalse Bottom" however,
learning from a bad previous brew session (as we all know, Phil's floats and plugs up
with grain), this time I used a Muslin Grain Bag (As they say on the Dodge truck
commercial "SWEET!").
 As the afternoon was passing too quickly, I decided to bypass the sparging and drain my
liquid back into my brew pot.  The liquid was a great golden brown color.
 My question is "What are the drawbacks in the beer when bypassing the sparging
stage?"
 Thanks in advance!
 Jim Voosen
 Stillwater, Mn
 ------ http://USFamily.Net/info - Unlimited Internet - From $8.99/mo! ------
  
--
------------------------------ *
*  Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor   jellings(a)me.umn.edu  *
*  University of Minnesota,     tel: 651/645-0753  fax 651 XXX XXXX  *
*  Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN  55104   *
 
------ http://USFamily.Net/info - Unlimited Internet - From $8.99/mo! ------