First Partial Long and Shoddy

[Beerlust]

On 7/1/2020 at 3:06 PM, Otto Von Blotto said:

I haven't done any partials but I have done dozens of BIAB brews in the last 8 years. Milling finer always caused my efficiency to go down, it only went up when I started milling coarser. I also find it easier to drain the bag with a coarse crush, which may account for the increase in efficiency.

Have you ever tried milling a little finer & using some rice hulls to assist with drainage?

Lusty.

[BlackSands]

34 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

Do you have a reason for this? It seems counter-intuitive. Or more likely my misunderstanding - I thought the efficiency depended on the access to the internals of the grain so a finer grind would expose it more to the liquid.

This might provide some useful info: 

https://byo.com/article/the-perfect-crush/

[Journeyman]

36 minutes ago, BlackSands said:

This might provide some useful info: 

https://byo.com/article/the-perfect-crush/

Interesting. Although unless I am missing something, it doesn't really address why a finer crush or mill wouldn't give a greater efficiency. (aside from stuck mashes or otehr issues with too-fine crush)

[Otto Von Blotto]

1 hour ago, Journeyman said:

Do you have a reason for this? It seems counter-intuitive. Or more likely my misunderstanding - I thought the efficiency depended on the access to the internals of the grain so a finer grind would expose it more to the liquid.

Well as long as the grains are cracked open, the internals can be soaked in water. I don't really know why it worked out like that but my only guess is that it's easier for the wort to drain through the grains, rather than getting soaked up by grain dust. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

1 hour ago, Beerlust said:

Have you ever tried milling a little finer & using some rice hulls to assist with drainage?

Lusty.

No, I didn't have any problems with drainage anyway other than it taking longer. However I'd guess more of the wort may have been soaked up by the grain dust from milling finer which wouldn't help. 

At the end of the day a coarse crush works for me. I don't see much point in milling finer then adding rice hulls just to achieve basically the same outcome as I'm already getting now. My mash efficiency is usually in the high 80s, which is the highest I've ever had it.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Otto Von Blotto

[Cassius]

On 7/2/2020 at 10:45 AM, BlackSands said:

1kg grain in a 10 litre batch, for an average strength beer, and depending on the amount of base grain vs specialty malts used, is probably going to be around 50%-60% of the total fermentables.  That's around the kind of grain/extract ratio I often used in the past, so yes - definitely should make a difference.   And I would say in the case of the Hefe probably more so as there will little specialty malts used. In fact you could probably just use wheat malt in the mash with perhaps a small amount of acidulated malt to help with pH.  

Hi @BlackSands. I've been trying to find exact values for the partial mash Hefeweizen I'm planning to brew this weekend, but every resource I look at has different amounts of water to use for a given grain quantity, including both the mash and sparge amount? I had thought originally that I'd be able to do about 1kg of grain in my ~6L pot, but hadn't accounted for the sparge water. I'm also wondering whether you always need to use acidulated malt or if it depends on your local tap water; I'm in suburban Sydney, if that makes a difference.

TIA.

[BlackSands]

26 minutes ago, Cassius said:

Hi @BlackSands. I've been trying to find exact values for the partial mash Hefeweizen I'm planning to brew this weekend, but every resource I look at has different amounts of water to use for a given grain quantity, including both the mash and sparge amount? I had thought originally that I'd be able to do about 1kg of grain in my ~6L pot, but hadn't accounted for the sparge water. I'm also wondering whether you always need to use acidulated malt or if it depends on your local tap water; I'm in suburban Sydney, if that makes a difference.

TIA.

I think when brewing partials, unlike full AG,  you don't need to be overly concerned with your water volumes.   You're simply making a small quantity of fresh wort which will later be supplemented with malt extract and then topped-up to the final batch volume in the FV.   I generally mash with a water:grist ratio of between 3:1 and 4:1, so in your case that'd be 1kg grain in 3-4 litres of water.  Similarly with sparging - again it's a very imprecise quantity and basically I just sparge until my boil pot is around 75% full.   You could probably heat up a jug full (1.7L) to 75ºC and that'd probably be it.  When I brew AG using this partial-mash method I actually end up with a concentrated wort which is then simply diluted down when finally added to the FV. 

With regard to pH and acidulated malts it's perhaps not too much of an issue for such a small quantity of grain - a slight loss of mash efficiency is probably neither here nor there.  As for the water pH this article may help:    https://byo.com/article/the-power-of-ph/

Edited July 13, 2020 by BlackSands

[Cassius]

18 minutes ago, BlackSands said:

I think when brewing partials, unlike full AG,  you don't need to be overly concerned with your water volumes.   You're simply making a small quantity of fresh wort which will later be supplemented with malt extract and then topped-up to the final batch volume in the FV.   I generally mash with a water:grist ratio of between 3:1 and 4:1, so in your case that'd be 1kg grain in 3-4 litres of water.  Similarly with sparging - again it's a very imprecise quantity and basically I just sparge until my boil pot is around 75% full.   When I brew AG using this partial-mash method I actually end up with a concentrated wort which is then simply diluted down when finally added to the FV. 

With regard to pH and acidulated malts it's perhaps not too much of an issue for such a small quantity of grain - a slight loss of mash efficiency is probably neither here nor there.  As for the water pH this article may help:    https://byo.com/article/the-power-of-ph/

Alright, perfect. So I just checked my pot and it's 5L. I just looked at buying a larger one from Target and K-Mart but they're all out of stock, so I'll do a small partial this weekend and if I'm happy with the process I'll get a larger pot.

Working backwards from a 5L pot; if I want it 75% full after sparging, that's 3.75L of liquid. If I do 750g of wheat malt with a 3:1 ratio, that gives 2.25L of water, leaving 1.5L to sparge with. Does that sound about right?

Calculating the amount of extract required: my recipe usually requires 1.5kg of dry wheat malt extract in a 12L batch for an OG of 1.047. The website I'm using says to multiply the amount of base malt by 0.53 and subtract that amount of dry extract from the recipe. So 0.75kg x 0.53 = 0.3975 (say 400g). So if I mash 750g of wheat malt I'll need 1.1kg of dry wheat malt extract. So I imagine I do my partial mash, check the gravity once it's all sparged and ready to be boiled, then add some extract to get the boil gravity around 1.040 (if needed). Then the rest of the extract goes in to the fermenter prior to upping the wort volume to 12L?

Thanks for all your help so far.

[BlackSands]

21 hours ago, Cassius said:

Working backwards from a 5L pot; if I want it 75% full after sparging, that's 3.75L of liquid. If I do 750g of wheat malt with a 3:1 ratio, that gives 2.25L of water, leaving 1.5L to sparge with. Does that sound about right?

Don't forget about the displacement due to the grain.  

[davids47]

On 6/30/2020 at 6:13 PM, James Lao said:

The fresh grain taste is unmistakeable, bloody delish

If iam doing a mid strength beer  amber malt  1.5kg  and some hops  what grain would you use to get the grain taste  and how long would you seep them for and temp ,only for taste ,  i have a 15lt stove top pot or as others call it, preserving pan

[James Lao]

Hi DavidS47,

I use the Ian H xl spreadsheet for recipe design etc., and have my grain efficiency entered in as 68%.

Using 1.5kg of amber LME gives you about 19 gravity points (according to my spreadsheet at 24 litre volume).

1kg of pale ale malt will give you about 15 gravity points.

I have been steeping in 4 litres  for at least 1 hour at 64-66degC, sparge with 2L of  75degC water, then 30 min boil.

I am using pre-bittered can of Coopers Lager for main bitterness, then 10 and 5 minute hop  additions for aroma/flavour.

Cheers

James