BIAB Mash Time and Boil Time (noob warning)

[garage_life]

Just to add another 20c, my comment is from the home gamer, suck it and see angle. Obviously a different processes will yield a different result, nuanced or dog balls. After doing both, choose your poison. Good, cheap, quick brew vs megaswill vs standardised quality beer.
Is rather a decent fast brew over most beer that's under $70 a carton any day. Food for thought link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle

 

[Kev R]

For the amount of time and effort invested in brew day is another 30 or 40 min a big deal, it can't do any harm but will most likely do some good?

 

[clibit]

"Gentlemen, I wasn't meaning to start a shitfight."

."Neither did I pal, I simply posted to suggest an alternative, which I'm learning works a lot better than I thought it would. Surely a brewing forum is a place for people to chat in a friendly supportive manner, and talk about their experiences, not prowl with graphs and data reports at hand, to mock people with statistics.

It's 30-40 minutes x 2 = 60-80 minutes. It can make a difference, in having the time to brew. And The beer is excellent in my experience, I have been brewing for years, I don't make swill, and my beer is just as good as the beer I've made for years with 60 minutes mash and boil, and longer, in my humble opinion. If there's a difference, it's not detectable to me. Or Denny Conn!

"For my next book, I've been experimenting with a 20 min. mash and 20 min. boil. So far, I haven't found much, if any, difference between doing a 60/60. But it will depend to some extent on the malt you use. Some are hotter than others."

Q. Maybe I'll try 20/20 next, are you not getting a reduced fermentability?
A. "Nope, but that depends on the malt you use. Most malt, especially the American pale malt I typically use, has so much diastatic power that there's really no difference. I'm starting to notice the same thing about mash temp."

"The basic idea is simplicity...complicating the brewing process does not necessarily mean it's more advanced."

 

[clibit]

If you want to decrease the time and don't mind the quality cut out the boil all together.

I want to thank you for saying that, because I was aware of raw ales, which are not boiled, and have been reading about them, and it's fascinating. I'm going to do a no boil beer. This is a great article about them, and their long history in Northern European countries like Norway, Russia, Finland, Lithuania and others. Well worth a read. Apologies for the thread hijack.

https://byo.com/article/raw-ale/

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I want to thank you for saying that, because I was aware of raw ales, which are not boiled, and have been reading about them, and it's fascinating. I'm going to do a no boil beer. This is a great article about them, and their long history in Northern European countries like Norway, Russia, Finland, Lithuania and others. Well worth a read. Apologies for the thread hijack.

https://byo.com/article/raw-ale/

Yes there is a lot of people in USA, UK as well brewing the raw beer I have read a few bad reviews about the flavour coming from the hops, but the thing is when the no boil was being done hops were not being used.

 

[clibit]

Yes there is a lot of people in USA, UK as well brewing the raw beer I have read a few bad reviews about the flavour coming from the hops, but the thing is when the no boil was being done hops were not being used.

According to the the stuff I've read, the farmhouse ales are either mash hopped, or have a hop tea added. I understand that some Berliner Weissen weren't boiled. Brulosophy did a comparison of a boiled and non boiled BW. They were clearly different, but preferences were evenly split. Raw ales are very rare here in the UK.

 

[wynnum1]

Based on experience!
There are lots of things you can do in brewing, but what people forget is that there is always a consequence.
Whether it is enough to affect what you think of your beer is perhaps a different question, but someone (say a beer judge) tastes your beer and goes "a bit hazy -one" "not really clean finishing -another point or two" "Touch of DMS, not to style -another one"... Pretty soon a good solid beer is out of the running.
If you have ever read the response to comps, you will see lots of whinging about how poorly peoples beer has done compared to what they expected, how it went in a local comp, the state comp.

Seriously people forget the law of unintended consequences - everything you do ends up in the glass, choose the cheapest malt V the best malt for a job (i.e. Belgian Pilsner when making a Belgian Triple) it wont taste the same, not saying it will taste bad, just less like the beer you are modeling.
Badly adjusted mills give you lower yields. You have to buy more malt to reach the same OG, lautering will be slower (or too fast), you may well get more tannins as the husks are shredded more...
Shorten the mash time, you will have a higher proportion of unfermentable dextrins, (can be measured)
Shorten the boil, you wont (can't) get the SSM>DMS>Removal that you get at a longer boil, you will get more DMS. Whether or not that matters to you is again a different question, but you will have more DMS.
You wont get the optimum removal of high molecular weight protein, which will affect clarity, mouthfeel and stability (not might will - in measurable ways)
Pitch less yeast - well we could go on but why.

If you think shortening your mash and boil wont have an effect on your beer you are wrong, it will. The only question is whether or not its going to affect your drinking pleasure (which becomes a question about your palate).
If the only beer you want to make is IAPA where you cant taste anything other than hops, well you will probably get away with it.

Locally I have about half a dozen commercial breweries that I'm familiar enough with to say with confidence that they all mash and boil for 60+ minutes and mostly boil for 75-90 minutes.
Is it reasonable to think that professional brewers at least double the mash/boil time because they are all stupid/ignorant, or that they know the benefits and are prepared to invest the time and money to make better beer?

Worth noting that wort boiling is the biggest energy consumer in brewing, if it was possible to make good beer with half the energy cost - do you really think no one in the industry would have noticed.

If you like the beer you make **** what anyone else says about it let the wankers go to the competitions.

 

[Yuz]

I want to thank you for saying that, because I was aware of raw ales, which are not boiled, and have been reading about them, and it's fascinating. I'm going to do a no boil beer. This is a great article about them, and their long history in Northern European countries like Norway, Russia, Finland, Lithuania and others. Well worth a read. Apologies for the thread hijack.

https://byo.com/article/raw-ale/

oh no... and without temp control? and not pressure fermenting? how can they live with themselves? lol
Great read, thanks for the link
PS - I had my first beer, a dark ale / stout sort of - Baltika I think? - in Jurmala, Latvia as a kid.

 

[MHB]

"Gentlemen, I wasn't meaning to start a shitfight."

."Neither did I pal, I simply posted to suggest an alternative, which I'm learning works a lot better than I thought it would. Surely a brewing forum is a place for people to chat in a friendly supportive manner, and talk about their experiences, not prowl with graphs and data reports at hand, to mock people with statistics.
"

That's pathetic!
I have been brewing for close to 30 years, all grain for about 20 years and have tried most of the reasonable permutations, including short mashes, boils, hoping from 0-redicilious...
I have also studied brewing, even passed exams and brewed commercially.
That given rather than just venture an opinion, I did you the courtesy of spending some time to dig up pretty basic information that explains what has/will happen in short mash and boil.

Based on both Experience and Knowledge, my default for most beers is a 60/90minute mash boil.
My focus is on making the best beer I can, if saving maybe an hour on a brew day is more important than making better beer then good luck to you, your going to need it.

I have brewed a tweak of this beer (Shati) just the once to learn from, its not all that nice and you need to drink it sharpish before its too infected. But if you are interested this is an excellent recipe.

wynnum1
One can enter a competition to get unbiased feedback from fellow brewers who have at least taken the time to do some training, to assume we are all wankers is a little presumptuous. Or in your case perhaps its just a reflection on your personal predilections.
Comps are a good way to improve your beer, for those that care about how their beer tastes, not just the alcohol.
Mark

 

[clibit]

Listen to yourself!!! Is this how you communicate generally?

 

[MHB]

No - I took out all the expletives and my opinion of some of what you had to say.
Someone takes the time to find some basic references so that the discussion can at least be based on some information, you feel free to tell us how discussion on the forum should be run and slag me out for going to the trouble of providing data rather than just opinion.
Go diddle yourself!
Mark

 

[clibit]

If you were here to help people you wouldn't have responded to my first post with condescending sneeriness. It's all about you innit?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I think Mark has given plenty of sound advice and helped plenty of home brewers, what doesn't help or look good is making making derogatory comments. People can't chat in a supportive manner, as you suggested, if they don't support the method you are putting forward. Best to keep things on topic.

 

[clibit]

I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me. What you can do though is disagree without ridiculing people. There are many experienced brewers who mash and/or boil for less than 60 minutes. I bet I could make two beers with 30/30 and 60/60 mash/boil times that Mark couldn't tell apart. Nobody can tell mine apart. I only posted to suggest to people that it's worth a try - see if it shortens your brew session, enables you to brew in the evening or something, with no perceptible difference in the finished product. Mark is making out that would be stupid or something, it seems to me. Like you'd have to be an idiot, like me!

There are different opinions around, and statistics are not an absolute source of fact, in fact it's possible to lie with them. They are often based on mistaken premises anyway. There is no absolute right and wrong. You might prefer the same beer made with a shorter boil. In a Brulosophy experiment, a group of tasters were evenly split when tasting two Berliner Weisse beers, one boiled one not, otherwise the same. The fact that there are beers made without a boil, and that beer was originally made without a boil, implies that there is no correct time period for boiling beer. So to make an absolute statement about the need to boil for 60 minutes or more is clearly based on a premise, and a closed, narrow view of what beer is. And it is like a form of control - "you must do things this way, data says so!" It depends what you want your beer to be like. Plus mash conversion time depends on a number of factors, like malt variety and maltster, temperature etc. and is often 30 minutes or less. But Mark isn't going to back down, so I'll let him have his last word and move on. Cheers.