Floating Mashes

[Kai]

Its not supposed to - the whole point is not to make "better" beer. I thought that Scotty's post made that point rather well. There are a whole bunch of different ways to make beer, they all make good beer, but, depending on the mechanics of your particular system, perhaps one or other of the various techniques might give you a smoother/shorter/more consistent/less frustrating/more efficient etc etc brew day.

werd. i too thought this was a discussion about process not product.

 

[Sammus]

So do you start the sparge at the same time as the runoff?

I've noticed with flying they say to wait till the water level is just above the grain - I've never really understood why, but I reckon itd be hard to judge how much clear wort youve got underneath the floater, and your runoff might de-clear a bit if the floating mass of grain hits the false bottom or whatever..

Am I getting a hang of how it works?

 

[warrenlw63]

You're fine... great. I'm fine.... great. But Joe Blow out there might have been having trouble, and now he has one more option that he might have had before this thread came along. Options are good.

Is it one more option or just a reinvention of the wheel? I don't deny it won't work in any way but fail to see what problems it would actually solve? :unsure:

Coarser crush, float your mash and sparge slower to me its really only going to achieve the same end as any other mash. Yep, it would work no doubt at all but ummmm yahoo?! What's new or really all that innovative about it? :lol:

Bit like a diet. So many of them yet in reality they all achieve the same end but maybe in differing time frames and associated risks. Just options.

As I stated on this or maybe even another thread about this great "revelation". Quite willing to try it just to see what it does. Only for the same reasons I've tried a decoction mash. Somebody's done it at some time in the history of brewing and I guess I can see what I am or am not missing out on.

Warren -

 

[Thirsty Boy]

The phrase "re-invent the wheel" is only of any use whatsoever if you are 100% absolutely sure that the wheels you are currently using are perfect and couldn't be improved.

I'm not

 

[GMK]

So do you start the sparge at the same time as the runoff?

I've noticed with flying they say to wait till the water level is just above the grain - I've never really understood why, but I reckon itd be hard to judge how much clear wort youve got underneath the floater, and your runoff might de-clear a bit if the floating mass of grain hits the false bottom or whatever..

Am I getting a hang of how it works?

All my AG Mashes float....I start the fly first and wait until my Rubbermaid is filled almost to the brim.
Then i start the run off and match the water in to water out whilst maintaining the water level.

However, this results usually in a faster runoff than what is suggested here.
So i will slow it down.
My last AG yesterday - the runoff was the slowest i have ever did.
50+ litres took approx 70mins to run through....

Hope this helps.

 

[///]

Back in the thread sorry if it appeared i was taking a pot-shot about the undermodified malt i forward apologies - best way to check is with the spec sheets and will see if there are any available.

We turn on the sparge as soon as we start to run out, this on a big-rig to save sucking down the bed. The grain will continue to float until you turn off the sparge. I had a pic on my old machine where the pump was too slow compared to the water coming in and rose about 30cm up the tun and almost out the door. When you get a perfect floater it is a beast to itself.

But this is process as I think Kai mentioned, but managing this process has improved my beer thru the roof. It has also made things ultimately predictable, and that is also a plus considering other issues like my poor OH&S record (fire, what fire I say PoMo!)

 

[PostModern]

Options are good.

You win the thread!

could you do do a floating mash without any kind of false bottom or manifold, etc?

I've wondered if you could lauter without a manifold. I don't see why not, except maybe you'd end up with the area near the tap running less concentrated than the rest of the tun. It would be fun to try lautering with just a garden hose stuck thru the bed siphoning into the kettle, but I've already got a copper manifold and it works really well in my tun. It also gives peace of mind in case the bed collapses.

(fire, what fire I say PoMo!)

Yeah yeah, you don't see no fire. Um... where did that dent in your laundry roof come from?

 

[Kai]

Back in the thread sorry if it appeared i was taking a pot-shot about the undermodified malt i forward apologies - best way to check is with the spec sheets and will see if there are any available.

i found a couple for weyermann pils and bo pils, couldn't actualy see any major indicator of a difference between them but the spec sheets were a little limited... I was hoping to find a coarse-fine grind extraction difference on them.

if i can remember where I found them i'll post them up. it was a US hbs.

 

[Murray]

Sounds interesting. Might give a floating mash a go on the weekend and see how it goes.

 

[Airgead]

Ok Folks.. so when we say "coarse crush" just how coarse are we talking here? I currently have my crankandstein set to .7mm which gives a very fine crush. Up until recently I had no problems at all with that but after two absolutely stuck solid sparges in a row (though that could have something to do with all the oatmeal I chucked in the stout) I'm willing to give this floating thing a go.

Are we looking to just fracture/squash the kernel but leave the whole thing intact? Or are we looking a bit finer than that? I would guess at around 1.5-2mm gap to just fracture things. Any of you floaters out there know what your mill is set to?

Cheers
Dave

 

[matti]

I am currently setting up a 3 tier brewing and intend to fly sparge and just looked up in my bible of what G. Noonan has to say about floating mashes.

He states that, start of quote "If the malt is well converted and perfectly crushed, if the saccharification rest temperature is reasonable uniform, if the mash float well, if sparging is evenly dispersed, if the lauter mash is raked and the sweet wort is restricted to so that it takes ninety minutes or so to collect, an infusion mash will give as nearly the same extract as a step mash or decoction mash would." end of quote.

A crush to a floating mash require the barley to be split long wise. This will give the them maximum starch area left for conversion and entrain some air, As Pomo suggested in his initial post.
A coarse crush constitutes of at least 75 % grist partly intact and less then 10 % flouring.
This, off course, is open for an argument...

A thick mash is essential for a dextrenious wort as the alpha amalyse would then be kept intact for a longer period.

When you mash out with just adding boiling water, the mash is going to thin out to about 4:1 water to grist ration and depending on when and how you add this depend on what type of beer you after.
If you are after a higher attenuated beer you can thin the mash gradually.

When you desire a higher efficiencies and cleared wort it comes down to the uniformity of the crush and the mash program.

As stated previously in other thread the brew shop tend to crush the grain fairly coarse.
But if you can achieve a floating mash and run off slowly, you probably eke the most out of the grain.