Litres /grain Ratio

[PhilA]

Hi everyone just wanting a good ratio for pils [jw] grain litres to grain is 2.75l/ 1kg good or less water?
thanks Phil

 

[Zwickel]

Hello Phil,

Im doing a ratio of ~3.5/1, means 3.5l of water to 1kg of malt and almost the same amount of sparge water.

In the literature youll find recommendations about 3 to 3.5l of water to 1kg of grain.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[buttersd70]

2.5-3 is common with ales. For pilsners, zwickels right, 3-3.5. Palmer considers 3L/kg (although he says 1.5qt/lb) to be a good "comprimise" ratio between the two.

Either way, there isn't a set value of right or wrong. The thickness of the mash is one of the factors that determins how dextrinous the wort will be. In a nutshell (and much simplified), the thicker the mash, the more dextrinous, leading to a less fermentable wort, giving beer with more body. The thinner the mash, the more fermentable, leading to a drier beer.

It's probably best to have 2.5 as a minimum, unless you are doing it that thick for a specific reason.

Palmer goes into more detail here

 

[Screwtop]

2.5-3 is common with ales. For pilsners, zwickels right, 3-3.5. Palmer considers 3L/kg (although he says 1.5qt/lb) to be a good "comprimise" ratio between the two.

Either way, there isn't a set value of right or wrong. The thickness of the mash is one of the factors that determins how dextrinous the wort will be. In a nutshell (and much simplified), the thicker the mash, the more dextrinous, leading to a less fermentable wort, giving beer with more body. The thinner the mash, the more fermentable, leading to a drier beer.

It's probably best to have 2.5 as a minimum, unless you are doing it that thick for a specific reason.

Palmer goes into more detail here

Search for more info rather than Palmer alone. As with all things "it depends". Many german breweries prefer to use a thin mash for lighter beer styles, they employ continuous stiring of the mash to assist with enzyme hydrolysis of starch in malt using high water to grist ratios, this is not required in thicker liquor to grist ratios. If you have a built in stirrer in your mash tun and want to make a German style Pils then a thin mash would be of benefit.

Screwy

 

[AndrewQLD]

Search for more info rather than Palmer alone. As with all things "it depends". Many german breweries prefer to use a thin mash for lighter beer styles, they employ continuous stiring of the mash to assist with enzyme hydrolysis of starch in malt using high water to grist ratios, this is not required in thicker liquor to grist ratios. If you have a built in stirrer in your mash tun and want to make a German style Pils then a thin mash would be of benefit.

Screwy

+1

I've had great success with 4-1 and even 4.6-1 ratios. I do extend my mash length to 90 minutes though. Some experimenting I did when BIAB was in it's infancy indicated that a longer mash time was required for full conversion when using a higher than normal (3-1) volume of liqour in the grist.

Andrew

 

[PhilA]

Thank's everyone I will try the suggestion's at the moment my beer has been a bit on the thick side if you know what i mean now this makes sence cheers phil

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I'll second some of what Andrew QLD was saying. There have been a fair few litres of BIAB beer made by now, and BIAB uses very very high L:G ratios, around 6-7L/kg - so while I am not recommending that you go higher than say 4 for a regular style of mash, there is a hell of a lot of leeway in the process and anything from 2:1 all the way up to BIAB levels, is likely to give you decent results. Sure, all other things being the same L:G will affect your fermentability, but IMHO it plays a much less important role than temperature, time, pH and mash schedule.

I batch/no sparge, and more or less keep my L:G ratio at around 3:1 ... but in reality it varies a bit, because I like to keep my process rather than my L:G steady... so except in extreme cases, I dough in with 14L of water (for a 23L post boil volume) and the L:G is just whatever it turns out to be. If I'm doing a particularly high or low gravity beer... I massage it a litre or two either way. I find mashes on the thinner side to be easier to handle physically.

TB

 

[Barramundi]

i use 2.6 litres per kilo as a general rule