Wondering if other experienced brewers have experienced something similar. Possibly related more to brewers who like me fly/continuous sparge, but hey - open mic brewers. Here's the story.
I fly/continuous sparge and over the past 4 years or so as my brewing processes have improved I've needed to wind up predicted brewhouse efficiency in Beersmith to keep track of actual efficiency results. After making a batch and entering actual volumes and gravities the resulting efficiency would be higher than the set value. Next brew I would wind it up a little only to have the same result. Have left brewhouse efficiency set at 88% for the past 12 months or so as I felt this was heading somewhere that may result in reduced quality, plus I had been noticing some astringency and less maltiness in my beers. Also increasing sacch temp did not seem to help when looking to lower attenuation and or increase body/mouthfeel.
Previously I had thought low PH may have been the cause. Calcium additions to the mash took care of mash PH but if PH was rising toward the end of sparge it could increase the risk of tannin extraction. Have been lowering the PH of my sparge water to reduce this risk but the astringency, lack of body etc has continued.
Naturally as brewhouse efficiency is increased Beersmith winds back the amount of grist required to produce X gravity in X volume of wort. While the batch volume remains the same, less grist equals less water retained, which in turn results in increased sparge volume. The problem with high efficiency is this additional sparge volume.
As an example for a 45 litre batch (Ordinary Bitter 5.61 Kg grist) total brewing water required is 60.5 litres. Strike volume (@2.8L/Kg) of 16 litres leaves a huge sparge volume of 44.5 litres. This is more than 2.78 times the mash volume. I remember reading many years ago that mash/sparge water ratio should be 3:1. Mashing with a third of the pre-boil volume, leaving twice this volume for - two batch sparges. Another point of view was that you should mash with half then sparge using the other half. And John Palmer says that you should sparge with the same amount of water as you mash with. Now this concerns Batch Sparging, how about Fly Sparge? same volumes??
Checking sparge runnings during a recent batch I found runnings were down well below 1.008 with 8 litres left to run through. Stopped sparging, discarded the remaining 8 litres of runnings. Was a tad worried about the result but adding 8 litres of water pre boil met target volume and gravity. The beer was much improved on recent results, no astringency and much improved mouthfeel, roundness, maltiness.
Plan for the future was to again change my process and reduce sparge volume by 8 litres, but this time without discarding the runnings. To achieve this 8 litres of sparge water would be removed from the HLT and transferred to the kettle pre-boil maintaining total volume.
I prepare all of my brewing water the day before brewing, adding the required total volume of filtered water to the HLT. On brewday, after draining strike water to the mash tun, 8 litres would be transferred from HLT to the kettle, reducing sparge volume by 8 litres while maintaining total brewing volume, hypothetically less sparging of the grains should reduce the problem of low gravity runnings and tannin extraction.
Most of what I read years ago re continuous sparging recommended sparging until pre boil volume is achieved. So I thought why prepare more water than required, why not prepare the total volume from Beersmith, drain off strike water then for the sparge just let the remainder run through during runoff. No need to monitor!
I remember reading an article from brewer Juergen Knoeller who advised "be sure you don’t run the grain bed dry. This will start to oxidize the wort, which will lead to tannic flavors in your beer. Always keep about 1/2 inch of liquid above the grain, and be sure when you start sparging that the water is around 176 F (80 Celcius). The hot water helps deactivate the enzymes in the grain that are involved in sugar conversion. It also reduces wort viscosity and increases yield".
So could completely draining the mash tun be the cause of the astringency, maybe I need to try preparing more water than required, keeping the grist covered right through the sparge, monitoring toward the end of sparge, stopping when pre-boil volume is reached in the kettle??
Yesterday I tested the hypothesis again. Worked beautifully, not game to go with the 8 litres straight-up, transferring 6 litres instead. Hit all targets and gravities, final 3 litres of runnings 1.008, no astringency in the wort and a much fuller mouthfeel. Will reserve final judgement until this batch is carbonated and in the glass, but the previous batch is a great improvement, so fingers crossed.
Any other AG brewers experiencing this??? Over to You!
Screwy
I fly/continuous sparge and over the past 4 years or so as my brewing processes have improved I've needed to wind up predicted brewhouse efficiency in Beersmith to keep track of actual efficiency results. After making a batch and entering actual volumes and gravities the resulting efficiency would be higher than the set value. Next brew I would wind it up a little only to have the same result. Have left brewhouse efficiency set at 88% for the past 12 months or so as I felt this was heading somewhere that may result in reduced quality, plus I had been noticing some astringency and less maltiness in my beers. Also increasing sacch temp did not seem to help when looking to lower attenuation and or increase body/mouthfeel.
Previously I had thought low PH may have been the cause. Calcium additions to the mash took care of mash PH but if PH was rising toward the end of sparge it could increase the risk of tannin extraction. Have been lowering the PH of my sparge water to reduce this risk but the astringency, lack of body etc has continued.
Naturally as brewhouse efficiency is increased Beersmith winds back the amount of grist required to produce X gravity in X volume of wort. While the batch volume remains the same, less grist equals less water retained, which in turn results in increased sparge volume. The problem with high efficiency is this additional sparge volume.
As an example for a 45 litre batch (Ordinary Bitter 5.61 Kg grist) total brewing water required is 60.5 litres. Strike volume (@2.8L/Kg) of 16 litres leaves a huge sparge volume of 44.5 litres. This is more than 2.78 times the mash volume. I remember reading many years ago that mash/sparge water ratio should be 3:1. Mashing with a third of the pre-boil volume, leaving twice this volume for - two batch sparges. Another point of view was that you should mash with half then sparge using the other half. And John Palmer says that you should sparge with the same amount of water as you mash with. Now this concerns Batch Sparging, how about Fly Sparge? same volumes??
Checking sparge runnings during a recent batch I found runnings were down well below 1.008 with 8 litres left to run through. Stopped sparging, discarded the remaining 8 litres of runnings. Was a tad worried about the result but adding 8 litres of water pre boil met target volume and gravity. The beer was much improved on recent results, no astringency and much improved mouthfeel, roundness, maltiness.
Plan for the future was to again change my process and reduce sparge volume by 8 litres, but this time without discarding the runnings. To achieve this 8 litres of sparge water would be removed from the HLT and transferred to the kettle pre-boil maintaining total volume.
I prepare all of my brewing water the day before brewing, adding the required total volume of filtered water to the HLT. On brewday, after draining strike water to the mash tun, 8 litres would be transferred from HLT to the kettle, reducing sparge volume by 8 litres while maintaining total brewing volume, hypothetically less sparging of the grains should reduce the problem of low gravity runnings and tannin extraction.
Most of what I read years ago re continuous sparging recommended sparging until pre boil volume is achieved. So I thought why prepare more water than required, why not prepare the total volume from Beersmith, drain off strike water then for the sparge just let the remainder run through during runoff. No need to monitor!
I remember reading an article from brewer Juergen Knoeller who advised "be sure you don’t run the grain bed dry. This will start to oxidize the wort, which will lead to tannic flavors in your beer. Always keep about 1/2 inch of liquid above the grain, and be sure when you start sparging that the water is around 176 F (80 Celcius). The hot water helps deactivate the enzymes in the grain that are involved in sugar conversion. It also reduces wort viscosity and increases yield".
So could completely draining the mash tun be the cause of the astringency, maybe I need to try preparing more water than required, keeping the grist covered right through the sparge, monitoring toward the end of sparge, stopping when pre-boil volume is reached in the kettle??
Yesterday I tested the hypothesis again. Worked beautifully, not game to go with the 8 litres straight-up, transferring 6 litres instead. Hit all targets and gravities, final 3 litres of runnings 1.008, no astringency in the wort and a much fuller mouthfeel. Will reserve final judgement until this batch is carbonated and in the glass, but the previous batch is a great improvement, so fingers crossed.
Any other AG brewers experiencing this??? Over to You!
Screwy
