Reiterated Mashing

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You don't.

You only collect the first runnings of the first mash, then use this to dough in another mash.

As you said, for BIAB it would work like this (based on a 50L kettle):

Dough in 12.5kg grain until you fill the pot. Mash. Pull out bag.

Stick in another fresh bag of grain. Raise the temp back to mash temp if necessary.

After that is done, you pull out the second bag. Really inefficient way of doing things, but it would be good for producing 1.100+ all malt worts with BIAB.
And if you don't BIAB then you get to make "small beer" with the second runnings ala parti-gyle but you still need two mash tuns :D
 
You only collect the first runnings of the first mash, then use this to dough in another mash.

The impression I got from Chris Colby on BB radio is that the first mash is sparged to rinse all of the sugar and the resulting 2nd and 3rd mash is full volume. Otherwise you would get terrible efficiency from the first mash.

What does the byo article say?
 
The impression I got from Chris Colby on BB radio is that the first mash is sparged to rinse all of the sugar and the resulting 2nd and 3rd mash is full volume. Otherwise you would get terrible efficiency from the first mash.

What does the byo article say?

Maybe I misread the article? I'll have to check it tonight.

I thought you only used the first runnings, as sparging it would dilute it making it harder to reach that high gravity.
 
The impression I got from Chris Colby on BB radio is that the first mash is sparged to rinse all of the sugar and the resulting 2nd and 3rd mash is full volume. Otherwise you would get terrible efficiency from the first mash.

What does the byo article say?

Not quite,

The first mash is fully sparged, but you only add enough wort for normal mash ratios in the second. You then heat up the remaining wort & sparge the second mash with that. Hope I'm making sense?

cheers Ross
 
Not quite,

The first mash is fully sparged, but you only add enough wort for normal mash ratios in the second. You then heat up the remaining wort & sparge the second mash with that. Hope I'm making sense?

cheers Ross

That makes much more sense from a technique point of veiw.

I can see where you would get a mild increase in efficiency from doing a "big" beer in this way. But I cant see where it would be a lot.

Say you put your whole grain bill for 1.100 beer in at once . Just to pluck figures out of my bum, call it 11kg of grain and you collect 27L of wort @ a pre-boil of 1.085. That gives you 27x85=2295 extract points

If you batch sparged, your final runnings would be (roughly) 33% the strength of the first ones. Assuming the batch volumes are equal and you did two drainings of 13.5L that means your second runnings had a gravity of 1.038 (I had to do a little algebra) If you have 1L of deadspace and you lose 1.1L/kg of grain then you lost [email protected]= 498 gravity points.

The higher the grain bill, the more you lose and the less efficient you become.

If you did the reiterated mash thing you gain because you reduce the grain bill at the end -- at the end of the second mash, your pre-boil gravity and volume would be the same, your last runnings gravity would be the same too because while you are using less grain, you added gravity points by using wort as your sparge liquor. It should all even out.

So in this case you would lose points to the first mash - doing all the figures it would be final runnings x grain loss (no deadspace unless you tip it out) 23x5.5= 126 gravity points
and you would lose in the second mash 5.5l to grain + 1L to deadspace at 1.038 so 38x6.5= 247. Total loss over the two mashes would be 247+126=373

So your inherrent losses (which are the ones that increase in a batch sparge when you increase gravity and grain bill) are going to be (498-373)/498 x 100 = 25%ish less severe using the reitterated mash. So if you were dropping from 75% efficiency to 60% efficiency, you would expect to gain back about 25% of the loss and end up at 63.75% efficiency.

So my ballpark number crunching says you will get back roughly 25% of efficiency lost when increasing your grain bill... say your sparge etc work a bit better in a smaller mash and call it 30% But thats only the proportion of the loss, so an actual increase of say 5% in extract efficiency for the brew???

Worth doing?? dunno.

If your mash tun isn't big enough for the whole batch, absolutely, but otherwise??

Not knocking it, not saying it doesn't work or its a waste of time, I'll probably give it a go.. just thinking out loud thats all.

Thirsty
 
Ross if you get a chance listen to the BB show, in it Chris talks about full volume mashing... maybe he has 2 methods :huh:

If I was to give it ago I wouldnt bother sparging. Lately I have been doing a single run off (add all of my brew water after the mash and draining) with no sparge and have only been loosing a few efficiency points.
 
As you said, for BIAB it would work like this (based on a 50L kettle):

Dough in 12.5kg grain until you fill the pot. Mash. Pull out bag.

Stick in another fresh bag of grain. Raise the temp back to mash temp if necessary.

After that is done, you pull out the second bag. Really inefficient way of doing things, but it would be good for producing 1.100+ all malt worts with BIAB.

I was thinking the same. Just like dunking two tea bags in your cup.
 
Ross if you get a chance listen to the BB show, in it Chris talks about full volume mashing... maybe he has 2 methods :huh:

If I was to give it ago I wouldnt bother sparging. Lately I have been doing a single run off (add all of my brew water after the mash and draining) with no sparge and have only been loosing a few efficiency points.

I was only refering to the BYO magazine artical on brewing big beers.
My mash tun isn't big enough to do a single mash out, or I would - a few points lost don't worry me (I've got a cheap grain supply ;) ). The high alcohol brews I do though drop dramitcally in efficiency, so keen to see if this helps - According to the article it will.

cheers Ross
 
Has anyone tried this out yet?

I'm keen to give it a go for a monster barley wine, more to get the high gravity wort then increased efficiency.
 
I was thinking the same. Just like dunking two tea bags in your cup.

Cool, exactly the right analogy.

This would actually be pretty easy to do. I might try a reitterated BIAB barleywine in the new year
 
Has anyone given this a go? I want to brew a massive barleywine sometime in the 12 months as a bit of a commemorative brew for when I finish uni in a couple of weeks. I figure it'll take me a while to get set-up when I move and to replenish stocks, so the brew day might not be for a while.

I figured this might be a good way to try and make a high-gravity beer from all malt. I've generally getting 75% efficiency lately and want to use 100% floor malted ale malt from ross. Can anyone give some advice as to what I should expect efficiency wise? Similar to what I've been getting or a slight drop (how much?)?

Cheers

Dave

Edit: Just started a thread on the beer I want to brew using this method here
 
I tried extended boiling on my last dopplebock & ended up with a lovely beer but with no head.
Thats what happend to my last dopplebock, I boiled for 3 hours and ended up with no head. Next I will just use the first runnings.
 
I tried this method a while back for a wheat wine (batch #100) which never made it to the fermenter so Im giving it another go. The plans is to;

- Mash half as normal and drain into the kettle.
- Add the rest of HLT water as sparge and drain into HLT.
- Empty MLT spent grain and refill with new.
- Mash with previous sparge water.
- Drain into kettle.
- Sparge with any left over 1st mash sparge water.

It work well with the first attempt of Eleanor and I ended up with about a 10% gain in eff compared to how I normally mash large grain bills (>10kg).

100b - Eleanor (Wheat Wine III)
American Barleywine


Type: All Grain
Date: 17/01/2010
Batch Size: 21.00 L
Brewer: Jye
Boil Size: 27.46 L Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min Equipment: SK Brew Hous
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00
Taste Notes: 38.25L of HLT water

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.00 kg Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (1.5 SRM) Grain 80.00 %
2.25 kg Pale Malt, Ale (Barrett Burston) (3.0 SRM) Grain 20.00 %

30.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.40 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
50.00 gm Simcoe [11.90 %] (60 min) Hops 51.1 IBU
50.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.90 %] (20 min) Hops 23.2 IBU
50.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.90 %] (5 min) Hops 7.6 IBU

5.50 gm Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
5.50 gm Calcium Sulfate (Gypsum) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
6.00 gm Calcium Carbonate (Mash 5.0 min) Misc

1 Pkgs Safale American US-56 Yeast-Ale



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.101 SG
Measured Original Gravity: SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.023 SG Measured Final Gravity: SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 10.15 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: %
Bitterness: 81.9 IBU Calories: 1,106 cal/l
Est Color: 6.2 SRM Color: Color


Mash Profile

Mash Name: SK Brew Hous Mash Total Grain Weight: 11.25 kg
Sparge Water: 11.60 L Grain Temperature: 30.0 C
Sparge Temperature: 100.0 C TunTemperature: 30.0 C
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE Mash PH: 5.4 PH

SK Brew Hous Mash Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Mash In Add 28.12 L of water at 72.8 C 65.0 C


... and would anyone care to guess why my wheat wines are now called Eleanor <_<
 
Ended up with an eff of 63.5% (26L @ 1.086 into the kettle) so a little better than expected :)
 
100b - Eleanor (Wheat Wine III)
American Barleywine ...

... and would anyone care to guess why my wheat wines are now called Eleanor <_<

I would wager a 'Gone in 60 Seconds' issue - is it every time you try and make a wheat wine something goes wrong???
 
Yep... and this one may sill be ruined :( found a small burnt patch on the base of the kettle.
 
Bit of a necro..

I/weve been playing with reiterated mashing for a little bit now, Ive done/assisted in 3 now I think.. On the weekend we had a 150l mash tun and a 300l mash tun to get through 300kg of grain, resulting in the order of 350L of 1.140 RIS (or there abouts ??) mind you that was diluted by 100L of tap water to get to volume so the actual OG would have been much higher without the stuck sparge and abandoned grain bed.

Some of the issues faced this time was a stuck sparge or two, not great when you're dealing with that much grain.. anyway, point being, first runnings of the mash (with reiterated wort) couldnt be read on the refractometer, second runnings were 1.100 and third runnings was about 1.070 if I recall correctly.

Mardoo has all the stats, I came in late to the show due to other commitments with bulk buys etc.. Im giving heavy consideration to building a 5th vessel for reiterating with ease, maybe a 40L esky or a 50L rubberised keg. I do seem to be brewing more and more BIG beers.. now I've got all the RIS I need for the next 24 months or more I can get back into IIIPA's etc

:chug:
 
Come on tell us the process. Reading above I sort of lost it with all thirstys numbers. Maybe Idzy needs some input into this.


Mardoo?


dammit no ninja on mobile
 
At this point the line between whisky and beer becomes a little blurry...
 
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